Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Sometimes an infestation of parasites is so thorough and
overwhelming that the host doesn't even get to keep its
original name. In Part 1 of today's episode, we
explore the recent creation and destructive history of the word
Judeo-christian. You're tuned into Presbyter Chat
(00:21):
where your questions are answered through the prism of
pre Nicene Christianity and the first Christian Bible of 144AD,
now your host presbyter Darren Kalama.
Given how many famous people, institutions, presidents,
religious leaders, social icons and celebrities have invoked the
name judeo-christian, you'd think it's been around for
(00:44):
thousands of years. Millennia, at least since the
time of Jesus. It has such weight bearing power
and gravitas. Such a rapturous name surely
must be the cornerstone of a great and historic spiritual
awakening. Yeah, No, not really.
(01:04):
In terms of religious significance, it's somewhere in
the same zip code with Kwanzaa, and not much older than that.
The etymology of the word and its earliest known use was in
the 19th century, where it firstappears in a letter from
Alexander McCall. Don't worry, nobody else knows
who he is. Either.
The term in this case referred to alleged Jewish converts to
(01:29):
Christianity or conversos. Also around this time, the word
Judeo was being slapped around on just about everything.
Names like Judeo German, Judeo Italian, Judeo French were
commonly used to describe various things related to Jews.
It was part of a growing movement to make Jews appear to
(01:53):
be less alien to mainstream theminto society and language was
one way to do that. And such became the case also
with the name judeo-christian. Now it's interesting to note
that the same people selling this new name are also big on
talking about the, OR what they call the Abrahamic faith in
(02:14):
which Islam is also a part of. Yet the word isn't
Judeo-christian Islamic or Christian Judeo Islamic.
And it's especially not Islamic Christian Judeo.
The name says, hey, we're part of a team, and you other people,
you Islamists or Hindus, you might be OK, but we're running
(02:38):
the God show around here. You see, the Jews like having
their name first, you know, top billing.
Despite being such a tiny, insignificant fragment of the
world's total population, 1 is reminded of the Midget perched
on top of a giant in the Mad MaxThunderdome movie.
(02:59):
So the name excludes other religions while at the same time
allowing Jews to dominate the headline in a story that's
really about parasites and hosts.
Some people were also using it to describe a type of
Christianity that rejected the teachings and writings of the
Apostle Paul. They like the word
Judeo-christian because in theirmind it helped blend the Judaism
(03:24):
and Christianity together while at the same time signaling their
opposition to Paul, who they felt was unfriendly to the Jews.
Now, a few years after Mccall's letter, a strange historical
figure got a hold of the word. His name was Joseph Wolf, and in
1829 he began marketing the wordas a tool for Messianic Jews and
(03:49):
Adventists to use. These churches would maintain
many Jewish and Ibianite traditions while again excluding
many of Paul's epistles. Essentially a lot more Yeshua
and a lot less Jesus. Now like the Ibianites and other
Judaizers before them, they relied heavily on the Gospel of
(04:11):
Matthew with its opening paragraphs that read like a
guest list from a Bar Mitzvah. Now for an example of what I'm
talking about, look at any of the evangelical preachers of
today wearing their Hebrew prayer shawls as they endlessly
talk about Yeshua and Yahweh while barely ever mentioning the
(04:32):
name Jesus Christ on their made for TV masses.
John Hagee, Franklin, Graham, Falwell.
These guys are the vision that Joseph Wolf was trying to
achieve back in 1829. But let's not get too far ahead
of ourselves, because Wolf turnsout to be actually pretty
(04:53):
interesting. In fact, you might agree that
he's the personification of the poster boy for the marketing
slogan Judeo-christian and all that it represents.
Now, naturally, kicking over thewoodpile and clicking on early
life sets the tone for our little journey here.
Wolf was born to Jewish parents.His father David was a rabbi in
(05:17):
Germany. According to his bio, he
developed a great interest in Jesus Christ.
This was as a child and at age 11 he left home and he spent the
next six years traveling Europe and meeting with teachers and
theologians to learn more. Now his bio goes on to claim he
(05:37):
became a Roman Catholic in 1812 and he took on the name Joseph.
Whatever his original given Jewish name was is not
mentioned. Now, by the way, I'm going to
include some slow roll video of his bio so you can kind of
follow along and make your own decisions.
Four years later, he moved to Rome and began studying to be a
(05:58):
missionary at the Jesuit run Collegio Romano.
He was there for a couple of years before being physically
expelled by the gendarmes for disrupting the school and
questioning the doctrine of infallibility.
He left Italy and decided to become a member of the Church of
England after meeting a couple prominent Adventists who took
(06:21):
him in. From there he went on to train
as a missionary at Cambridge University at the expense of the
London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.
