I can hardly wait to learn about church history

This quarter in VLI we will be studying church history, and I can hardly wait.

It's kind of ironic, but two of my Jewish friends know more about Christianity (in the intellectual sense) than most of my Christian friends do, and perhaps more than I do. For example, 'J', a Jewish co-worker, listened to a conversation about the movie 'The Passion', and mentioned that he didn't remember reading any references to Veronica in the gospels and asked where it was. At least I knew that answer to that one (no place!). But that pales besides a conversation we had the other day when he mentioned the split between the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox church due to the 'filioque' clause. Seeing my look of puzzlement he kindly explained that the issue concerned a disagreement over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son (filioque), or only from the Father.

'J' is so quiet that you don't immediately notice how smart he is. But as you can guess, he gently and respectfully skewers me if I show any sloppiness in my reasoning, when we are discussing religious topics.

Since this is the break between quarters for VLI, I've started reading Constantine's Sword again (which he had lent to me). I mentioned to 'J' that I was finding it difficult reading, because there are a lot of generalizations about what Christians think and believe, that I just don't agree with. According to the author, the very premise of Christianity is rooted in anti-semitism, and Christianity finds its identity in opposing Judaism.

He seemed dubious of my protestations to the contrary, so I ended up quoting the VLI mantra to him ("all meaning is context dependent"), and explaining that I am being taught to try to put on a 1st century Jewish mindset in order to properly interpret the New Testament. That caught his attention, I believe, because it is different from what he expects of Christianity.

The big sticking point for him is that he sees Christianity as violating monotheism. So he deems it fundamentally impossible for a Jew to become a Christian. I had to agree that even though I believe that Christianity is monotheistic, it is hard to explain how the Trinity fits into this.

Oh no, I'd better wrap up now...I feel a discourse about 'filioque' coming on...