Has God Only One Blessing?
Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding

by Mary C. Boys

INTRODUCTION

Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25:19-34; 27:1-45) may be the most famous twins ever born. Their story is one of strife even from Rebekah’s womb. Jacob follows his brother into the world, gripping his heel—and in the end supplants him by gaining both his birthright and father’s blessing, the latter by deception. In a poignant plea, Esau asks Isaac, "Have you only one blessing? Bless me, me also, father!" The narrator then tells us: "And Esau lifted up his voice and wept" (Genesis 27:38).

One dimension of the problematic relationship of Jews and Christians has been our implicit premise that God has only one blessing to give—as if we were rivals for God’s love. Hence, the impulse to present Christianity as making Judaism obsolete.

Christian iconography of the Middle Ages provides a vivid image of rivalry in the figures "Synagoga" and "Ecclesia, " two representative women who graced many a cathedral, chapel and Book of Hours in sculpture, woodcut, ivory relief, painting and illumination from the ninth through the sixteenth centuries. Typically, they portray Ecclesia as standing erect and triumphant, symbol of the church of the victorious Christ. Synagoga, in contrast, is a conquered figure, symbol of Judaism’s defeat and obsolescence. God had only one blessing to give—and now Ecclesia, not Synagoga, received it.

Our history would have been radically different if we could have seen that God’s relationship with one tradition does not diminish the sacredness of the other’s:

The problem is not in God but in our own failure to understand that God loves different peoples equally. Learning how to be mature and healthy siblings celebrates the unique ways in which love is bestowed from above. Perhaps, as in Genesis, this new understanding can only come after sibling rivalries degenerate into fratricide, exclusion, or abandonment. But after the Shoah [Holocaust], are we not ready to reconceptualize our broader family through a more loving paradigm. Can we afford not to?¹

If God has more than one blessing, then we need to fashion new images of Synagoga and Ecclesia. The figures of Synagoga and Ecclesia commissioned for this book portray a new relationship between church and synagogue. Each exists in her own integrity and vitality. Both are recipients of God’s blessing, both true ways to God. They are partners in witnessing to and working for the reign of God.

The image of Jews and Christians as partners in witness and work is a new vision. It reverses nearly two-thousand years of church teaching and popular religiosity. This reversal, however, has only begun. The process of acquiring new information, framing more adequate understandings, and discerning the implications for transforming church life will be long and arduous. This book is a contribution to that process.

This reversal-in-process is not widely known. Yet many Christians are open to new thinking, if unsure of its ramifications. We value ecumenical and interreligious relationships to an extent unprecedented in our history, yet we don’t quite know what to do with them. Two examples illustrate this.

In announcing the rededication service of a recently renovated church, the pastor mentioned with enthusiasm that clergy and lay leaders from other Christian denominations, synagogues and mosques in the neighborhood would join parishioners that afternoon in celebrating the restored worship space. Yet in his homily he remarked, "For me, faith is faith in Jesus Christ—or it is not faith at all." Did he truly think the non-Christian guests whom he invited lacked faith?

A second example shows the division among Christians about the salvific character of other religions. An experienced pastor of a large congregation in the Reformed Church in America expressed his conviction that faith in Christ is not the sole means of salvation. "I believe the scope of God’s grace is beyond the Christian community," said Rev. Richard A. Rhem. In response, the regional church authority censured him in July 1995, judging him to be "in disrepute before Christ, the church and the world."²

Wherever we stand on this matter, the religious "other" increasingly lives nearby. We don’t need to go off to India or Japan or Israel to have a serious and sustained encounter with another tradition of faith. Many of us have only to turn to our neighbors. If we venture beyond our usual pathways, we will often meet holy and learned people whose practices and beliefs may seem simultaneously foreign and fascinating. Many of us have colleagues whose work alongside aboriginal peoples or Muslims or Jews or Hindus has opened up new perspectives and questions. Many are drawn to Eastern meditation practices that foster deepened awareness.

