Gerald Krell

The Jewish arguments against Christianity in the video, especially with regard to "atonement," are actually apologies against Western Christian dogmatics. The idea of atonement with which the Jewish people in the video disagree is largely the post-Great-Schism ideology regarding atonement as set forth by Anselm of Canterbury. Surely these Jewish people would not agree with the importance that sacrificial offerings had in Temple Judaism.

Orthodox Christian beliefs regarding atonement or "conciliation," (which may well be the preferred English rendering rather than "expiation,") are actually much closer to modern Judaism than the Western Christian ideas regarding atonement. In the Orthodox Christian view, Conciliation involves not only returning to God through human acts of repentance and askesis such as fasting and charitable works in response to God's initial acts of love for us, but it also involves the Divine Act of God's own returning to us through the outpouring upon us of deifying Grace and Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Conciliation involves not only repentance and God's forgiveness, but also His bequeathal of conciliating Grace by which we are purified, illumined, and deified as Sons of God. An idea of Deification is not foreign to Judaism, as is recognized by many, if not most, Jewish Kabbalists.

In respect of the targeted persecution of Jews by Nazis, we would do well to remember that during the Nazi reign of terror, "not all the victims were Jewish, but all the Jews were victims."… (mehr)