Still Christian: Why I Don't Call Myself a Jew Even Though I Could

I May Love the Torah and Embrace a Lot of Jewish Ideas But I Don't Practice Judaism and Would Rather Influence the Religion In Which I Was Raised Instead.

Jan 15, 2023

cross stand under purple and blue sky — Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This post is the thirtieth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here:

These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.

So this is the thirtieth installment in this series on antisemitism and culture which began on November 29, 2022. I was so disgusted and angry that Donald J. Trump would dine with antisemites Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, and Milo Yiannopoulos that I wrote a post in condemnation of the vile act and then decided I may as well try to continue pushing myself to write on the subjects.

I’ll be collecting links to these 30 essays in a separate post, labeling them Volume I, and then describing each of their main posts. That way I can begin again with the count of posts at the top of this series, linking only to the 30 collection and posts from the first group I regard as key in articulating important concepts and stories. And I’ll start again with a list of the most recent entries.

For now, I’d like to take a moment to explain why I regard myself as a Christian still but not a Jew, even though I describe my approach as “Judeo-Christian Mysticism” and advocated in the previous installment of this series that we should regard as a “Jew” anyone who chooses to self-apply the label.

So, in this series’ previous, most unusual installment I advocated for a position which I knew some of my Jewish readers would have a word or two of objection to: the notion that they should not “gate keep” their religion, that the primary criterion for determining who is a Jew and who is not should be simple self-identification. Check out the epic Twitter debate I had with a secular Jew in which I made this point over and over again in a myriad of forms to no avail:

God of the Desert Books

Who Counts as a Jew? An Epic Debate of Mystic Vs. Fundamentalist

3 years ago · 1 like · David Swindle

Now part of what was driving my opposition to my Twitter debater’s insistence that one needed to believe in the Torah and the God described in it as a “bare minimum” or “basic fundamental” to count as a Jew is that I knew full well that my Orthodox Jewish friends would disagree with him. Just as Dan was trying to “gate keep” Judaism according to his standards, other Jews had much more strident standards than he did about who counted as part of the tribe - and he didn’t make their cut!

And I heard just that from one of the especially thoughtful Orthodox readers of this Substack who responded to me on the matter:

The Jews are a nation (Goy, in Hebrew). The Jewish nation has a written constitution called Torah, and an oral one called Talmud (Mishna & Gemara). There are also other newer books of law that were written a thousand years ago, and even today *real rabbis decide on questions of law. (*real rabbis are those who learn and observe these laws).
The Reform movement was created in 19th century Germany as a vehicle of assimilation that threw away the constitution and every law which singled Jews out of German society. It was formed in the image of the German Humanistic Church. In short, Reform is Christianity without Jesus.
The Conservative movement was a backlash to Reform, which was also assimilationist, but felt Reform went too far.
Orthodox is not a movement, it is the Judaism that since the beginning, is based on the constitution. Jews from California to India, from Yemen to Siberia, from Iraq to Morocco abide by the constitution. It is primarily in the English-speaking world where Jews are most assimilated that they created a Judaism in the Protestant, Christan image and it provided them yet another vehicle, that being a way to chastise law-abiding Jews as "Catholic."
Remember, the term "religion" is not really applicable to Judaism. What we refer to as Judaism is the unbribable contract between G-d and the Holy Nation (Goy Kadosh) that he chose to give his constitution.
Yes, whether it is politically correct or not, there is a gate keeper.

I responded this morning with some thoughts about who the “real” gate keeper deciding who was a Jew actually was in my view:

Thank you for your thoughtful perspective!
The great irony of your position - which I very much respect and sympathize with to a degree - is that by this form of gatekeeping, my debating partner would not even count as a Jew, himself! He was trying to gatekeep according to the weak standard that for one to be a Jew one had to merely believe in the Torah and its God. And I knew full well from my work and friendships with Orthodox Jews that this certainly was not enough by their standards - which was one of the points I tried to explain to him.
As a Christian simply heavily influenced by my work with Jews in Zionist activism and studying your ideas - particularly Maimonides - I prefer to generally stay out of this internal debate about who the "real" Jews are and what the bare minimum is which one must do to count as one. If someone chooses to identify as a Jew and show some degree of respect to the various traditions then I'm inclined to respect them as such even if they're of a more liberal stream of Judaism such as Reform or *gasp* Reconstructionist. (The Jews who lit my passion and love for the Jewish tradition as a child were of this last variety so I can't help but maintain some respect for their traditions even though I know my Orthodox friends very strongly disagree.)
However, one of the points I made in my debate is this: in practice, the ultimate "gatekeeper" is the antisemite. They will do violence and commit hate against Reform and Orthodox alike and perhaps even me the Zionist, Jew-loving Christian! As I wrote about in this installment of my series -

God of the Desert Books

7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred

This post is the eighteenth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here: What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites What Causes Someone to Be an Antisemite? When & Why Conspiracy Theorists Sometimes Stumble Onto the Truth…

3 years ago · 4 likes · 8 comments · David Swindle

- it is very common for me to be mistaken for a Jew!