For Christians, one religious "other"—the Jewish people—has always been in our consciousness. There is simply no way to talk about Christianity without reference to Judaism. For much of our history we have disparaged Judaism, thinking somehow that the validity of our faith depended upon its supplanting the Jewish tradition from which we came.

Many Christians have thought of their tradition as the "fulfillment" of Judaism. Theologians refer to this perspective as "supersessionism": Christians have replaced the Jews as God's people because of the Jews' rejection of Jesus Christ.

Supersessionism has typically left little theological room for the continued existence of Jews. Early in the second century, Barnabas wrote that the Jews proved themselves unworthy of the covenant. Thus, "the Lord himself gave it to us, that we might become the people of his inheritance, by suffering for us."³ Melito, bishop of Sardis (in modern-day Turkey), in his second-century "Homily on the Pasch," accused the Jews of having committed "deicide." "The Master is insulted. God is murdered. The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand." Having "cast the Lord down, you were cast to the earth. And you—you lie dead, while he rose from the dead and went up to the heights of heaven."⁴

Among the more infamous formulations is Augustine’s conviction that "the Church admits and avows the Jewish people to be cursed." "After killing Christ," Augustine continues, the Jews "continue to till the ground of an earthly circumcision, an earthly Sabbath, an earthly Passover," and "they continue in impiety and unbelief."⁵ Such statements—the Jews lie dead, cursed, replaced--may shock our modern sensibilities, but we must not be naïve about the rhetoric that gave rise to what Jewish historian Jules Isaac rightly called the "teaching of contempt."⁶

To be sure, each of these claims by early Christian teachers arises in a particular context that requires our study. Yet these statements also reveal how history complicates the contemporary conversation between Jews and Christians. The past accompanies our every encounter, particularly since the Holocaust.

Contemporary church leaders, however, speak in dramatically different tones. Pope John Paul II, addressing a congregation in a synagogue in Rome in 1986, indicated his desire to "deepen dialogue in loyalty and friendship, in respect for one another’s intimate convictions, taking as a fundamental basis the elements of the revelation we have in common, as a ‘great spiritual patrimony.’"⁷ A group of Baptists in 1995 affirmed the "teaching of the Christian Scriptures that God has not rejected the community of Israel, God’s covenant people."⁸ Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland [Greek Orthodox] writes that the truth of one’s faith is lived "not as a condition of being wrapped up in an arrogant syndrome of superiority with regard to other religions, but rather as a responsible service of dialogue and witness."⁹

Christians as a whole, however, seem unaware of the dramatic changes implied in the pronouncements of modern church leaders. To put it bluntly, Jewish-Christian dialogue is peripheral in the church. Too few Christians seem to realize that this dialogue is at heart a matter of justice: discovering the right way in which we might understand the people from whom we came and with whom we are linked to the God of Abraham and Sarah so that we ourselves might walk our journey of faith in a more trustworthy fashion.

In large measure supersessionism is still deeply ingrained in the church because it is carried in a "story line"—what I will call the "conventional account of Christian origins"—presented in countless Christian education classes, sermons and theological works. It is alive and well whenever we hear claims such as the following:

• The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath. The God of the New Testament is a God of love.
• The Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah because they were waiting for a royal, glorious messiah, and could not recognize Jesus as a suffering messiah.
• The self-righteous and hypocritical Pharisees show how legalistic Judaism had become by Jesus’ day.
• The Jews were unfaithful to their covenant with God, so their covenant has ended. Christians are now the People of God.

Although the conventional account is told with varying degrees of depth and sophistication, it is powerful and pervasive. It offers a dramatic contrast of the loving Christ against legalistic Jews. It also provides an orderly picture of the beginnings of the Christianity, a clear rationale for the church’s displacement of the Jewish people, and an unequivocal warrant for Christian identity. In spite of the fact that textbooks no longer typically contain caricatures of Judaism, the conventional account still has a deep hold on the Christian imagination. It exists as the dominant paradigm, though often at an implicit level—most Christians simply haven’t encountered its critique and the construction of another account.

