Jargon

Somewhere in the last decade or so the meme has become the US is a "Judeo-Christian" nation. The "Judeo-Christian tradition." The "Judeo-Christian heritage." I must have been out of the country.

Growing up in the Bible belt it was generally understood that America was a nation founded on Christianity, no Jewishness about it. There was also understanding among most Bible thumpers that the Jews killed Jesus, spit at the cross, practiced ungodly behavior, and some sincere Christians taught that "Jews are a perverse people accursed by God forever." Christianity which once preached the New Covenant/replacement theology (Jews have no future, no hope and no place in the plans of God) now back laws that anything anti-Israel is anti-semitic. Jews and Christians now brothers-in-arm.

I remember when Jews were excluded from membership in the country club, discriminated against in the work force, education, housing, the butt of jokes, and known as "white niggers". Hence the Jewish and Black alliance during the Civil Rights era, although Jews were never excluded and lynched to the extent of Black Americans. Jews were in positions of authority much earlier than Blacks (1916 first Jewish SCOTUS judge). Today more power through politics (what an understatement). With the release of tapes, we know how Nixon felt about Jews - "you can't trust the bastards, they turn on us." Tricky Dick got his comeuppance.

According to The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, by Arthur A. Cohen, the term Judeo-Christian is "an invention of American politics." Though the two religions hold some common beliefs, the term insinuates more in common than actually is, and ignores the common ground in Islam. How convenient, that Christians and Jews are persecuted and victimized by the same enemy today, Islam. The world still ruled by mythology and might, dressed up in jargon. The mothers of invention.