That was the name of it now since renamed.
Its main goal was encouraging the Hebrew Christian slash
(06:42):
Messianic Jewish movement and their main goal was injecting
and mixing Judaism into Christianity.
Wolf also embraced the MilleriteAdventist belief, which was
popular at the time that the world was ending in 1844.
Long story short, he then decided his life's goal was
(07:03):
finding out what happened to thelost tribes of Israel and he
traveled around Africa preachingthat the world would be ending
in 1844. He wrote a book about his
travels, married into a prominent family in England, and
managed to mainstream that name Judaic Christian in a few of the
right circles of Messianic Jews on both sides of the Atlantic.
(07:27):
Now the TLDR version of all thisis man shape shifts from Judaism
to Catholicism to the Church of England, changes his name and
spends his entire life subverting Christianity as a
Messianic Jew. All the while screaming about
the world coming to an end basedon Daniel prophecies in the
(07:47):
Hebrew Bible. What you know today as the Old
Testament. This my friends, is the epitome
of the name judeo-christian and wolf is its shape shifting
poster boy. Now, unfortunately, because of
his writings, contacts and travels, the name
judeo-christian didn't die with him in 1862.
(08:09):
It rested. It lay under the woodpile,
hibernating for about 100 years until a new use for it was
found. In short, what was about to
happen was that the Messianic Jews were going to shapeshift
into a new form, a new skin. This new word would allow them
to move among the Christians without sticking out like a sore
(08:32):
thumb. Now let's do a thought
experiment. Someone walks up to you and
announces, Hey, hi, I'm a Messianic Jew.
Think about what your reaction to that is.
Now another person walks up and says our shared judeo-christian
beliefs. See how that works?
How much more smoother and less jarring that is.
(08:56):
The toxic theological poison is just as fatal.
But now it has a sweet flavor inthe label on the vial has pretty
colors on it. Fast forward to the late 1920s
to 1930s in America. Although some subversive ideas
and elements like the Scofield Bible and Marxism had chipped
(09:18):
away a little at the armor of Christianity, it was still very
much a Christian country. Jews had their religion and
Christians had theirs. Everybody knew where they stood,
and the Christians, specificallythe Catholics, were enjoying a
golden age of power and influence in the sense that from
a moral perspective, the ship called America was sailing
(09:41):
upright and very stable. But war was brewing on the
horizon in Europe, and Americanswere very much against getting
involved in yet another Europeanwar.
And the man who was their voice,their champion, was a priest
named Father Charles Coughlin. And he wasn't just any voice.
(10:02):
Every week, 30 million Americanswould hang on his every word,
listening to his radio programs.These were numbers that would
make Rush Limbaugh look like a disc jockey at a Community
College radio station in rural Indiana.
I mean, Coughlin packed in huge stadiums from end to end.
Quite dear friends, among other things on the National.
(10:26):
Union for Social Justice. We are Christian so far as we
believe in Christ. Principle of love, your neighbor
as yourself. And with that principle, I
challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does
not believe in it. Fuel me of communizing all the
(11:01):
factories and the fields and theforests and the mines under a
new kind of God made of flesh and blood and clay and hatred.
When men become self rightful that they believe that destiny
(11:25):
is still rewrite the eternal of God, it's time for their fellow
citizens to rise up in the wrap and the agency.
All ballots are not bullets to relegate them to the pages of
the past. Everybody listened to Father
(11:56):
Coughlin and Father Coughlin was100% dead set against the war
and he hated Marxist. Frankly, everybody did.
People had learned that they hadmurdered millions and millions
of Christian Russians while theyoperated under the banner or the
mask of Bolshevism. These were not popular people.
(12:18):
Jews, however, were very much infavor of getting involved in the
war and stopping a newly powerful Germany.
You see, their friends on the other side of the Atlantic were
sounding the alarm bells, begging for help, and they were
leaving Germany and Mass. Anybody with Marxist ideas and
leanings were not welcome in Germany, and that meant Jewish
(12:40):
institutions with Marxist leanings like the Frankfurt
School were told to hit the road.
And they did, packing their bagsand landing in the friendly
confines of New York City, wherethey set up shop at Columbia
University in 1935. As a result, now all the big
brains of Judaism and Marxism were all together, and together
(13:05):
they took a fresh look. It would appeared to be an
insurmountable problem. Simply put, they needed a way to
turn the ship around. And America was a very, very
large ship. They began trying to sway
popular opinion through media and books.
But how do you bridge the divergent interests and beliefs
(13:25):
of Catholics and Jews and then add the complicating factor of
another World War on top of it, widening the gap further?