The conventional account is radically flawed. Moreover, the oppositional identity that it supports—defining oneself over against another’s beliefs—fails to foster a healthy understanding of Christianity in a pluralistic world. It is crucial that we Christians understand what gave rise to supersessionism, what’s wrong with it, what alternative story might replace it, and what difference that would make for how we Christians worship, use Scripture, preach and teach. In short, that’s what this book is about.

Modern scholarship reveals how impoverished the conventional account is. This scholarship, often highly technical, needs to be made accessible in narrative form. To remedy this, I propose to replace the conventional story line with an alternative narrative—a revised account of Christian origins— as the story line that should shape the narrative of Christian self-understanding. It is a more faithful interpretation of our history and a stimulus for a deeper understanding of Christian life.

This book, then, is a challenge to Christians to reflect on the conception of Judaism implicit in our understanding of Christianity. The view many of us inherited needs to be rethought in light of contemporary scholarship. Reformulating or recasting the way we understand ourselves in relation to Judaism will provide not only a truer portrait of Jews but also of ourselves.

The Pastoral Character of this Book
This is a book about how encounter with Jews and Judaism affects the way we think, teach and preach about Christian life. It originates from two convictions: (1) what we have learned from recent scholarship about the relationship between Jews and Christians summons us to teach and preach differently about Christianity; (2) this scholarship must be made accessible to those with educational responsibilities in the church.

Christians involved in educating in faith—whether as teachers, preachers, pastoral ministers or theologians—are the primary audience for this book. It also intended for the many Christians who live their faith with great conviction and seriousness and want to deepen in that faith. Both groups have typically not given much thought to the negative assessment of Judaism woven into their understanding of Christianity. This book raises awareness of the problem, traces its development, and proposes alternatives. While this is a book principally directed to Christians, it may also be of interest to Jews, both in situating the bitter legacy of anti-Judaism and in showing Ecclesia’s changing view of Synagoga.

This book, secondarily, is a case study in educating for religious particularism and pluralism. By analyzing in depth one instance of contemporary Christian engagement with the "other," it implicitly suggests ways we might more adequately educate Christians to participate in a religiously pluralistic society. Teaching in this fashion raises major questions for which at best we will find relatively adequate answers. It is no accident that theologian David Tracy pairs ambiguity with plurality. Though there are "few more important conversations than the dialogues among the great religions, " Tracy concedes that there are "few more difficult ones."¹⁰

However difficult such conversations may be, we must take part in them. Having at last realized that God has more than one blessing, we must widen the stakes of our tent in bold yet careful ways.

Clarifications
Several key terms, distinctions and scholarly conventions used throughout the book require explanation from the outset:

