Monday, June 03, 2024

Leper's Plot

In 1321, there was a panic in southern France that the lepers were conspiring together to put bags of infected powder in the wells and harm the healthy population. Confessions forced under torture showed that - surprise! - it was really the Jews, acting on behalf of the Muslims, who were conspiring. This followed on the heels of the Shepherd's Crusade of 1320, begun in Normandy to get rid of the Muslims but within a few months - Shazaam! - decided that killing Jews was better. 25 years later the Jews were apparently carrying the plague and poisoning the wells with it - again. Darn them!

For those who are trying to fit together a theory of how American leftists who care deeply about patriarchy, racial distinctions, and colonialism decided that the Palestinians, who fail badly on those counts, are the cause they need to be most concerned about in this wide world of injustices, let me simplify this for you.  Whenever people are paranoid about something, their next trainstop on the way out of town is always the Jews.

My theology would say that whatever covenant God has with the Jews about descendants and land might still be operative and historically interesting, but should be fairly irrelevant to the Christian. As a practical matter however, I can't overlook centuries of the Jews being "chosen" by every group of nutcases as soon as they get their bearings about whatever torqued them off first. I figure it has to mean something.

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