Posted by panch from pool0279.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.211.24) on Sunday, July 21, 2002 at 10:59AM :
....he is no longer a Jew...not in religion anyway...and not in the eyes of Judaism. When a Buddhist turns Muslim she is no longer recognized as a Buddhist...when a Muslim becomes a Christian...he not only isn't a Muslim any longer, but can get himself killed as well.
Obviously...when you change religions, you change something fundamental enough that the adherents of the religion you once belonged to will no longer accpet you, not even as a member of their ethnic group, the one you were born into. When the religion is the only one identified with an ethnic group with a culture of its own...the change is even more pervasive and drastic...isn't merely cosmetic, or limited to questions of theology alone.
This exists everywhere except with us apparently. When an Assyrian turns away from the religion whose God's name appears in our own...Ashur...we claim that person is still Assyrian...IF, and ONLY if, he or she turns to Christ. If that same Assyrian turns to Muhammad, or Vishnu...he or she is no longer Assyrian.
Our Christian Assyrians go one step further...they claim that being Christian is the SUREST sign that you MUST be Assyrian because all the others were wiped out. Really?
Just to see those two words together..".Assyrian/Christian"...tells our dilemma. In those two words you have the names of two God's at the begining of each. The endings indicate "followers of". Followers of Ashur....are in one group...followers of Christ in the other. How do you both? And if you follow only one God...how do you maintain any claim to use the name of the other to describe yourself and why the hell would you?
The name "Assyrian", is not just an ethnic indicator. It can't be because it has our God's name in it...by having "Ashur" there it's implied that to be Assyrian you follow Ashur. That's not a neutral designation. If we were known by a region only...or a term describing us as a political union, like "Great Britain"...it would be one thing.
We are known from the beginning and throughout history as Assyrians...followers of Ashur. If we want to follow another God...we should use his name alone to designate who we are... if we follow Christ...we are indeed Christians. When we become Christians and follow Christ, we can no longer be Assyrians...not if we don't follow Ashur.
If we were named Dolmians because we ate dolma and had always been known throught history as the people of the Dolma...then you could become whatever religion you wanted to be and as long as you ate dolma...you'd remain a Dolmian.
But that ain't the way it is. If we are Assyrians...then by our own rule we cannot be also Christians. Not unless we allow one facet of our dual identity to lapse and dwindle for the sake of the other...and that's exactly what has happened. We care nothing for Ashur at all, not his name, not his people, not his standing, not his exposure, not his Holy Lands, not his treasures...just use his name to confer some polish to an otherwise unremarkable and unknown sub-sect of a sub-sect of Judaism.
We care exclusively for Christ...we show it every time we weep for Christians while not recognizing non Christians. Hell we even do it in our families when we cast out any member who offfends us by marrying a Muslim...because we feel that person has compromised our very standing as true Christians...but react as if it also meant the person stopped being Assyrian as well....when no such miraculous transformation took place at all.
We are not even schizophrenic for there is no real conflict, no two sides...we are deluded into believing that being Christian is the BEST way of being Assyrian...when time has shown us, and we give proof of it every day in the West where we are "free"...that being Christian was about the worst thing we could have done, as Assyrians....and in the MidEast where our Holy Lands are...we are being chased out for the sake of this religion...whose Western adherents have been bombing and killing people of all denominations and ethnicities now for years.
Just what was wrong with Ashur? Would it have been worse to die for Ashur, than be killed because of Christ?
-- panch
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