A Double-Edged Sword, Part II c: Fulfillment Theology

Fulfillment Theology and Christian Anti-Judaism

Fulfillment theology is related to replacement theology--the doctrine that Christianity not only replaces Judaism but is its fulfillment--Christianity's direction and evolution the intended goal of Judaism. According to that traditional Christian theology, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old.

That's "Old Testament," not "Hebrew Scriptures" (or Tanakh--an acronym standing for "Torah, Prophets, and Writings," the Jewish name for the canon of the Hebrew bible). The Old Testament and the Tanakh can be seen as two different volumes. Even though they each include books of the same names, the Christian Old Testament is in a different order than the Tanakh, is based on the Septuagint, a Greek translation for Hellenistic Jews completed in the second century BCE, and has different interpretations and a different purpose--in large part pointing to the coming of Jesus and declaration of his followers as the new people of God.

At the beginning of the process the emerging theology was not "anti-Jewish." After Jesus' crucifixion, his followers had to make sense of what had happened, and they did so the same way other Jewish groups and sects of the time made sense of whatever happened to them: by going into their scriptures and seeking explanations and meaning. That meant the Hebrew scriptures--at that time, the only scriptures that existed. They used scripture to anchor and legitimate the evolving tradition, so that Jesus' last supper became in the new tradition either a Passover meal, or he himself represented the sacrificial lamb. Or, as in Luke, the good news needed to be seen as radiating outward from Jerusalem, so Jesus--or Paul--had to go out from Jerusalem. And so on. I'm being very cursory here, with just these few examples.

Early Jesus followers also often used a method of interpretation common in those centuries, a method characterized by viewing scripture as referring to the present day of the interpreters themselves and revealing secrets about those present times.

Back in Judea in those days all of those Jesus followers were Jews. Jews abstained from certain foods, celebrated the festivals and Shabbat (the Sabbath), and all except the Essenes worshiped in the Temple. (The Essenes were a monastic group who had withdrawn from general society because of religious and political issues. They are thought to have taken issue in particular when, in the prior dynasty before the Romans took over in 63 BCE, the high priesthood and the role of the king were combined in the same individual.) All the men were circumcised. Nevertheless, Jews were not Orthodox in today's sense. That did not exist yet. It was the sectarian age of Judaism, and multiple groups (of which several names would be familiar) were arguing with each other about Judaism, its practices and beliefs, and about politics. Some of the disputing groups were apocalyptic (expecting an imminent end to the age), thinking that they themselves were the true remnant (or green shoot) meant to survive and grow in the new age. Whether apocalyptic or not, though, their common practices and concerns made them all (except the Essenes) mainstream Jews to the extent that existed--Jesus and his followers included--even though mainstream Judaism at the time was hectic and sectarian and was no monolithic institution.

After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, after the end of Judea as a Jewish vassal state of Rome, and after the subsequent Jewish wars, the number of those original Jesus followers in that land was decimated, and those who were left were cut off from the Jesus movement as it was continuing to develop out in the Roman Empire.

According to Michael Cook (Modern Jews Engage the New Testament, 2008), the original religious direction of the Jesus followers failed to survive the upheaval of the fall of the Temple and the Jewish wars. Similarly, according to Bart Ehrman (Lost Christianities, The Great Courses, 2002), the Ebionites, early Christians whose traditions and beliefs were Jewish and who later were declared heretics, were closest to the original Jesus followers in their beliefs and practices. In other words, the tradition that eventually emerged as dominant and is today considered orthodox Christianity, unlike the tradition of Jesus and his original followers, was no longer Judaism.

That's why I have been saying "Jesus followers"--because for some decades there was no new religion. Jesus and his early followers were mainstream Jews in the sense I have described--not a new kind of Jews, not mutated Jews, not Hellenized Jews, not the first Reform Jews (which would not exist for almost two millennia), and not yet Christians.

