Posted on 11/20/2006 5:21:01 PM PST by Spacewalker
My great-great-great-grandfather was named Moses. My cousins have names like Sarah, Deborah, Jeremy, Judith, Esther, Raphael, and Samuel....
Yet I do not (as far as I know) have a single drop of Jewish blood in my veins. Neither did I, nor any member of my family, convert to Judaism. But philo-Semitism, which often includes an emotional identification with the Jewish people, is part of the heritage of the community I was raised in: The French Huguenots, or Protestants....
But perhaps the most moving example of Protestant efforts on behalf of French Jewry occurred in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small, all-Protestant town in southern France. There, the whole community gave haven to more than three thousand Jews, mostly children, during the war. When a family volunteered to hide a child, Pastor André Trocmé would say, “I will bring you tomorrow the Old Testament that you have asked for.” Nazi patrols came in search of the Jews repeatedly, but all were safely hidden. Everybody knew, but no one ever spoke....
We are not many. But we French Huguenots-or, at least, those of us who know our own history-are linked with the Jewish people by too many bonds of culture, history, and religious beliefs to betray that old alliance. The world is now experiencing a new wave of Jew hatred, with many Muslims hoping openly for a new Holocaust and most Europeans all too willing to let one happen. The most tenacious, vilest, and oldest of hatreds is reaching a new high. In such dark and troubled times, may the God of Israel give us the strength to proclaim our everlasting gratitude to the Jews. May he give us the grace, which we do not deserve, of sharing their torments today and their victory tomorrow.
(Excerpt) Read more at azure.org.il ...
Read the essay... It's outstanding!
Thanks for posting.
WORTH THE READ!
Well written.
Excellent!
Excellent essay.
As with the Jews after the diaspora, Huguenots are a remnant of a faith that has nearly died.
Calvin is simply the most important voice of Protestantism. His words are all but lost to a culture more concerned with the blessings of wealth and comfort than salvation from endless damnation.
The problem with western civilization lies not in its secularism but in the cheap grace taught by others saved on the cheap.
We do not stand with the oppressed. We stand with the successful. For this we earn the eternal curse of Calvin, that we are unrepentant sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Thank you for this Interesting Read!
My favorite children's book!
bump
Thanks for the article, but no, there are not enough. The Jews go first, then the Christians. It's a message repeated in mosques every day in dozens of countries.
Excellent !
MA ping :-)
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Calvinists have had a long history of friendship towards Jews. The Calvinist Netherlands took in many Sephardic Jewish refugees, and the first Jewish settlement in America was in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now New York. During the English Civil War, the Anglican Cavaliers accused their Puritan Roundhead opponents of knowing the geography of the Holy land better than that of Britain. When Cromwell became Lord Protector after the Puritan victory, he permitted Jews to return England, from where they had expelled over three centuries earlier. Both Britain and many American colonies granted Jews full civil rights before Catholics received them. New York City had an operating synagogue for over a century before there was an open Catholic church. Dutch and German Reformed believers and English, Scottish, and American Presbyterians and Puritans gave their children Old Testament names.
Where Hunt and Lindsay err is in their projection of the "blood libel" against the Jews characteristic of some elements of Catholicism (nowadays confined to the anti-Vatican II traditionalists) or Luther's anti-Semitic rantings onto covenant theology. As the article attached to this thread explains, Calvin's emphasis on total depravity and the sovereignty of God took away the medieval emphasis on scapegoating the Jews for the death of Christ. Covenantal theology actually creates a greater understanding of the role of Christians as a people set apart from the world, as the Jews were. The writings of the Puritans, Presbyterians, and the Huguenots provide ample evidence of the self-identification with the Jews.
I think this article makes the difference between Lutherian and Calvinist theology very well...
I will say I am very partial to the Calvinists: they saved the life of my beloved uncle by taking him from the south of France to Switzerland during WWII. When it was time to be counted, they were! While the majority of French people were joining Pétain and the Nasis, the Huguenots didn't...
Ping!
I didn't thoroughly read the whole thing...but it sounded like he was saying John Calvin believed modern day Jews will be saved due to the pre-Christ covenant with Abraham--without faith in Christ.
I have never heard Calvin taught anything like this....which is in essence 2 ways of salvation.
Clearly covenant theology builds a greater link with the Old Testament than any other Christian theology, however, like the New Testament, and other orthodox theologies, proclaims after Messiah came, for all people, Jew and gentile alike, faith in Christ alone saves.
Well not according to Calvin and predestination...
Unlike the author of in this piece, please cite me where Calvin describes "predestination" instead of Christ as our Savior?
Every orthodox Christian believes in some form of predesination...either based on foreknowlege (Arminian) or election (Ephesians 1, Luther, and, yes Calvin).
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