Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Quotable #2
From Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, a chapter called "Would Jesus Be a Christian?":
The more one respects Jesus, the more one must be brokenhearted, embarrassed, furious, or some combination thereof when one considers what we Christians have done with Jesus. That's certainly true when it comes to calling Jesus Lord, something we Christians do a lot, often without the foggiest idea of what we mean. Has he become (I shudder to ask this) less our Lord and more our Mascot?

The orthodox Jews have taken the second commandment so literally as to replace the Divine Name (capital L-O-R-D in our English Bibles) and replace it with Ha'shem, that is, The Name. They won't even say His name in private or public worship.

Stephen Prothero has written about our fantacil craze with Jesus in his book American Jesus. Haven't read it just yet. But I just imagine what might happen if we were to grasp even half an inkling of the Jewish reverence for the name of God--of Jesus, the divine made flesh.

posted by Peter at 9:30 AM
| | permalink |