Christian And Jewish Messianists in the American 21st Century

Christian messianists expected Jesus and Jewish messiants expected OUR messiah. A NY Times article reports that there have been other periods in history where events generated hopes that the messianic era was about to appear. In Jesus' time that made sense. Today it makes no sense and that is why THE MAJORITY of Jews and Christians no longer expect OR WANT the messiah or Christ to come.

There is wide disparity between what people say and what they really feel. It is not an innocent disparity. It is outright hypocrisy!

Let's look at why people ever wanted a messiah in the first place. Christianity developed a fantastic idea that no matter what people do, they cannot succeed in achieving what God wants; ultimately the history of the human race is a story of failure. That's just what the Bible says in so many ways. The only aspect of the Bible that does not address failure is what the prophets have to say and that is why Christians give more importance to the books of the prophets than to any other part of the Bible. Because the prophets say that one day in the future, ALWAYS in the future, the human race will succeed BUT ONLY BECAUSE GOD WILL SEND A JEWISH SUPERMAN TO LEAD THE FIGHT AGAINST FAILURE. Then Satan becomes just another word for human failure. What is Jesus supposed to do? Defeat Satan. When? Whenever. Why do people hate Satan? Because Satan typifies our failure to live up to God's expectations. God expected man to keep his stinking hands off the fobidden fruit in Eden. Guess what? Along comes the Other Guy and says - just eat it - you will then have freedom - and freedom, folks, as Kris Kristoffison pointed out, is just another word for nothing left to lose.

During the time of Jesus, during the dark ages, in the premodern world and in the current day premodern world, it makes sense to expect and long for a messiah and a messianic world. Today it does not. Our modern world has experienced so much success in various ways that religious failure is no longer very much a concern for mature people. After all, a good Catholic can always go to a priest and make good, and a good Jew can always go to SHUL on YOM KIPPUR and make good. God knows, *I* did it this past week.

The United States in the 21st century - Jews have never had it so good. NEVER!
We are safe and very successful. We contribute greatly to the culture and wealth of our country, - in fact, all out of proportion to our numbers. If we aborted every Jewish baby, the country would dumb down and fail as Spain failed when it kicked out its brains in 1492.

YET! YET! Look at any Jewish prayer book and look at the liturgy. Over and over again, the same themes - namely, 'the goyyim are killing us, we are in exile, oh Lord, remove us from this exile and bring us back to Jerusalem'. Jews are so comfortable here that who the hell wants to be taken out of here? Bring us to Jerusalem? We no longer need the messiah or God to do that. We just need a phone and a credit card to call El AL and get on the next plane out.

I looked at the words in the book when I was in SHUL last Tuesday and shook my head. I said the words but only because the saying of them gave me some emotional sense of the history that produced them, - NOT because I want a messiah to come and save me.

NonOrthodox Jews have striken most of those words from their prayer book because socially and in every other way, nonOrthodox Jews now interact strongly with nonJews, in friendship and even in marriage - which nowadays to most people is no big deal - especially since the theory of the "melting pot" encourages it.

I can't speak much for Protestants but in large urban areas where Catholics and Jews live close together - intermarriage is not only on the rise but completely flies in the face of what both religions teach - namely that they are the true religion and that their followers should not be unevenly yolked.
 
Well what about evangelical Christians? In times past, they have suffered the same kind of persecution as the Jews suffered, persecution by the more powerful religous groups, namely the Catholic Church and the Church of England. But now, in this century - in this country - Protestants are not being persecuted - except in their own minds. And yet they also say that they long for the End - in fact, a whole series of books - also made into movies - is all the rage. They say they don't want to be left behind. This is crap. Jerry Fallwell, Swaggart, Graham, people like that are doing exceedingly well in America. What the hell do they need to be saved from?

Jews followed Jesus and made him a messiah because he promised them imminent success - an end to human failure. He taught them to act as though they were already succeeding by acting out of character to how human beings act with each other so that they would be worthy of success. All other messiahs have basically taught the same thing. But Ortodox Jews and Evangelical Christians don't act that way today. True believers CLAIM they want messianic success but they don't act that way. They continue to enjoy living in America and being successful in America so why do they have to act messianicly successful? Yeah. Let everyone sell what he owns and give to the poor. A pig's eye! Jews love it here. Christians love it here. Who the hell needs a Rapture and a messianic age?

I like my life. I don't want any damn messiah to come here and order me about like the king that he will be. I am happy with democracy. The Christ and the messiah are the ANTITHESIS of democracy. They will shut stuff down that give me joy. They will be more successful at getting Howard Stern and Tony and Shlomoh off the air than the FCC ever could be . They will be autocrats and dictators. When the Christ and the messiah come here, shut off your brains. They will do the thnking for you and they will tell you what to do, even how to put on your shoes and wipe your ass. Ask any Orthodox Jew about THAT!

You Christians are lucky. You don't have to worry about details like that but also your messianic age will be even more boring than ours - if such a thing is possible. Nah. Give me Satan any day. He's more interesting and more daring and more heroic than Christ or messiah.

Even 9/11 doesn't inspire me to pray for the messiah. It inspires me to pray for a super bomb that will blow a big hole in the Muslim world.

We lost New Orleans but Muslims lost big chunks of their land and population. THEY should pray for the Mahdi - they need him more than we do.

Floods and earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, devastation! Bring it on! I STILL would rather live here in America with my family and friends who make me laugh than in heaven with some unintersting saints and a boring Deity who won't let me listen to Howard Stern.