But as Lynn at In Context shows in the latest round of the ongoing tedious, scary argument about convert the Jews, some Christians mistake this obsessive behavior for "love." (Tedious the way a guy is tedious who keeps calling you and sending you flowers and candy after you have told him 15 times that although he's very nice, he's just not right for you, and no thanks, you really don't want to go out with him, scary the way he gets when he starts hanging around your block every day and leaves threatening messages on your answering machine and you find out he did the same to his last 3 girlfriends, one of whom disappeared and was never seen again.)
One of the frustrations that Jews have had to deal with through centuries of rehashing this same argument is that our most basic point is always ignored: Please just leave us alone. Don't tell us what we need. Don't tell us what we want. Don't try to tell us what our Bible really says. Go about your business, in peace, and leave our relationship with God to us. Instead, all kinds of other easily refutable accusations and insinuations are read into our responses that we didn't mean and didn't make. And then (surprise!) they are refuted. Well, this instance has been no exception.
As Bruce Hill would put it: What she said.
If you know the history of Christian treatment of Jews and the justification for it, my stalking analogy is an understatement, not an exaggeration. At this point in history, in the West, proselytizers are well-behaved, precisely because we live in a secular society with a enforced protection of individual conscience. When the Church ruled, its methods were pretty ugly. Yes, Josh, the Islamists are the ones who want to kill me today, but the onus is on you to show that you are not the ones who will want to kill me tomorrow. After all, you are the ones who wanted to kill me yesterday, using the same justification you are using now. No, I am not being "oversensitive" or "paranoid" or "whiny" to take the track record of your organization into account when I consider your remarks.
Disclaimer: This is not an attack on the tenets of Christianity per se, if Christianity is viable without stalking Jews (or any other religion, for that matter). Josh seems to think it isn't. Really. Your whole religious faith and sophisticated theology is irrelevent unless everyone in the world signs on? Hey, you said it, not me. I would assume a 2000 year old religion embracing 1.5 billion people would be more secure in itself, but what do I know? So I am just pointing out how this particular insecurity has been a direct cause of much suffering among my people, and if your obtuseness in recognizing that reality is any indication, may be so again.
PS My earlier thoughts on this topic are contained in several posts here. (Scroll down to read all of them.)
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