Why Judeo-Christian and not Judeo-Muslim-Christian or Judeo-Zoroastrian-Muslim-Christian?

Down here in rural southeast (or swamp-east) Arkansas, we don’t see many Jews. Jews were among the early settlers of the Delta, but have been declining in numbers for 150 years. You can find synagogues in towns like Helena, but most no longer hold services since it a minimum of 10 Jews is needed for components of the Shabbat service.

The average resident has little knowledge of Jewish religion. The first time Jews came up in a conversation here was when I was asked: ”Are all Jews atheists?” This otherwise well-educated accountant had met a few Jews in her small town of Clarendon. And they were all atheists.

She would have been puzzled to hear to use of the term “Judeo-Christian.” Since being Christian to her meant being a believer and being Jewish did not. But even those of us who know more observant Jews should looks askance at the term. Since the Christian Bible includes all the texts in the Jewish scripture, “Judeo-Christian” is at best redundant.

Given some texts in the New Testament, Jews are definitely not to be included as following the same path as Christians. 

Thessalonian 4:14. For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last

Matthew 27:24-25. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

Can’t be much clearer than that. Christianity has washed its hands of the Jewish predilection for adherence to a set of medieval rules for diet and conduct as a way of pleasing God.

You might say: but both religions worship the same God. Similarly, Muslims workshop the same God of Abraham worshipped by Jews. So why purposely exclude Muslims? Why not Judeo-Muslim-Christianity? Maybe because the inclusion of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the Christian triune God make it a little different from the Jewish and Moslems.

Besides, their were other monotheistic religions before Judaism. The Zoroastrians worshipped one God and thought so much of Jesus that their Wise Men, the Magi, were his first foreign visitors. So why not Judeo=Muslim-Zoroastrianist-Christian?

I think I’ll just stick with Christian and drop that Judeo-Christian hokum.

A prophecy for Kyiv amid the decline of America.

It’s cold in the house.  I let the fire die down too far and need to build it up. But before I do that I must address the fire which has almost died out in America. Led many to give up on America. I am going to go Old Testament on you.  And, please, remember the Psalm: “Do no harm to my prophets.”

A prediction hides its admonitions. A prophesy’s admonitions stare you in the face. When I predicted last year that the present de facto borders of Russia and Ukraine will remain so for the near future, I also included some admonitions to the government in Kyiv and NATO.  Kyiv should accept negotiations which accept these borders, much as South Korea accepted their present borders in the 1953, but never ended their state of war against the Northern aggression.

If I had been a little more alert, I would have been very happy at that 1953 conclusion; It brought my father home.  So, the Ukrainian and American people should be happy at this conclusion which keeps more of my Ukrainian friends’ children and brothers from being killed.

Included in last years’ more-admonition-than-prediction was that NATO should expand to include Ukraine.  Then Polish and German and American and Latvian pilots and trainers should be installed in bases right on the Russian border.  Ukraine’s young men should not bear the sole burden of defending Europe from Russian aggression.  This need not be a public agreement, but probably should be. given the history of Western promises made to Ukraine, such as: give up your nuclear weapons and we will defend you.

In 2010, I spent many happy months in Eastern Ukraine at a University now totally under control of the Russians. I hate what has happened to the people and towns of eastern Ukraine.  But all of us must recognize that Eastern Ukraine did chafe under pressure from Kyiv to be more Ukrainian and less Russian.  Russian was the lingua franca of all the Eastern Oblasts.  Professors at my University in Melitopol did not want to be forced to teach and publish in Ukrainian.  Many families spoke only Russian in their homes.  They were as Russian as those living a few miles across the border.

In fact, that border was only established in 1954. Before that Crimea was part of Russia and had been since the Ottomans were driven out around the time of the American Revolution.  All Ukraine East of the Dnieper River had been mostly Russian territory since the Poles and Lithuanians were driven out in 1686.  Russians have been acting like Russians in Eastern Ukraine since before the Caddo Indians were driven from my part of Arkansas by the Osage.

Therefore, the last admonition is that Ukrainian should accept a territory which is more Russian than Ukrainian in the Eastern Oblasts. This doesn’t not mean giving up any more ground to reform the previous Oblast borders.  Just keep the borders as they are now, with some refinements such as the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia.

In sum, the prediction/prophesy/admonition has three main parts:

• Ceasefire along the present battle lines;
• Ukraine west of the lines becomes a part of NATO, including brining in planes and troops from Europe and the US, though mainly Poland, Lithuania and Germany;
• Ukraine and NATO recognizes the Russian-ness of far Eastern Ukraine, including the Crimea and recognizes an independent state.

I wish I had a long Solzhenitsyn beard and could bellow like Jeremiah and Isaiah, then maybe I would have the standing to push this prophecy on Kyiv, Moscow and the nations. Because the prophecy does include a fourth component which is all important: the West must admit that Russia is right about the decadence of the West.  First undermining Ukrainian democracy with the color revolution, then using Ukrainian boys to fight a proxy war in Ukraine is just one of many signs of the West’s declining adherence to traditional Christian values.  Doing so with borrowed money is a further sign of American decline. 

Here in early 2024, there is some hope that a devout Christian Speaker will enable at least part of this prophecy by withholding money for Ukraine until the border is straightened out. But that’s another topic for another late-night screed.   Right now, I need to put another log on the fire.