This was a very tricky problem indeed, to say nothing of Father
Coughlin and his 30 million antiwar listeners.
Did I mention that even the world renowned industrialist
(13:46):
Henry Ford was against them and Charles Lindbergh?
And just like Joseph Wolf 100 years ago, these Marxists needed
to do some shape shifting of their own.
Instead of being enemies with the Christians and Catholics in
America, they needed them now asfriends.
Friends to fight against their larger, more formidable enemy in
(14:09):
the form of a new, resurgent Germany.
Wait, do you hear that? That rustling sound near the
woodpile? Something is emerging.
Ah, it's our old friend judeo-christian.
What's he doing here? That's right, judeo-christian
(14:31):
was born again and began to be used to signify something called
the common religious inheritanceof the West by left wing authors
in the 1930s. And when I say used, I mean they
plastered it everywhere. They were determined to create
that Judeo-christian connection in the collective mind of
(14:54):
America. America must be taught to
associate judeo-christian with anti fascism.
They had to associate anything good with that new name.
Of course anyone opposed to judeo-christian was a Nazi lover
and enemy of America itself is how the narrative was framed and
(15:15):
propagandized. And that name was their best way
to do it. But to call it a manufactured
implied tautology is a massive understatement.
The name actually doesn't make any logical sense at all.
But when there's a goal, facts don't matter and their goal was
getting America into the war. Long story short, Congressman
(15:38):
created and changed laws that drove Father Coughlin off the
air and then the Japanese bombedPearl Harbor.
That was the end of the anti waropposition.
And as you can imagine, there was much celebration and dancing
at the Frankfurt School in New York City that day as the ships
in Pearl Harbor smouldered and burned.
(16:00):
America was finally in their warand lots and lots of Christians
were going to die. Now before we sign off, I think
it's important to point out thatthe pre Nicene Christians, like
the Mercianites, don't really have a dog in this fight.
Their faith is based on the veryfirst Christian Bible of 144AD,
(16:21):
and that Bible did not and to this day does not contain the
Old Testament. Their belief is that Jews
worship a deity that is alien toChristianity and that God was
only revealed through Jesus. That to know God one must know
and accept Jesus. There is no other way.
Now, beyond the deceptive marketing and slick propaganda
(16:45):
of the judeo-christian sales force, there are very real
consequences at play here. Would you like a judeo-christian
priest to give you last rites? I mean, what's next?
Finding a cute way to combine the words priest and rabbi?
Moreover, the present day Mercianite Church believes that
(17:05):
Messian Jews in names like judeo-christian are simply
movements and constructs designed with the sole purpose
of subverting, confusing, toxifying, and destroying true
Christianity. It's a goal that they've been
working to achieve since the dayof Christ's resurrection.
But don't take my word for it. Let history be your guide.
(17:28):
Now we're reminded that the apostles had a brief success in
shutting down the Judaizers at the Council of Jerusalem in 48
AD, but it was short lived. Interestingly, you'll find Jews
unwittingly in total agreement with the Marsi unites, as we
read in Jacob Newsner's book Jews and Christians, The Myth of
a Common Tradition, in which he writes the two faiths stand for
(17:53):
different people talking about different things to different
people. But I think it's best summed up
by Rabbi Elizer Berkovitz, who writes that Judaism is Judaism
because it rejects Christianity and Christianity is Christianity
because it rejects Judaism. And we couldn't agree more.
(18:13):
Now, because of today's prolonged foray into unpleasant
subject matter, I thought it would be a good idea to close
out today's show with a short prayer of a cleansing prayer, if
you will. It's the original Lord's Prayer
is found in the first Bible of 144 AD, and you'll find it on
page 28 of the paperback or hardcover version.
(18:37):
And it's also on page 346 if you're following with the Kindle
ebook. Father, let your Holy Spirit
come upon us. Hallowed be your name, your
Kingdom come, your will be done.As in heaven, so on earth, give
us day by day our bread for the coming day, and forgive us our
(18:57):
sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us,
and lead us not into temptation.Amen.
In the upcoming segment in Part 2, we're going to explore how
this name Judeo-christian becamea powerhouse in shaping events
from the 1950s until today, and how it created a new breed of
(19:19):
evangelical TV preacher and politicians and ultimately led
to the destruction of Western Christianity, the evidence of
which is all around you. May our Father's Holy Spirit
find and guide you in these confusing times and lift the
veil from your hearts and minds.I'm Darren Kalam and we'll see
you next time on Presbyter Chat.Tune into Pre Nicene Radio for
(19:43):
the best episodes of Presbyter Chat and Pre Nicene Perspective.
Visit massunitechurch.org and click on the stream.
That's MARCIONIT echurch.org.