Clergy and Educators
The Report of the Bishop's Advisory Committee on Christian-Jewish Relations November 5, 1992
Questions Frequently Asked in Christian-Jewish Dialogue
Introduction
The Bishop's Advisory Committee on Christian-Jewish Relations was appointed by Bishop Eastman in 1986. For the past three years it has been one of ten denominational groups involved in the Maryland Interfaith Project sponsored by the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies. The Committee, along with the other groups, studied the roots, the history, and the traditions of our own faith as they relate to Judaism. The work challenged us. It also rewarded us, deepening our own Christian faith commitments and enriching our understanding of the Jewish covenant with the one God. The Committee members are now eager to share some of our learning with others of our brothers and sisters, both Christian and Jewish, in the Diocese of Maryland and beyond.
During our course of study many of us were asked by family, friends, and fellow parishioners why we chose to give such close attention to Judaism and what relevance such study could have for Christians. Consequently, we decided to fashion a response to these and other frequently-asked questions from the results of our study. We hope that what we have written here conveys both what we learned and a sense of the excitement we felt while learning. We invite and will welcome any comments, whether supportive or critical, in agreement or disagreement.Questions and Responses
1. Is there a special reason why Christians should be in dialogue with Jews?
2. Of what importance is it to us as Christians that Jesus was an observant Jew?
3. Do Christians and Jews mean the same thing when they talk about "the Scriptures"?
4. Does the New Testament say that God has rejected the Jews?
6. Is God in the process of saving both Christians and Jews?
7. In light of this understanding of salvation, how might we Christians understand John 14:5 - 6?
8. Does dialogue with Jews threaten the integrity of Christian faith?
9. Should Christians evangelize Jews?
Questions and Responses
1. Is there a special reason why Christians should be in dialogue with Jews?Yes, definitely. Although our Christian religious traditions and sensibilities are quite distinctive, they are intertwined with and rooted in those of Judaism. Jesus was Jewish, and we are "grafted in," as St. Paul says (Romans 11:17). Through Jesus, God bound Christians together with Jews inextricably. We honor that special relationship only if we understand, respect, and in all things seek to love one another. Discussing how we will do this in deed as well as word could hardly be more important.
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2. Of what importance is it to us as Christians that Jesus was an observant Jew?
The God whom Jesus called "Father" and whom he taught us also to call "Father" is the God of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Jacob, Rachel and Leah. The one God of Israel is the only God there is. The relationship the one God has with the People Israel is the covenant relationship into which Jesus was born and within which he was nourished. His teachings were about that relationship, and for it he died and was resurrected. Apart from that covenantal relationship nothing we know about Jesus would make any sense and nothing we teach about ourselves as the Church would have any foundation.
Following the lead of St. Paul (Romans 9 - 11), we Christians believe our covenant with God through Jesus to be inseparably related to the covenant God has with the Jewish people. Furthermore, ours has enduring substance only if theirs does also. Otherwise God would have to be thought capricious, which God is not. Because God's love and promises are steadfast and sure, we believe God's covenant with the Jewish people to be of enduring substance. Therefore, we boldly believe the same about God's covenant with us.
Jews and Christians worship, love, and serve one and the same God, the only God there is, though we do it in quite distinctive ways.
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3. Do Christians and Jews mean the same thing when they talk about "the Scriptures"?
Yes and no. "Yes," to the extent that the "books" in the Jewish Scriptures are identical to those Christians have traditionally called the "Old Testament," though Jews arrange those "books" differently from the way Christians arrange them. But "No" in most other respects, although to many Christians this "No" will come as a surprise.
Through the lenses of an authoritative collection of oral tradition known in its written form as "The Talmud," and also by use of commentaries on the Scriptures and even on the Talmud itself, observant Jews have fashioned their own complex, living traditions of scriptural interpretation. Those traditions grow and expand as faithful Jews are led by God into deeper understandings and larger obedience.
We Christians have other ways of thinking about and relating to the Scriptures. First, we include in our Bible the twenty-seven "books" of the "New Testament" not found in the Jewish Bible. Beyond that, some Christian groups include additional "books" (called the "Apocrypha" or "Deutero-canonicals") that other Christian groups reject. Still further, we have our own complex traditions for interpreting Scripture, ranging from literalism to allegory, to devotional meditation, to mysticism, to moral instruction, to historical-critical analysis. Like those of our Jewish brothers and sisters, our traditions of interpretation grow and develop as we find God leading us in paths of obedience, faithfulness, and understanding.
Many involved in Christian-Jewish dialogue have discovered happily that exploring together the varied traditions of scriptural interpretation can be deeply and mutually enriching.
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4. Does the New Testament say that God has rejected the Jews?