So I suppose it’s only fair and reasonable at this point for me to put my cards on the table regarding this perplexing question of “gatekeeping” Judaism:

I think the Modern Orthodox Jews have the strongest arguments on their side and are largely correct about the “best” or most “proper” way to practice their religion. I think if one is to practice Judaism properly then that means keeping Kosher, keeping the sabbath, attending an Orthodox synagogue, advocating for the defense of Israel, marrying a fellow Jew, living a “socially conservative” personal life, studying the Torah and Talmud, and basically living the 613 mitzvot as much as one can. I don’t begrudge non-Orthodox Jews their religion and lifestyle at all - as argued to exhaustion in the previous installment’s debate - I think they should still count as Jews also. However, the Modern Orthodox just to me seem, in my subjective opinion, to have the most effective arguments on their side for their form of practice.

“Well, Dave, if the Orthodox Jews are so right, then why not just become one of them?”

Trust me, I considered it for a number of years about a decade ago. And ultimately decided it just wasn’t practical for me to do so at the time, particularly because then I was married to a woman who was essentially Pagan in her religion. And now as I prepare to remarry this year I’m joining myself to a Quaker-Spiritualist woman whose personal religious practices fits my Judeo-Christian mystic-occultism like a glove. Given my odd mish-mash of religious traditions I never expected to find someone so compatible with me but Sally is beyond my wildest dreams. It’s almost as though God was preparing us for each other.

For a time in the fall of 2021, in the especially hard months after the violent assault and torture which had caused my wretched PTSD to emerge, I actually did consider Orthodoxy again. For a time I considered moving to Israel, finding a Jewish woman, and then converting to whichever form of the faith her family embraced, preferably Orthodox. But then Sally showed up and that potential life path fell by the way side. Honestly, I think an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle could really only work authentically if both husband and wife were committed to living it and raising their children within it.

I also have three minor objections which seem best to illustrate in image form:

burger with lettuce and tomato — Photo by Aleisha Kalina on Unsplash

I love my bacon cheeseburgers! Doubly un-kosher!

I love my shellfish of all sorts - crab, shrimp, lobster, oysters. Delicious! My vegetarian fiancee is particularly horrified at my appreciation of what she dubs “sea bugs.”

gray concrete statue under blue sky during daytime — Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

And finally, I still maintain my angry teenage war cry: “Sick of Christianity, Still in Love with Christ!” Yes, I still love my Jesus.

See, in the Christian tradition there is far less ambiguity about who counts as a Christian and who doesn’t: “Do you love the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and regard him as your God such that you would model your life on his example and teachings?” Some Christian fundamentalists may try to complicate things some and tack on extra doctrinal demands, but screw them. All it really takes to be a Christian is to like Jesus a lot and to then self-identify as such.

And I still do. I still choose to take the leap of faith - unprovable assertions, you apologetics-obsessives - that Jesus was God, performed miracles, was crucified to make amends for the sins of humanity, and then was resurrected on the third day.

So why do I them embrace “mystic” as my primary religious tradition and descriptor? Why “Christian” merely as a secondary descriptor and specifier?

Simple: as I’ve been fairly loud about, I utterly detest “institutional Christianity” and most of the “Christian theology” that men have built on top of the New Testament in the centuries since its assembly. I think most churches are terrible for the simple reason that most people are terrible.

Further, by remaining with a foot in the door in the Christian tradition then that gives me license to be a gadfly within it. I can say to my fellow Christians: abandon churches which have failed you, interpret the Bible for yourself, learn as much as you can from our Jewish family, and engage with God directly.

So the broad mystical tradition is where I’ve ended up for about 20 years now. Mysticism - practices and beliefs which allow one to engage with God directly - has not failed me yet, and I have no expectation it ever will. Why? Because all these various religions are built on top of the mystical experiences of their founders. In engaging in mysticism we are literally doing what the Biblical prophets did and what Jesus did. (And what Eastern prophets like the Buddha did, by the way, which is why Eastern mystical traditions still have value too.)

This is why mysticism and its dark sister “occultism” are so deeply frightening and threatening to most religious institutions and the fundamentalists haunting them. My tradition says explicitly: you can be your own priest. You don’t need some intermediary who you have to pay money to each week to stand between you and our Creator. You can do the rituals all on your own and you will eventually get the same results that the Biblical prophets and Jesus did - direct engagement with the divine which will totally transform you, if you let it.

Does that make sense to everyone? Any questions yet?

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