• Supersessionism, hardly a commonplace term, is nonetheless used with frequency here because of its prominence in the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Supersessionism, from the Latin, supersedere (to sit upon, to preside over), is the theological claim that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s people because the Jews rejected Jesus. Three interrelated claims are inherent in supersessionism: (1) the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament; (2) the church replaces the Jews as God’s people; and (3) Judaism is obsolete, its covenant abrogated.¹¹
• First Testament and Second Testament are generally used to designate "Old" and "New" Testament, respectively. This usage, increasingly used in academic circles, indicates a rejection of the supersessionist, promise-to-fulfillment developmental schema that reduces the First Testament to preparation for the Second.¹²
• Jewish-Christian dialogue is used broadly to refer to the varied ways in which Christians and Jews are involved in conversation. It includes biblical, theological and historical scholarship dealing with various aspects of relations between Jews and Christians, and the exchange in print and in person among scholars explicitly involved in "the dialogue." It encompasses formal dialogues sponsored by various denominational bodies, in which clergy are the predominant participants, and informal dialogues, in which Jewish and Christian laity are the main participants.
• Anti-Judaism and antisemitism are distinguished. This book focuses on the genesis and consequences of anti-Judaism, which is often but not necessarily a factor in antisemitism. (A theological or religious ignoramus can be an anti-Semite). Anti-Judaism refers to the attitudes, arguments, polemics and actions that flow from supersessionism. It is thus a theological term.¹³ One of the most prevalent themes of anti-Judaism is that Jews and Judaism represent what is bad in religion, such as self-righteousness, legalism, and ritualism. Christianity, in contrast, represents grace, love and true worship.¹⁴ The term antisemitism is a racist designation, coined in the late nineteenth century by Wilhelm Marr, to denote hatred of and hostility to Jews, regarded as an inferior Semitic ethnic group.
• Jews and Judaism are often paired. While this may seem repetitive, the pairing is intended to highlight concern with flesh-and-blood people and with a living religious tradition. The presence of Jews does a great deal to foster our awareness of anti-Judaism.
• Christianity, church, churches. Christianity embraces three major families: Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. The term church is generally used as synonymous with Christianity, particularly before the Reformation. "Churches" refers to the range of denominational designations within Christianity. When a specific denomination is intended, it is specified as such (e.g., Presbyterian church or Presbyterians).
• Jesus’ Renewal Movement and believers-in-Jesus refers to the community of Jesus’ followers in the decades immediately after the death-resurrection of Jesus. Terms like "Christians" or "the church" are anachronistic, since in the first century many in Jesus’ renewal movement were still connected to Judaism. The apostrophe (Jesus’) is used to indicated that this was not a movement fundamentally about Jesus ("the Jesus Movement") but about God’s reign.
• The use of the abbreviations b.c.e. and c.e. (Before the Common Era, Common Era) follows recent scholarly conventions. They indicate a more inclusive way of delineating epochs than do the more familiar b.c. and a.d.
• Shoah, Holocaust. The Hebrew term Shoah ("whirlwind" or "destruction") is generally used in referring to the Holocaust. A holocaust, a "whole burnt offering," was part of the system of sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem. Applying it to the Nazi genocide makes it problematic for many.¹⁵

Freeing Feminist and Liberation Theologies from Anti-Judaism
Illustrations of anti-Judaism from theological and pastoral works abound in these pages. Such illustrations are intended to show how pervasive this phenomenon is. They are intended neither to embarrass any author nor to accuse that writer of antisemitism. Particularly troublesome are examples that appear in liberation theologies, many of which are documented in these pages.¹⁶

I am sympathetic to liberation theologies, and indebted to its practitioners for their rereading of the tradition, commitment to the poor and minorities, and critique of Western, white, middle-class Christianity. I take exception, however, to the caricature of Judaism that has too often accompanied liberation theologies since their inception.¹⁷ Consequently, many people drawn to liberation theology because of their own commitments to the poor have unwittingly reinforced the teaching of contempt. Ironically—and therefore, perhaps most insidiously—this anti-Judaism has even infected liberation theologies in areas where there are few Jews, such as Asia.¹⁸

Feminist theologies, typically included under the umbrella of liberation theologies, have also been infected with anti-Judaism.¹⁹ Two tendencies are particularly notable, particularly in early feminist writings: (1) blaming Jews for patriarchy and biblical monotheism for the death of the goddess of matriarchal cultures; (2) contrasting Jesus with a patriarchal and misogynist Judaism.²⁰ In recent years, however, leading feminist theologians have worked to eradicate anti-Judaism.²¹ Christian feminist theologies progressively reflect more refined understandings of Jews and Judaism.

