Do “Jews and Christians worship the same God” and “seek authority from the same book”? Is it true that “Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel”; that “Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon”; that “A new relationship between Jews and Christians will not weaken Jewish practice”?
Should Jews start contemplating such ideas in the wake of recent statements and efforts by many Christian movements to reassess their relations with and theological views of Jews and Judaism?
Certainly some people think so. They include the four Jewish scholars, working at secular or Christian universities, who crafted “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity,” the document in which the quoted statements appear.
They also include the more than 160 rabbis, theologians and leaders who signed the statement before it appeared in news media last September.
But others, even among those who find the document to be a significant and positive event in Jewish-Christian relations, have doubts. Four of them — two Jews and two Christians — confronted one of the document’s co-authors with those doubts Sunday at Cardinal Stritch University.
However, that co-author — Tikva Frymer-Kensky, professor of Hebrew Bible and adjunct professor of biblical law at the University of Chicago — emphasized that inspiring such discussions is the document’s point.
“We wanted the document to present principles to be discussed,” she told an audience of about 55. Moreover, the authors hope that “Dabru Emet” will be “the beginning of a large number of statements,” she said.
‘Whitewashing’ Christianity?
Both the document and a book published last year, “Christianity in Jewish Terms” (Westview Press), grew out of work these four scholars did at the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies in Baltimore.
The scholars stated at the beginning of “Dabru Emet” that “In the decades since the Holocaust … Christianity has changed dramatically. An increasing number of official Church bodies … have made public statements of their remorse about Christian mistreatment of Jews and Judaism [and] Christian teaching and preaching can and must be reformed so that they acknowledge God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people and celebrate the contribution of Judaism to world civilization and to Christian faith itself.”
“We believe,” the document continues, “these changes merit a thoughtful Jewish response…. [I]t is time for Jews to learn about the efforts of Christians to honor Judaism [and] to reflect on what Judaism may now say about Christianity.”
Panelists and others criticized especially the “Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon” section. Frymer-Kensky replied that the intent was not to have “whitewashed Christianity’s role in the Holocaust” but rather to make sure people don’t “exonerate the role of secular humanistic civilization.”
She said people have tended to forget that such secular ideas as racism, extremist nationalism and eugenics contributed to “the climate of poison that turned anti-Judaism into anti-Semitism into murder.”
Panelist Rabbi Marc Berkson, spiritual leader of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun (Reform), said that while he did not sign the document when the chance was offered him, he now thinks he should have.
“We in the Jewish community have left interfaith dialogue to our defense organizations,” he said. “Dabru Emet” brings this effort “back to our teachers.”
He also said the document may encourage Christian movements like the Southern Baptist Convention, which has targeted Jews for conversion efforts, to join those who have changed their attitudes.
Nevertheless, he didn’t sign when he first saw it because he was troubled by various issues, including the statements on Israel and the Holocaust.
Panelist Rabbi David Fine, spiritual leader of Lake Park Synagogue (modern Orthodox), called the document “immensely important and valuable.” It will begin a process of helping Jews understand Christianity and enabling both faith communities to help each other survive in contemporary secular culture, which “tends to demonize religion or render it irrelevant,” he said.
Nevertheless, Fine said he would not have signed “Dabru Emet” if he had been offered the chance. He quoted from a statement by Dr. David Berger of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations’ Institute for Public Affairs objecting to the document’s “inclination to theological reciprocity” and “uncomfortably relativistic message.”
Fine added that he feels “anxious” that the way “Dabru Emet” tries to point out what Judaism and Christianity have in common may be taken as “implied support” by someone contemplating intermarriage.
The two Christian panelists also mingled praise with doubts and questions. Marquette University associate professor of theology Dr. Ralph Del Colle said the statement “Jews and Christians worship the same God” is the “most astounding” part of the document, given the Christian Trinity and the two faiths’ different conceptions of the “covenant with God” idea.
Dr. Richard Lux, professor of scripture studies at the Sacred Heart School of Theology, found “most problematic” the document’s statement about how “the humanly irreconcilable difference between Jews and Christians will not be settled until God redeems the entire world as promised in Scripture.” It tried to deal with too many issues at once, including “Messianism, biblical promise and fulfillment and the end time,” Lux said.
The event was sponsored and coordinated by the Catholic-Jewish Conference, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations and the Ecumenical and Interfaith Concerns Office of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee; and was hosted by the university’s Campus Ministry.
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