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January 16, 2007
An Ecumencial Minimum Wage
The Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and a number of Jewish groups recently sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.
First the church abandons its divestment policy and now a joint letter that includes a number of "Jewish groups." The toxic fumes from today's derailment may not have wafted all the way up to Witherspoon Street, but another crazy idea for engagement with Judaism... Substantive theological exchange?
Posted by Seth Zirkle at January 16, 2007 07:44 PM
First of all, is it insulting to suggest that Jews who are oppoed to divestment are "good Jews" and that Christians and others who support are anti-Semitic; quite to the contrary. Show me in the Torah where it says it is okay to destroy your neighbor's home, steal your neighbor's land, and humiliate people at checkpoints on a daily basis. Nothing could be more anti-Semitic than implying that Israel's "self-defense" represents what Judaism is about. The philo-Semites are those Christians, Jews, and Muslims who engage in self-criticism of Israel, self-criticism being one of the primary virtues of Judaism,
Many Christian supporters of Israel seem to think there is something glamorous and heroic in Israel's never-ending armed struggle against the Palestinians and Muslims, including those within Israel's borders. Tell me, what did the Maccabees accomplish other than a Jewish civil war? What did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising accomplish other than the deaths of everyone, when there would numerous survivors if there hadn't been an uprising? Jews and Judaism have survived because they have fought with their heads, not with the gut instincts that Israel's backers glorify, with no regard for future consequences for everyone concerned.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 16, 2007 09:52 PM | permalink
If one's implying that raising the minimum wage is also somehow anti-Semitic or self-hating (why the quotes around "Jewish"?")--well, again, Christian Zionists just don't get it.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 16, 2007 10:06 PM | permalink
The impetus of my post was not to intimate the differences between "good Jews" and "bad Jews" vis a vis raising the minimum wage or divestment practices. Rather, it was to highlight the political nature, versus the theological, of the PCUSA's "dialog" with other church bodies and faiths. I'm sorry that this point was lost on your reading. The quotes around "Jewish groups" are not scare quotes; if you look to the document released by the PCUSA, the church identifies the Jewish signatories of the statement as "Jewish groups."
And, please, if you are going to refrain from giving your name on a comment, please refrain from giving me the one of "Christian Zionist[]."
Posted by: Seth at January 16, 2007 10:29 PM | permalink
The LCMS church is one of the few churchs that
actually has a Jewish ministry.
It is probably politically incorrect to speak of converting Jews though.
http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=4295
Posted by: Dave S. at January 20, 2007 11:20 AM | permalink
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