GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 5 The Quest (continued)

Judaism

  If I did not believe that Jesus saved us from our sins did that mean I was a Jew? When I was in junior high, my Jewish friend and I shared a conversation about feeling isolated in our very Protestant town. As we shared more and more about our religions, we grew to recognize our commonalities with strong traditions of ritual and intellectual inquiry. That night I decided that I had more in common with her reformed Judaism than either the waspy or fundamentalist Protestantism that surrounded me. But was I really a Jew?

  The Jew in me embraced the prioritizing of questioning over forcing adherence to doctrine. I liked that Jews did not conform to a single thinking on theological matters and openly challenged each other and God in the pursuit of truth. The Jew in me could shake my fist at God and demand answers knowing God could take it and was not a big bad meanie ready to squash us if we didn't perpetually heap on the praise. I liked that Jews valued human reason and free will as gifts from God and sought to heal, repair, and transform the world through tikkun olam. I agreed with the Jewish focus on this life rather than an afterlife. I valued the Jewish tradition of mysticism. I, too, believed that God was one, incorporeal, and eternal.

  I was not a Jew because I did not believe that the Jewish people, or any other people, were chosen by God to be special. I believed that God's love extends to all of us equally. I did not believe in the Old Testament prophets and I did not expect a Messiah to come to our rescue. I thought Kingdom building was up to us and there would be no white knight to magically make it better. It would be up to us to live out God's will through love.