what s in a name the sequel i ve been thinking about the idea that was raised by michael covington i think that words mean what we think they mean regardless of etymology i ve been reflecting on what certain words meant in my childhood and tracing how this shaped some of my attitudes i grew up in a home where christ was a bad word people who were very angry said it the word christian meant someone who was not a jew it carried connotations of otherness of threat of enemy it took some time to figure out that there was a connection between christ and christian when i accepted jesus i expected to be disowned to become a christian meant to join the enemy i knew others would consider me a traitor at some level i agreed but was still prepared to pay this price like esau i sold my birthright however i made a better bargain he only got some stew but i got the incomparable riches of knowing christ as it turned out my parents did not disown me i found out later that they were hoping it was a phase that i would grow out of by the time they had decided it wasn t a phase they were sort of used to it they didn t disown me but they didn t completely accept the situation either for example they didn t come to my wedding because it was in a church when i visited my grandmother in the hospital a few days before her death she said to me as far as i m concerned you still are a jew what she meant was that she loved me and forgave me but i am not a jew i am a christian i ll concede one that likes chicken soup with matzoh balls i do not keep kosher i do not celebrate the sabbath on saturday my sons are not circumcised but these things are true of some people who do consider themselves jews it is not these rules that make people jews it is the heritage from the past i gave up the past this is why i find it hard to relate to messianic jews their experience is unlike mine they still consider themselves jews while following jesus some would even say that i must do so too i am at a stage of my life now where i would like to have a heritage it was not something i valued very much when i gave it but i did have a sense that i was giving it for god it may have been a small sacrifice it may have been an unnecessary sacrifice but i gave it and do not want to ask for it back and while i don t have the heritage i was born with i do have another i am an outcast from the house of israel but i am a member of the church one of the things i like about being a catholic christian is that it is rich in tradition it gives me a feeling of once again being rooted in the past this is probably one of the reasons why i don t like it when people mess around with christian traditions for example changing the name of easter these traditions fill an important emotional need of mine i suppose the point of all this is that people shouldn t assume that all believers of jewish background are the same for some jewish christian is a good name for others it is an oxymoron jayne kulikauskas jayen mmalt guild org
