Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22): Saving Grace in Judaism and Messianic Hope in ChristianityGrowing up in an ethnic suburb in Cleveland, Aaron Milavec was an impressionable adolescent whose religious and cultural influences made it natural for him to pity, blame, and despise Jews. All of that began to change in 1955 when Mr. Martin, a Jewish merchant, hired Milavec as a stock boy. Milavec's initial anxieties over working for a Jew surprisingly gave way to profound personal admiration. This, in turn, plunged Milavec into a troubling theological dilemma: How could God consign Mr. Martin to eternal hellfire due to his ancestral role in the death of Jesus when it was clear that Mr. Martin would not harm me, a Christian, even in small ways? This book is not for the faint-hearted. Most Christians imagine that the poison of anti-Judaism has been largely eliminated. In contrast, Milavec reveals how this poison has gone underground--disfiguring not only the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation but also horribly twisting the faith, the forgiveness, and the salvation that Christians find through Jesus Christ. This painful realization serves as the necessary first step for our healing. At each step of the way, Milavec's sure hand builds bridges of mutual understanding that enable both Christians and Jews to cross the chasm of distrust and distortion that has infected both church and synagogue over the centuries. In the end, Milavec securely brings his readers to that place where Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can again be admired as sister religions intimately united to one other in God's drama of salvation. |
From inside the book
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... Church as Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council . New York : Pueblo Pub- lishing Co. , 1976 . We Remember Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews , We Remember : A Reflection on the Shoah , January 25 ...
... church had " come clean " and had identified the tragic poison of anti- Judaism at the heart of my Catholic ... churches , for the most part , had been healed of the poison of anti- Judaism . The explorations narrated in this book ...
... Church , by reason of her very close bonds of spiritual kinship with the Jewish people " ( We Remember 1 ) . Finally , in 2002 , by virtue of " Reflections on Covenant and Mission , " Catholics were asked to consider whether Judaism ...
... church broke its ties with Judaism . How to challenge and replace superficial myths regarding the origins of the church . How the Christian Scriptures retain a firm attachment to the priority of Israel in God's plan . • Why Jews object ...
... Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus ( San Francisco : HarperSanFrancisco , 2006 ) 224-25 . To better understand why Chris- tians and Jews find it difficult to openly discuss the policies of the State of Israel in the United ...
Contents
1 | |
23 | |
The Story of Salvation | 57 |
Parting of the Ways | 84 |
Jesus as Messiah | 116 |
The Unsavory Odor of Christian Evangelization | 152 |
Reflections on Covenant and Mission | 173 |
Bibliography | 183 |
Index | 196 |