As long as the vassal state of Judea existed and as long as the Temple stood, the center would hold. The Temple was central to the religion. For Jews, and for the subsequent Christianity, the Temple's fall was a knife edge dividing history. The only two sectarian groups to emerge were the Pharisees, who became the early Rabbis, and the Jesus followers. Each had to figure out how to survive now that the center was gone. From those two groups developed Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

It was as the Jesus movement leapfrogged out of Judea into another culture--the surrounding Hellenic (Greek-like) world of the Roman Empire--that anti-Judaism arose.

Paul has written in his letters, starting about 50 CE, that he had been a persecutor of the new movement, and that after his revelation, he had been both beaten by Romans and whipped by Jews. The traditional Christian belief is that he had previously persecuted Christians for blasphemy and subsequently was himself punished by Jews for blasphemy. That conclusion begs the question because by the time that conclusion was being made, Christians were picturing the scenarios through the lens of anti-Judaism. New scholarly ideas about what happened in both instances--when Paul was the "persecutor" and when he was on the receiving end--involve the Jesus followers having their own ideas about how gentiles were to be incorporated into the people and taking action along those lines, up to the point of disruption and trying to take the converts and potential converts ("God-fearers"). Interruption of services and stealing the converts would have indeed gotten a rise out of the other Jews. No one knows what actually happened, but the idea that Christians were persecuted for blaspheming by saying such things as that Jesus was God would be anachronistic--that's not something that the early Jewish Jesus followers had come up with nor did it even begin to enter the new Christian tradition until closer to the end of the first century of the common era.

The fuss was not over blasphemy; it was over how gentiles were to be brought in. I've heard some Christians going around saying how mean was the treatment of Christians in those days by "the Jews," who "tried to circumcise them." Well, no--they did not try to do that unless the gentile in question was wanting to convert. If you are a Christian and belong to a church now, imagine that an upstart group with a large outside following--composed of people of some other religion--begins insisting on new rules for themselves to belong to your church. Can you imagine their insistence becoming vociferous?

As revolutionary fervor flared in Judea and among Jews, heightening the sectarian tensions, the early Jesus followers out in the empire whose aim was to evangelize the Roman world had their own major interest in separation--more so after the revolts. They already had a huge image problem as followers of an individual whom the empire had executed for sedition. They did not need Jews' rebellious image rubbing off on them.

As those groups of Jesus followers became known as Christians, the followers of a new religion, with all the suspicion that entailed and persecution incurred from their pagan neighbors, their needs continued to emerge. For example, need for a scapegoat. Better to be followers of somebody killed by the Jews for blasphemy rather than executed by the Romans for sedition.

As is known, the Roman Empire didn't take well to new religions. While Jews were considered as peculiar and somewhat problematical for not worshiping at the Roman temples or bowing down to emperors and idols, the Romans liked old, and Judaism was an ancient tradition that therefore received respect and privileges. Now, here came Christians saying the scriptures--still the only ones that existed--were theirs, and that they themselves were the rightful inheritors of the Israelite tradition, yet they were not being recognized by Jews as Jews. Christians needed those scriptures and the tradition they represented to legitimate themselves to the Romans.

To survive--which probably meant to compete and proclaim their religious legitimacy--the early Christians needed to do more than show themselves to be a religion with roots. They also needed an expression of their revelatory experience which established meaning for the death of Jesus. Further, beleaguered by the Romans and perceiving themselves to be in an "us or them" situation vis-a-vis Jews, they looked to their foundational narratives to declare the scriptures theirs, themselves the rightful inheritors, and theirs the intended direction.

They had no power (that came later), but they already had the political and theological need to make Jews the first "left behinds." How great, then, the struggle with their consciences of these early Christians who were commanded to love yet found themselves in enmity and extreme cultural competition. How tempting then to declare their enemy hateful in the sight of God and deserving of what they got.

Centuries later that view was still deeply inculcated, so that even heroes such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stood up to Nazism, did not necessarily escape the limited view according to which Jews deserved what they were getting because they had not accepted the Christian religion.

