Pp. 211, paper. One of the most compelling defenses of community wide multicultural gatherings is that 'talking badly about the other' is best contained by 'learning from each other,' that positive, constructive words of healing tend to convert yesterday's 'nobody' into today's 'somebody.' Can the same argument be made with regard to Christian supersessive teaching about the Jews? That is a much more complicated question, not only because 'good' theology is harder to distinguish from 'bad.' Roots of scriptural anti-Judaism and ecclesiastical antisemitism, as we learned from centuries old 'teaching of contempt,' are traced to Christian beginnings and have influenced preaching, liturgy, and catechesis ever since.
Holy Root, Holy Branches: Christian Preaching from the Old Testament. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995