Jesus' call to his fellow Jews to repent and return to the Lord does not constitute a rejection of them. Such a demand is common in Israel's prophetic tradition. Neither does the claim that Israel refused to recognize the importance of the crucified and risen Jesus mean that God has rejected the Jews. The Gospel of John contains some of the most inflammatory anti-Jewish language in all of the New Testament, but it never denies the election of the Jews. In Romans 9 - 11, a passage often cited in support of the notion that God has rejected His people, Paul states plainly that this is not so. A close reading of Paul's letters shows that his major concern was the legitimating of his law-free gentile mission and suggests that he was able to present his gospel without denying the legitimacy of Judaism.
It is primarily in the Gospel of Matthew that we find passages which can and have been understood to imply that, because the Jewish people rejected Jesus, because they killed the Messiah, they have been rejected by God. In view of the fact that Jesus' first followers were Jews, the uncritical claim that "the Jewish people" rejected Jesus is patently false. In dealing with passages which seem to suggest that Christians had replaced Jews as the recipients of God's favor, it is essential to take into consideration the fact that the gospels were written over a period of thirty years or more, and that the first Gospel did not appear until long after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Each one of the Gospels, moreover, was written in a specific context to deal with the needs of a particular Christian community. By the time Matthew's Gospel was written, the separation between Judaism and Christianity was almost complete. Matthew's anti-Jewish polemic reflects both the failure of the Christian mission to the Jews and the Church's need to define itself over against the parent faith.
The alleged "rejection" of the Jews in the New Testament, then, derives from the early Church, not from the preaching of Jesus of Nazareth. This being so, contemporary Christians would be wise to refrain from passing judgment on whom God accepts and whom He rejects. Nor should we permit polemical texts written for vastly different circumstances in the past to determine how we think about and relate to Jews in the present.
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5. What can we learn from the history of Christian-Jewish relations about the consequences of not engaging in dialogue with Jews?
If dialogue is to be genuine, the parties involved must have respect for one another. It is a sad fact that until recently Christians have had very little respect for Jews and little or no genuine dialogue with them. Chiefly because of the charge that the Jews had rejected and killed Christ and the assumption that the Church had replaced Israel in God's favor, the Christian attitude toward Jews during most of the past two thousand years has been largely unfavorable and sometimes extremely harsh. In fact, since the time that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians have imposed great degradation and suffering on the Jewish people in supposed obedience to Matthew 27:25.
It has been estimated that, from the fourth century to the twentieth, fewer than twenty percent of the Jews in Christian Europe managed to survive as Jews [The Vatican Council and the Jews, Arthur Gilbert]. Jews were increasingly encumbered by Church and State with political, legal, and economic disadvantages. They were under constant pressure to convert to Christianity, and many suffered forced baptism. They were subjected to terrible violence--beatings, rape, mob actions, massacres, and pogroms. Jews, dying of plague along with Christians, were persecuted for allegedly causing the Black Death by poisoning the wells. They were also persecuted for numerous cases of ritual murder, blood libel, and Host desecration (all of these charges were denied by emperors and popes, and modern historical inquiry has also failed to find any proof of the truth of these allegations). Beginning with England in 1290, Jews were expelled from most of the countries of Western Europe, and they were forced into social isolation in cramped and unhealthful ghettos. In short, life for Jews in Christendom was one of tremendous hardship: they were made to pay dearly for their faithfulness to God and Torah.
The failure of Christians to engage in genuine dialogue with Jews through most of the past two thousand years has had dire consequences for the Jewish people. It has also had a most unfortunate, though less obvious, effect on Christians by engendering and perpetuating among us an attitude of prideful contempt for Jews and Judaism that has stained the very soul of Christianity.
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6. Is God in the process of saving both Christians and Jews?
To a large extent, Jews and Christians have similar understandings of the salvation God is working in our lives. Together we share the Hebrew Scriptures, and in them God establishes that to be saved is to be delivered from any force or creature that threatens or oppresses. On the shore of the Red Sea, when Miriam and the children of Israel sing and dance to celebrate their deliverance from bondage in Egypt, they are singing of salvation. Thus for Jews and Christians alike, God saves us by freeing us from all that binds us to any power, person or thing that would harm us, and by freeing us for enlarged, abundant life. To be saved is to be made whole, and to experience the full, authentic human life God intended. Although this abundant life is not ours in fullness yet, both Jews and Christians agree that God is at work to make such a life ours as fully as possible on earth and in the present.
There are also distinctive features to the Christian understanding of salvation. Our entrance into covenantal relationship with the one God is through God's forgiveness granted and revealed to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our salvation flows from that forgiveness and through it we are being transformed, freed from slavery to false gods and from the sin and guilt attendant to such bondage. Freed also to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we are formed into one Body, the Church, commissioned to carry the same loving forgiveness we have received to a world broken, enslaved, and yearning for fuller, more authentic life. But the wholeness and fullness we receive and bear to others is, we believe, only a foretaste of what we will share in the life to come.