Jesus' death would not necessarily have been personal to the Romans or the High Priestly (Sadducee) class whose role it was at that time, standing between Judea and Rome, to keep the peace and get rid of threats to it. According to Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, there were a number of other similar executions in those times--every single one crucified under the sign "King of the Jews." Those crucified men could run the gamut from revolutionary to religious. Although today we tend to think a political revolutionary would be a greater threat to Rome than a religious leader, Rome in those days may not have seen things that way, if, in Judea, that hotbed of unrest, it was religious insurrectionists--men who captured the imagination and inflamed popular sentiment--who were the threat. In short, it didn't matter who they were or what their ideology was if they seemed to be rousing up the people.

But an impersonal silencing of Jesus as an anonymous rabble-rouser would not have made a good story. It would not have been a convincing explanation of his importance nor served the political and theological needs of his followers in those times. No--in order to tell the communities of his followers who was good, who was bad, and who not to align with, the Christ-killer vendetta was attributed more and more widely--first to all the Jewish leaders (paradoxically, even the Pharisees, most like Jesus in their ethics and beliefs, their portrayal in the New Testament notwithstanding), and eventually to "the Jews" en masse.

As everybody knows, that vendetta has not died out and remains in many people's views of reality and in wide theological and political use to this very day, official pronouncements or no.

In those polemic times, Christian leaders and writers of the New Testament turned the Hebrew scriptures upside down via the Christian Old Testament, justifying themselves and condemning Jews. They proclaimed themselves the inheritors, proclaimed Judaism as superseded, replaced, and fulfilled in themselves, proclaimed themselves as the real Israelites and God's chosen people.

With the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century, Christianity gained the power with which to enforce their theology--Constantine's Sword, according to James Carroll's book title.

To make sure the status quo remained locked into place, it became necessary over many centuries to prevent contact and communication between Jews and Christians--to make Jews into untouchables, put them beyond the pale or behind ghetto walls, to avoid "harm" to Christian people. In that way a state of constant vigilance ensued, requiring repeated testifying to the prevailing views, repeated testifying to how Christians must read and view the Old Testament, and to belief in Jews as "Christ's enemies" and in the triumphal victory of Christianity. Great energy expended lest the "reversible image" flip back and the believer glimpse another view!

One religious group gaining earthly power, turning the group from which they originated out of their own tradition and attempting with all their strength to replace them, suppress them and get rid of as many as they could. If it hadn't actually happened in history and wasn't in some ways still going on it would seem unbelievable--a new fantasy series.

Not all Christians nor all Christian groups still adopt that stance, of course. But as "Jews" became the name for evil within the Christian tradition, it became possible to successively project that name back outward on whatever people was being seen as the evil du jour, then switch the defining evil qualities du jour back onto "Jews." I think no one can proclaim very convincingly that the problem of Jew hatred is gone.

The problem, of course, is not Christianity. The problem is not the proclamation of Christ to the Christian people. The problem is that this good thing, making it possible for millions to find God and be closer to God, still to great extent goes hand in hand with proclaiming Jews as Jesus' opposite and as suitable targets for blame and harm. More about how religion--not just Christianity!--works in establishing such targets, in the next section.

Is it possible to think about these things yet retain one's faith? I say yes, more so, to strengthen it.

As a Jew, and considering all that has happened, how wonderful to be here and able to write and talk about it!

What do you say? Jews are out in the world, now, along with everybody else. Will talking to Jews make Christians lose their faith? Is it still necessary for Christians to hear about and proclaim the error of "the Jews" in the present day and age?

Postscript:
I keep hearing reference by some Christians these days to the early Christians' being "kicked out of the synagogue." Focus on that may enable those who no longer buy into the Christ-killer motif to still celebrate early Christianity as a triumph of the social-justice Jesus over Jewish leaders and the Temple, thus justifying traditional narrative and liberation theology alike. The time in question is the late first century CE, when Judaism was trying to regroup and survive after the destruction of the Temple. The story from some Christian perspectives goes on to insist the Jews expelled the Christians for blasphemy, coldly throwing them on the tender mercies of the Romans, who could then condemn them for "atheism."

