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Insight

A More Jewish Jesus

Episcopal priest argues that the church has perverted Jesus' teachings.

BARBARA LEWIS
Special to the Jewish News

E

piscopalian priest Harry T.
Cook pulls no punches in
telling his congregation
that traditional church
teaching is seriously misguided.
The gospels, which tell the story of
Jesus and form the basis of the
Christian religion, are not the literal
"word of God," he says, but a reli-
gious tract, much of it written specifi-
cally to discredit the traditional Jews
of the day.
He illustrated the point in his
March 10 sermon at St. Andrew's
Episcopal Church in Clawson, where
he has been rector since 1987. The
reading for the day is from John
Chapter 9. It tells how Jesus restored
sight to a man who was blind from
birth. In the story, the Pharisees, the
dominant Jewish sect of the time, call
Jesus a sinner because he acted on the
Sabbath. The formerly blind man is
amazed at their stupidity.
The story, said Rev. Cook, former
religion writer for the Detroit Free
Press, seems to be about how proper
Sabbath observance is irrelevant to the
needs of human beings, and also
about the Pharisees, who turn out to
be as blind in their own way as the
man who once was blind.
Rev. Cook urged his parishioners to
put the story in its historic context.
John wrote at the end of the first cen-
tury of the Common Era, an era of
fierce competition between Judaism's
two branches: the traditional
Pharisees and those who followed the
teachings of Jesus.
Several hundred years later, when
Jesus' Judaism developed into "the
Church" and then the Church
became synonymous with the Roman
Empire, the balance shifted. The Jews
depicted in John's gospel became the
enemies not only of Jesus, but of the
emperor.
"In due course, anti-Jewish senti-
ment became the normal stuff of

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:2002.

32

Christian theology and
church policy," Rev.
Cook said. "Anti-
Semitism became part
and parcel of the
preaching of the gospel,
thus creating a handy
scapegoat for every
civic resentment in the
Western world.
"This is history," he
said. "It is not debat-
able."
But, he said, those
who think of the Bible
as the literal "word of
God" make it into a
"dangerous book" that
is often misunderstood
and misapplied. The
true word of God is not
so literal, Rev. Cook
said.
"The gospel of the
Jewish sage known as
Jesus ... is a gospel of
peace and of freedom,
in which the dignity of
every human being is to
be respected and defended," he said.
"That, and not the story we heard
from John, is the gospel."
Rev. Cook's parishioners are used to
his unusual views.
"I'm gay, and. I agree with him very
much, because the Bible is often used
to tell us we're not true Christians,"
said John Vetrano of Ferndale. He
came to St. Andrew's after reading an
article in which Rev. Cook said he
would perform homosexual commit-
ment ceremonies.
Cheryl Voglesong of Royal Oak said
she also agrees with Rev. Cook's phi-
losophy. "We do a lot of studying
here, and we look at a lot of different
viewpoints," she said, adding that St.
Andrew's "is about as far as you can
get from a fundamentalist church and
still be Christian."
Debunking the anti-Semitic aspects
of the Christian Bible has added
importance for Rev. Cook because his

Remember
When . •

From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years
ago.

19112

In commemoration of the 500th
anniversary of the expulsion of the
Jews from the Iberian Peninsula,
Temple Emanu-El, in conjunction
with Congregation Beth Shalom and
the Detroit Jewish Committee for
Sephard '92, present programs.
Marcella Stein, executive secretary
for the Metropolitan Detroit Optical
Society is appointed Democratic co-
chair for the Michigan Women's
Political Caucus.

14621
Detroiters Harry and Sarah Laker
receive recognition for their devotion
and volunteer efforts at the annual
dinner of the Jewish National Fund
Council of Detroit.
Detroiter Stanford Wolok is
installed as president of the Hebrew
Benevolent Society.

19112

Rev. Harry Cook

associate pastor, Rev. E. Anne Kramer,
was born of Jewish parents in
Dusseldorf, Germany. Escaping to
England at the start of World War II,
her parents enrolled her in an
Anglican school, and she chose to be
baptized. Rev. Kramer, 80, became a
deacon in 1979, and a full priest in
1991.
"We cannot honor the presence of
Anne Kramer as a priest in this con-
gregation without owning up to
Christianity's and the church's guilt in
the persecution of Jews down the ages
because anti'-Semitic tracts in the
guise of gosp1 stories are said, mis-
takenly, to be 'the word of God," said
Rev. Cook.
Rev. Cook is a life member of the
Society for Humanistic Judaism and
an associate member of the
Birmingham Temple. ❑

The Synagogue School Association,
comprised of Detroit Conservative,
Reform and Orthodox representa-
tives, forms with Rabbi Irwin Groner
as chairman and Rabbi Richard C.
Hertz as co-chairman.
Gov. Milliken appoints Detroit
attorney-Avern Cohn to the state
Civil Rights Commission.

istsw
,

Detroiter Irving Katz remarks on
the 200th anniversary of the first Jew
to Detroit, Chapman Abraham.

State chairman of Brotherhood Week,
Leonard S. Simons, presents $7,500
to Rev. Celestin Steiner, president of
the University of Detroit, collected
from a group of Jewish businessmen
in honor of the 75th anniversary of U.
of D.
Rabbi B. Benedict Glazer is named
Michigan state chairman of the
Rabbinical Council of the Combined
Campaign of the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations and the
Hebrew Union College.
—Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
certified archivist, the Rabbi Leo M.
Franklin Archives of Temple Beth El