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7. In light of this understanding of salvation, how might we Christians understand John 14:5 - 6?
(Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.")
For us who are Christians, Jesus is the only way into covenant with God the Father. In him, we have found the saving knowledge--the Truth--that brings us Life. He is our Way, and our only Way. Without Jesus as our Way into covenant with the Father, we would not know the true God, and our life would be vulnerable to the service and worship of false gods.
The Jewish people believe, as Franz Rosenzweig, one of their great philosopher-theologians has said, that they are already with the Father. They have come into relationship with the Father by the gracious promises God offered to Israel in the covenants made with Abraham and Moses. Jews believe that these covenants are still being honored by God, and that through them God has provided Jews with a sure way into Truth and Life.
For Christians who wonder why verse 6 of John 14 is so exclusive, it is good to remember that during the time when John's Gospel was reaching its present, final form, both the church and the synagogue were young and vulnerable institutions. Each was seeking to clarify its own identity and its special way of relating to God; and each, in this formative period, was increasingly at odds with the other. Verse 6 of John 14 shows John's community claiming its understanding of the distinctive way--through Jesus Christ--that had been provided for it to be in covenant with God.
In this same period, the Temple had been destroyed by the Roman army. The Jewish people, therefore, could no longer express their covenant loyalty to God through Temple sacrifices. Instead, like the nascent church, Judaism underwent a radical development of its special way of relating to God. The ethical reflections of the rabbis on Hebrew Scripture began to be recorded (see section 3 above), leading eventually to the formation of the Talmud and to the transformed way of being Jewish which today is called rabbinic Judaism
Finally, the fledgling church and nascent rabbinic Judaism found themselves competing with one another for converts from Greco-Roman pagan religions. Whenever such competition occurs between young, rival groups, exclusive claims that denigrate the value, and even the validity of the rival are likely to slip into argumentation. For John's community to have denigrated the emerging rabbinic way of being Jewish is hardly surprising, then, when one considers the context of identity-crisis, dispute, and rivalry within which John's Gospel was written.
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8. Does dialogue with Jews threaten the integrity of Christian faith?
By no means, though problems of faith can and sometimes do arise. Differences between the two traditions run deep. For example, the Jewish insistence on the oneness of God sometimes challenges Christians to explore more fully the distinctively Christian Trinitarian teaching, namely, that God is one substance in three persons. This teaching, in all its truth about the complexity of God's unity, begins and ends in mystery. So does the Jewish understanding of God. Exploring the inexhaustible mystery of the one God is our common calling and our common destiny.
As another example, our Christian claim that Jesus is God's Messiah will inevitably confront the several different understandings of "Messiah" held by Jews at various times in the past and even today. Christians in the dialogue have to come to grips with these differences and, more importantly, with the simple fact that people of deep faith and religious integrity embody them. That can be unsettling. It can also be inspiring to discover that people with such different faith understandings can and do love, honor, worship, and serve the same God, the only God there is.
Both Christians and Jews in our era testify repeatedly that participation in ongoing dialogue strengthens their commitment to their own tradition even as it increases their appreciation of the other. More often than not mutual respect, mutual admiration, even mutual love result. Thank God.
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9. Should Christians evangelize Jews?
Not if by use of the word "evangelize" we are masking any attitude of contempt, and not if we intend anything disrespectful or coercive. A major reason for special caution in this regard has to do with the dark history of Christian-Jewish relations cited in section 5 above. With ample justification Jews are likely to be unusually sensitive about any approach Christians make to them, however well-meaning.
Properly understood and practiced, evangelism is nothing more or less than the Christian's honest response by testimony and actions to the forgiving love of God known and experienced through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is, first of all, an expression of joy, gratitude, and praise. Its subject matter and sole focus is God's gracious, saving, healing, revelatory activity. Whenever evangelistic testimony is tainted by contempt, whenever evangelistic actions are disrespectful of any human being or are otherwise inconsistent with the demands of love, they betray the Lord they are intended to honor and praise.
Strongly supported by Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican theologians, the Roman Catholic Church in its Second Vatican Council decree, Nostra aetate (1965), set a new course for all Christians in relation to Jews. Mutual understanding and respect are to be the constant rule as Christians and Jews together explore the mystery of the one God's saving presence and work among us. Christians begin by acknowledging that Jews as a people do not need to be introduced to God, that they already have a relationship with God and understand it and its salvific integrity differently from the way we understand our own. The one God, living and active, if also mysterious, excites and delights Jews as well as Christians. The one God, understood by us so differently, calls us all, in loving cooperation with God and one another, to mend this broken world. Beyond any doctrinal differences and disagreements we are united in God's service. Our dialogue confirms and strengthens this unity.
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