The problem with this story is that it just kicks the can down the road, so to speak. Maybe "the Jews" didn't kill Jesus for blasphemy; they just expelled Christians from their synagogues for blasphemy.

First of all, Jesus followers were not expelled during his ministry, and that notion is considered anachronistic. Second, scholars used to believe there was a Council of Jamnia (Yavne) toward the end of the first century at which the separation of Christianity from Judaism became a fait accompli, with Christians expelled from synagogues as referred to in the Gospel of John. Yavne was the gathering place of the Rabbis in post Temple-destruction days which served as a new center for Judaism and its recovery and preservation.

Nowadays, however, it seems up in the air whether there was any "Council of Jamnia" at all. At any rate, the final division of Christians and Jews was complex and did not occur in one fell swoop or according to some Council of Nicea-like accords. If it had, there would not have been any need for the book of Hebrews (thought also to be from the end of the first century), telling Jesus followers that they didn't need the synagogue and to leave Jews and Judaism behind, or the writings of John Chrysostom, an important Church Father of the fourth century who railed against Christians who still were worshiping and celebrating festivals with Jews in synagogues.

Even today I know a smart, sweet rabbi who retired to Atlanta. He teaches in the senior citizens program of a local university and has a coterie of retired Episcopalian and other Christian ladies who followed him to lunch-and-learn at my synagogue--and they were still not expelled!

This post was begun October 10, 2011, and completed December 26, 2011. I should say also that it reflects not the conclusions of any Jewish group or denomination, but my own conclusions--which are a work in progress.

A Double-Edged Sword, Part II b Supersessionism

Supersessionism

All the major mainstream Christian denominations have officially come out against supersessionism, or Replacement Theology, the traditional Christian position that the New Testament, or New Covenant, has nullified and replaced God's covenant with the Israelites. According to the doctrine of supersessionism, in other words, Christians have replaced Jews as God's chosen people, and are themselves the new Israelites.

A couple of years ago I read The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus by the now late Peter Gomes with the Methodist Sunday school class I have been attending with my husband. The Rev. Gomes railed against the notion that God's covenant, as he understood covenant, had been made with one people alone. So it did sound like he was all for wresting the covenant away and distributing it to Christians. He may also have meant that Christianity deserved that designation since according to a typical Christian understanding Christianity is universal--for everyone--while Judaism is tribal and particularistic. So I asked the church's pastor, who confirmed that modern mainstream churches do not advocate supersessionism.

Peter Gomes wrote in the same book that "antisemitism" is the original sin of Christianity, yet did not recognize his recommended divesting Jews of God's covenant and distributing it to Christians as a problematic aspect of anti-Judaism. (I follow Amy-Jill Levine in using the term "anti-Judaism" in this regard. Most of the difficult concepts I'm wrestling with here are not racial in nature, but, rather, against Judaism, the religion. I have met very few antisemites, although it is the case that anti-Judaism can provide the fertile soil for antisemitism.)

It strikes me that, like Peter Gomes, most Christians don't recognize supersessionism when it's right in front of their faces.

If you say Jesus came to reform Judaism--to get the practice of Judaism back to what it was supposed to be--you are saying the errant way needed to be replaced by a correct way. Same, when you say Judaism was the wrong way and needed to be replaced by the Christian Way. If you say some were blind and those who chose "correctly" could see, that's another example. And, similarly, there is all the talk about those who rejected Jesus compared to those who chose him.

In other words, supersessionism is not just some abstract concept which can be disavowed for the sake of political correctness and will go away. The notion that Christianity was a historical improvement over Judaism is implicit in all of the above formulations and how many more!

Another part of supersessionism, then, is that Judaism needed--deserved--to be replaced. Has that belief left Christianity? Or even the corollary that Christians should help the process along? Maybe in the ivory towers but not down here in the trenches. Ripples from the impact of this doctrine continue to emanate outward.

