Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [RELIGION] Unsettling History of That Joyous 'Hallelujah'

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> This article unfortunately confuses two groups of people.
>
> 1.  Those (like me) who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and fulfills the 
> hopes and aspirations of the Old Testament writings.  Of course, this is 
> precisely the meaning of Handel's Messiah 
> (http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/messiah.htm), not a cheering on of the 
> destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD.
> 2.  Those who are anti-semitic, and who have an irrational hatred of all 
> Jewish people.  Since my mother's side of the family are all descended from 
> Jewish refugees who escaped from Germany in the 1930's. and since I would be 
> a prime candidate for Hitler's concentration camps, clearly I am not in this 
> category.

I didn't feel confused by the article.  It was a lesson in the perspective 
of the people of that day.  Christianity has a history of anti-Semitism 
but things are somewhat better today, at least here in the U.S.  In fact, 
I have the impression that many evangelical Christians in the U.S. are 
cheering for Israel and want to fight Israel's enemies.

This is the author of the article (3.5 years ago):

http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/sept03/dayinthelife.html

He has also studied anti-Semitism in Bach's works:

http://www.icjs.org/scholars/bachmaris.html


> In making this confusion, this article should be regarded as a hateful 
> and trashy anti-Christian diatribe.

Can you tell me where the article it "makes confusion?"  It's an 
historical article that really is not about the Christianity of today. 
It's about what was going on in the 18th century.  I can't find anything 
wrong with the article and you didn't point out anything wrong with it 
either.

I suppose you didn't like what was written about John Newton...

> > If Jews make up "them," who is the "thou"? Jesus, as John Newton 
> > explains in his 1786 book "Messiah: Fifty Sermons on the Celebrated 
> > Oratorio of Handel": The resurrected Jesus, sitting at the right hand 
> > of God, unleashed his anger on the Jews by having the Roman armies lay 
> > waste to Jerusalem and its temple in A.D. 70.
> >
> > Newton is best known today as the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace," 
> > and he is a central figure in the film of that name now in theaters, in 
> > which he is portrayed as repenting his devotion to the slave trade in 
> > the 1780s. But his grace apparently wasn't amazing enough to curb the 
> > constant affirmation of anti-Jewish sentiment in his "Messiah" sermons.
> >
> > Here he comments, "The music to which Psalm 2:9 is set is so well 
> > adapted to the idea that it expresses, as, in a manner, to startle 
> > those who hear it." In Jennens and Handel's time, Christians were all 
> > but unanimous in believing that the violence depicted in Psalm 2:9 
> > represented the prophesying type for a later event: the destruction of 
> > Jerusalem and its temple, the fulfilling antitype. So when Jennens has 
> > brought in Psalm 2 and its understood prophecy of the destruction of 
> > the temple, widely understood as signaling God's rejection of Judaism, 
> > what is the response? "Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent 
> > reigneth; the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord 
> > and of his Christ" (Revelation 19:6, 19:16 and 11:5).

...but what's wrong with it?  Is it surprising?  Newton wasn't all that 
great of a guy, as you know.  Anti-Semitism was wide-spread among European 
Christians for centuries.

Mike

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