To speak personally, some people I most revere for their passionate involvement with those at society’s margins think of Jesus’ mission in ways I find troubling because of the injustice their understanding does to Judaism. As one deeply drawn to the mission of Jesus, I share liberation theologians’ conviction that Jesus’ vision summons those who walk in the way of discipleship to break through the walls of their own parochialism. Like them, I believe that Jesus’ inclusion of those on society’s margins challenges us to see God’s face in the poor, and to repent of our misuse of privilege. I stand with the liberation theologians in believing that discipleship entails carrying the cross, which means "taking up a solidarity with the crucified of this world—with those who suffer violence, who are impoverished, who are dehumanized, who are offended in their rights."²²

But commitment to the way of Jesus cannot come at the expense of deprecating the people from whom Jesus came. If, as I maintain in this book, the conventional account of Christian origins is based on a caricature of Judaism, then using it even for the ends of liberation theology cannot be justified. Theology will liberate to the extent that its truth leads to right action. Supersessionism has wrought tragic consequences. It is a matter of justice that we find ways of speaking about ourselves in relation to the Jewish people if we are to truly liberate.

The God who liberates has more than one blessing. It is time for Ecclesia to stand in right relation to Synagoga.

Notes

1. Shira Lander and Daniel Lehmann, "New Wine for New Wineskins," Religious Education 91/4 (Fall 1996): 527.
2. "Can Non-Believers Be Saved?" The New York Times (August 22, 1996), p. 1.
3. "The Epistle of Barnabas" in Bart D. Ehrman, After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 104.
4. Melito of Sardis, "Homily on the Pasch," in Richard A Norris, Jr., ed. and trans., The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), p. 46.
5. "Reply to Faustus the Manichean," in F. E. Talmage, ed., Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter (New York: Ktav and Anti-Defamation League, 1975), p. 30.
6. Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt (New York, 1964).
7. Pope John Paul II, in Eugene Fisher and Leon Klenicki, eds. Spiritual Pilgrimage: Texts on Jews and Judaism 1979-1995 (New York: Crossroad, 1995), p. 64.
8. "A Baptist Statement on Jewish-Christian Relations," The Alliance of Baptists, Vienna, Virginia, March 4, 1995. This statement contrasts sharply from that of the Southern Baptist Convention of June 13, 1996, which advocates proselytizing Jews. See chapter 14 for further documentation of church statements.
9. Metropolitan Damaskinos, "Truth and Tolerances in Orthodoxy," Immanuel 26/27 (1994): 238.
10. David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 92.
11. See Mary C. Boys, "A More Faithful Portrait of Judaism: An Imperative for Christian Educators," in David P. Efroymson, Eugene J. Fisher, and Leon Klenicki, eds., Within Context: Essays on Jews and Judaism in the New Testament (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), pp. 1-20.
12. No clear consensus may be found regarding terminology. First and Second Testament are hardly poetic terms, and may at first seem jarring. But they have fewer problem than the alternatives. Some Christians, seeking to counter supersessionism, have used "Hebrew Bible" " or "Jewish Scriptures" in place of "Old Testament." Both are problematic. What we have traditionally called the Old Testament includes Aramaic and Greek texts (particularly the Deuterocanonical books [Apocrypha]), not only Hebrew ones. So on linguistic grounds, Hebrew Bible is inaccurate. The term Jewish Scriptures implies that they belong only to the Jews—a claim the church rejected in the debate with Marcion in the second century. Jews generally use the acronym Tanakh to refer to their scriptures (Torah [Five Books of Moses], Nevi’im [Prophets] and Kethuvim [Writings]). See James A. Sanders, "First Testament and Second," Biblical Theology Bulletin 17/2 (1987): 4749.
13. See Susannah Heschel, "Anti-Judaism/Anti-Semitism," in Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson, eds., Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), pp. 12-13. Heschel defines anti-Judaism as the "tendentious denigration of Judaism for the purpose of elevating, through contrast, another religion or ethnic group" and antisemitism as a "system of oppression of Jews" (p. 12).
14. See Clark M. Williamson and Ronald J. Allen, Interpreting Difficult Texts: Anti-Judaism and Christian Preaching (London: SCM and Philadelphia: Trinity Press International), esp. pp. 1-6.