If the continuing impact of supersessionism within our culture is hard to see, that is the result of being in a culture which is so thoroughly dominated by the Christian hegemony. If you live in a culture where you are in the majority, surrounded by like-minded people who see things the same way in that regard, you don't question it, because you don't see it. You don't see the myth you're in--so says the psychologist James Hillman, disciple of Jung and later creator of his own system, archetypal psychology. That is not to imply that minority members of the culture automatically have greater clarity although they may at least sense that something is wrong--or worse, bear its brunt.

It's important to understand, though, that I'm not talking just about those Americans who consider themselves religious or Christian. I'm speaking of all of us brought up with a certain accepted way of seeing things, which seems to be "reality," the way things are.

In other words, what I'm saying is that, being in that box, we will tend to think of things a certain way. We will see the world a certain way. And if you are a member of the majority culture, what is the likelihood you would have occasion even to think to yourself, "This is theology?"--instead of (if you notice it at all), "This is the way things are--and should be."

Now, you may be thinking, well, that's true of everybody, Jan, and you, too, have your way of seeing the world. That's just natural and that's what religions do. Not exactly. Being from a minority group I at least recognize there are other ways of viewing reality, whereas if I'm in the dominant culture I don't have to know that. Or, at least, I don't have to ascribe validity to those other views.

Being from the dominant culture, don't people in some sense feel that their views have "won?" Jesus acted (or God acted through Jesus) to change history. God was a wind blowing through history in the person of Jesus to blow in change and the new and better way. People who don't see that are just failing to recognize what happened, right? So then they (the dominant group--here, Christians) feel they can say critical things about people in the time of Jesus who did not accept and follow him (as well as about those who didn't later and don't now accept truth the way they see it).

There is a certain literalism in that.

Being in the dominant group they don't have to accept that the inferior picture of Judaism in their stories is not Judaism per se but a Christian depiction designed to justify their own beliefs. Or that there was not even just one monolithic Judaism at the time Jesus walked the earth. Rather there were multiple Judaisms, of which Jesus and his disciples were one small sect, all arguing with each other even as we argue with each other today. As James Carroll (author of Constantine's Sword) said in his August 2011 lecture at Emory University: Jesus arguing with other Jews--how Jewish!

Being in the dominant group, Christians assume that Jesus came to change things and did. They do not see that they are calling the change in the world via history by the name of Jesus. God revealed, God acted in the world, wisdom arose in the world, there was love, there was salvation--and to Christians all of that is Jesus.

Other people call God's action via history by other names and recognize revelation through other events. For the Christian, God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and for others not to recognize that which for Christians is fundamental reality represents unimaginable blindness and inhuman stubbornness. For the Jew God's revelation had already intersected with history over a millennium earlier, at Sinai, "a moment beyond time, a revelatory/apocalyptic event. The eternal and transtemporal God for a moment crashes into linear, temporal history, transforming it totally. All the rules are suspended in that great mystical moment; past, present, and future are fused into eternal presence..." (Arthur Green, Radical Judaism). For Jews, infinity had already exploded into history and become incarnate in the hearts of people. So, no, it was not stubbornness. It was not blindness. For Jews God had already entered reality.

I'm saying Jews didn't--and don't--need Jesus. Christians do.

For Jews that's just a matter-of-fact statement. For Christians it's loaded, as if I'm saying Jews are ungodly, or Jews don't need the love of God, since for Christians Jesus is so tied in to those concepts. Christians have been taught Jesus as the name of revelation, Jesus as the love of God, Jesus as salvation since they were babies (e.g., "Jesus loves me, yes, I know...") . Frequently in hymns and liturgy the term "God's people" is equated with Christians. In newspaper articles on current religious topics, prominent preachers speak as though "the faithful" or "believers" are Christians--and as though everybody else is an atheist.

