Legacies of the Cross and the Lynching Tree

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The lynching tree is a metaphor for white America’s crucifixion of black people. It is the window that best reveals the religious meaning of the cross in our land. In this sense, black people are Christ-figures, not because they wanted to suffer but because they had no choice. Just as Jesus had no choice in his journey to Calvary, so black people had no choice about being lynched. The evil forces of the Roman State and white supremacy in America willed it. Yet, God took the evil of the cross and the lynching tree and transformed them both into the triumphant beauty of the divine. If America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white supremacy with repentance and reparation there is hope “beyond tragedy.”

27.4 Fall

God Sucks as a Campaign Manager

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Like Robertson’s Coalition crusaders, we need to make it clear that when the election is over, no matter the outcome, we are not going away; that when we make a call to action, that the call is answered.

27.4 Fall

Politics and the Limits of Religious Optimism

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The manner in which the current political discourse in the United States is marred by shortsighted discussions of the “good” and the nature of morality capable of pushing the nation toward its better self is glaring. While neither seems willing to acknowledge this, both the religious Right and the religious Left have fallen short with respect to these ideological challenges.

Articles

Bridging the Abrahamic Traditions

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In a world where violence seems to prevail, it can be hard to believe in a God of love. Starr’s beautifully crafted book offers and enter into a space where divine love is illuminated as a central teaching and core ethic within the heart of these three monotheistic traditions.

2012

Christianity Without the Cross?

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Publishing an article that intensely criticizes an aspect of Christianity was a stretch for us here at Tikkun. Although we consider this magazine to be interfaith as well as Jewish—and have many Christian readers and writers—the idea of taking on something as sacred to the Christian world as the cross gave us pause. The last thing we want to do is convey disrespect to the Christian community and its complex internal debates. On the other hand, having already gotten ourselves into a huge amount of trouble by criticizing something sacred to many American Jews—namely Israel and its army—we thought it reasonable to take seriously our interfaith status by allowing a writer to take on a very controversial issue in the Christian world. We welcome sharp criticisms and alternative readings of the history discussed here.

Christianity

The Cross as a Central Christian Symbol of Injustice

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In “The Death of Christianity,” Lawrence Swaim argues that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement “makes God out to be a vengeful, homicidal deity who can be satisfied only with the death of his son.” He eloquently elaborates how the doctrine of blood atonement is a product of Roman imperial power, injustice, and terrorism, and presents the cross as a sign of conquest that has shaped Christian identity and ecclesiastical might throughout the centuries. Urging us to embrace a counterstory of Jesus’s life, Swaim goes on to suggest that we replace the symbol of the cross with the image of “a woman holding a child.”

2012

The Hope of the Cross

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Ignorance of major world religions comes in many forms today, but Lawrence Swaim’s particular version is still stunning. It is almost as if Swaim skimmed pop or even comic books on Christian theology and early church history and fashioned a reckless rant from their raw materials. Of the many historically and argumentatively strange things in his essay, his call for Christians to get rid of the symbol of the cross is the most bizarre. Getting rid of the cross is tantamount to getting rid of Jesus—which is to say, of Christianity itself.

2012

The Death of Christianity

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There is at the heart of Christianity a disturbing doctrine that has the uncanny ability to overwhelm cognition, and—when internalized by the believer—the ability to traumatize. I refer to the belief, held by most Christians, that Jesus Christ, the prophetic figure of Christianity, was crucified to redeem the world, and that this plan originated with God.

2012

Rethinking the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit

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I was sitting on the balcony of a high-rise hotel in Southern California. The Pacific Ocean sparkled under a smog-free sky. A rabbi we’ll call Sol was enjoying the view with me. “Sol, we’ve become good enough friends now that I can ask you something kind of personal, right?” I asked. “Sure. Anything.” “What do you think of Jesus? I’m not asking that as a test question or as a prelude to an evangelistic presentation,” I explained. “I’m just curious.”

Christianity

Easter Sacrifice of the Lambs

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Rabbi Lerner’s Note: The argument presented below as a critique of Christian practice is equally applicable to Jewish and Muslim practice as well as to the tens of millions of secularists who do the exact same thing but without giving it a religious sanction. EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… Inbox
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Ruth Eisenbud homerific1990@hotmail.com

11:09 PM (10 hours ago)

roast leg of lamb: traditional offering for Easter

EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… While Christianity claims to have done away with the ‘burnt offering’ or sacrifice of the Old Testament, it has not:.  

“Because Jesus is symbolized as a Lamb…and that is like one of His names or titles….He IS the Lamb of God…..Who takes away the sin of the world….and in “type”…He is the Lamb Who was provided for the burnt offering…..” http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090413075531AAE6UGx

 

There are several problems with this statement.