15. See Alice L. Eckardt and A. Roy Eckardt, "Studying the Holocaust’s Impact Today: Some Dilemmas of Language and Method," in Alan Rosenberg and Gerald E. Myers, eds., Echoes from the Holocaust: Philosophical Reflections on a Dark Time (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988): 432-442.
16. The use of the plural indicates that "liberation" is an umbrella term under which there are both common perspectives and varying approaches.
17. I have enormous respect for the "father" of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez. His Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1973) is the foundational text of the movement. It also graphically illustrates the problem. Gutiérrez claims that because of their infidelity to the covenant, God has ended the covenant with the Jews: ". . . infidelities of the Jewish people made the Old Covenant invalid, the Promise was incarnated both in the proclamation of a New Covenant, which was awaited and sustained by the ‘remnant’ as well as in the promises which prepared and accompanied its advent. The promise enters upon the ‘last days’ with the proclamation in the New Testament of the gift of the Kingdom of God" (p. 161, emphasis added). While it is true that much biblical scholarship on Second Temple Judaism appeared after the publication of his groundbreaking work, the 25^th anniversary edition of Theology of Liberation contains the same claim about God ending the covenant with the Jews. Moreover, Mexican-American theologian Virgilio Elizondo, as well as Latin American theologians Jon Sobrino, Juan Luis Segundo and Leonardo Boff, have not updated their thinking about Jesus’ relationship with Judaism. For an exchange about liberation theology and Judaism, see Boff, Ellis, Eckardt, et al., "Jews, Christians and Liberation Theology: A Symposium," Christian-Jewish Relations 21/1 (1988), pp. 1-60. Also Leon Klenicki, "The Theology of Liberation" A Latin American Jewish Exploration," American Jewish Archives 35 (1983): 27-39. A judicious reading of Latin American liberation theology may be found in John T. Pawlikowski, Christ in the Light of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1982), pp. 59-75.
18. Peter C. Phan, "The Holocaust: Reflections from the Perspectives of Asian Liberation Theology," Paper presented to "Humanity at the Limits: The Impact of the Holocaust Experience on Jews and Christians," University of Notre Dame, April 28, 1998. After documenting the anti-Judaism, Phan lists resources in these theologies for post-Shoah thinking.
19. Most feminist (or womanist or mujerista) theologies are done under the rubric of "liberation theology." For a critique of anti-Judaism in feminist thought, see Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994); Judith Plaskow, "Anti-Judaism in Feminist Christian Interpretation," in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ed., Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Introduction (New York: Crossroad, 1993), pp. 116-129; Susannah Heschel, "Anti-Judaism in Christian Feminist Theology," Tikkun 5/3 (1990): 25-29. See also "Special Section on Christian Feminist Anti-Judaism," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7/2 (1991): 95-133.
20. Susannah Heschel, "Anti-Judaism/Anti-Semitism," in Russell and Clarkson, eds., Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, p. 12.
21. Most notably, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. See In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York Crossroad, 1983; Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1984); Jesus, Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology (New York: Continuum, 1994). Cf. Ross Kraemer, "Review of In Memory of Her," Religious Studies Review 11/1 (1985): 7-8.
22. Boff, Passion of Christ, Passion of the World, p. 130. This book, however, is filled with inaccuracies about Second Temple Judaism. For example, Boff writes "Observance of the Mosaic law had become the very essence of postexilic Judaism. Sophistical interpretations and absurd traditions had caused the law to degenerate into a terrible slavery, imposed in the name of God. . . . the law had become a prison with golden bars. Instead of being an aid to human beings in the encounter with their fellows and with God, the law shut them off from both, discriminating between those whom God loved and those whom God did not love, between the pure and the impure, between my neighbor whom I should love and my enemy whom I may hate. The Pharisees had a morbid conception of God. Their God no longer spoke to human beings. The God had left them a Law (p. 13).

A review of the book.