That way of thinking is the result of centuries of teaching Christianity over and against Judaism, making odious comparisons and thereby (1) telling Christians that they are on the right path and (2) warning them not to stray. All that teaching is what has led to the common understanding in the general population of Judaism as a system of ethical but legalistic practice and rigid rule following. And, no, those teaching Christians about Judaism usually are not experts on Judaism. What they usually are expert at is portraying Judaism according to Christian theological needs--often as a foil for Christianity.

Denigrating Judaism has implications. Many Christians deplore the use of the Qur'an by others to denigrate Islam. But if they, themselves, do the same thing to Judaism via the Hebrew Scriptures, how can they expect their voices to be heard over the general cultural din of people claiming to know what is good and how to behave? If they triumphally cherry pick the Old Testament to disparage Judaism, their voices will not ring out when they criticize other Christian groups for doing the same to Islam.

Celebrating Christianity over against Judaism also nurtures a paranoia about other faiths, most notably Islam. Even though, on one hand, negative teachings about Judaism may seem for some Christians to be signaling solidarity with Muslims, considering today's politics, ultimately a population that talks bad about Jews in church is going to end up wondering how they themselves are talked about in mosques.

Would it even be possible to practice Christianity without celebrating anti-Jewish comparisons and stories and, instead, simply for the excellence of Christianity?

In talking as I do I ask you to realize that I am talking about Christianity as I have too often been confronted by its practice and teaching today and the by ripple effect of that in society, and am not criticizing all Christian theologians and saints, or their lives and works. Also, I am focusing primarily on mainstream, liberal Christianity. I think my parents sought to protect and insulate me from Christian anti-Judaism by teaching that only ignorant and prejudiced people would hold anti-Jewish views. Therefore the confrontation I'm talking about did not occur until I heard anti-Judaism from my professional and liberal peers. I have heard it from them and I have heard it being specifically taught to them.

At one of my study groups (this one being based at a Unitarian church and focusing on the historical Jesus and other history of that time), a Christian participant allowed as how Christians don't really have any idea what Judaism is. I think that is true for most Christians. Popular writers on religious matters frequently don't get it and sometimes even Christian scholars don't get it, or don't get aspects of it. The comment in the study group was a high point for me because, instead of going on and on about what Judaism supposedly is, now and historically, and its deficits in comparison to Christianity, he admitted the absence of knowledge. That could be the beginning of wisdom.

(Begun 9/25/11 and posted 11/13/11)

A Double-Edged Sword, Part II a: Introduction

Introduction

You may wonder by what right I'm getting ready to talk about Christianity again. The short answer is that Christians talk about Jews. And the way they talk reflects beliefs and presumably controls attitudes. That's what stimulated in me the need and desire to respond. Others have done it before and no doubt better, since I'm not a professional when it comes to religion. And it's easier said than done.

Pulling my head out of the sand where I hid like the proverbial ostrich, I set out on this journey in the fall of 2007, on Labor Day, to be specific. When I first had a chance to interact with Christians about religion, they would occasionally say stunning things to me. I should make it clear that from childhood my parents had inoculated me against epithets or being told I was going to hell for not being a Christian or the like. These comments were not those. These were comments by my peers that I could not summarily dismiss. I couldn't believe people believed these things and didn't mind saying them, sometimes directly to me, and I couldn't respond satisfactorily. I could register shock or get angry, and that was about it. I've spent the time since then learning and thinking and talking, so that eventually I could begin to answer. And also I just need to post my observations, from time to time along the way.

I'm not going to talk about Jesus (as long as he's not tied up with talking about Jews). If you worship God via Jesus (or as Jesus), or get closer to God via Jesus, or follow Jesus, then that's fine with me. I hope I would defend your right to do so. It's when you explain your doing so by talking about Jews that I may respond.

A rabbi recently said to me that he received a lot of emails and complaints because another rabbi had written an inflammatory sermon about Islam. And he felt a responsibility to respond and correct the erroneous perspective. He gently advised that everyone had the responsibility to make their own religion better and leave other peoples' religions alone. But I have heard numerous inflammatory remarks and perspectives about Jews and Judaism from Christians, both in and out of the pulpit. Such comments even come from people who were raised in the Christian faith tradition and earnestly believe they have left it. And not much of anybody complains. No one speaks up or seems to assign it any importance. To the contrary, people may expect it. They might be surprised if anyone objected and might think doing so would be anti-Christian. It is so ordinary that for anyone even to notice is unusual. So I respectfully disagree with the rabbi.

Also, even though it's considered rude or impolite to speak up on such matters, or even to mention being a Jew, silence is also noticed, and it's considered not so good either--a sign of cowardice or shame. Either way, being silent or speaking, is seen in the light of the unrepealed "Don't ask, don't tell" of being a Jew in America. In a majority society whose traditional theology assigns guilt to Jews, my conclusion is it's better to figure this out and speak!

I've had several Christians say to me that they have never heard a word of anti-Judaism. A lady said exactly that during a recent interfaith discussion, only to belie her claim afterward by reference to the evildoing of the Pharisees! Her point reduces, then, to never having heard a word of anti-Judaism that she doesn't unquestioningly accept--all such words having been under her radar.

A Christian layperson recently opined that certain Christian texts or study documents are written for Christians, so others have no business with them. Well, it's a free country still. Books that are published are open to any reader; so are documents that are posted and passed around. And, as I started out by saying, Christians themselves spend a lot of time reading and talking about texts that were written for Jews, as well as about Jews. Certainly, turn and turn about is only fair.

To paraphrase Irving Greenberg (For The Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter Between Judaism and Christianity), my position is that Christianity is too important to be left entirely to Christians. One reason for saying that is that people can often be too used to the status quo to really notice what goes on. On the other hand, what if on some level the Christians in the pews and pulpits are not, after all, oblivious and do notice anti-Judaism? For example on several Martin Luther King days it was gone from the worship services. If they didn't notice it how could they take it out? And when it is present, for each hearer who responds positively on some level, there are those who do not, at least not on all levels, which can contribute to their dropping out--a point made by James Carroll in his Emory lecture series this fall.

The bottom line is that whatever age this is, and whether the Messiah has come or not, there is only one history and one "now." Whatever we call these times, they belong to all of us. We all are witnesses. That's the authority upon which I speak.

Jews are a loaded symbol in a Christian-dominated society. The negative symbol is well known and occurs because in traditional Christian theology we are cast as the bad guys who didn't accept Christ. But the positive symbol also occurs, since we also figure as those who are Jesus' fellow Jews, those closest to him and most like him. In writing this, though, I want to be a person, not a symbol--as Martin Buber might say, an "I" to the reader's "thou," and a "thou" to your "I."

Am I going to write on this subject of Christianity vis-à-vis Judaism forever? I hope not. This is my last planned installment, which because of its length I'll be breaking down into several sections. I have been working on this for almost a year. In fact, this last section was my first subject, but it turned out I had to write Part I first, before I could get to this section, and then Part Ia, on attitudes toward Israel, and then the book review of Abuelaish's I Shall Not Hate. This is the most difficult section of all, because I'm trying to learn and think as I am writing.

(Posted November 6, 2011)

Political Correctness--What Your Mother Taught You

If you look on Wikipedia you can find a whole long essay on the origins of the term political correctness, what it is for the Left and for the Right, and its satirical usage. But what I am focusing on as political correctness is what your mother taught you: Be nice, don't make fun of anybody, don't single them out or put them down, be inclusive. If that's what I mean by it, then what do I not mean by it, and what's outside its limits? What's wrong with it? What if people single themselves out?

So, what I think our mothers taught us, at least in the American south, at least back in the 1950s, roughly speaking, is to be nice. If somebody is of a different race, ethnic group, or nationality, don't point it out. Of course, that includes not using epithets or pejoratives. Don't call names. Don't mention people's differences. Fat or thin, short or tall, black or white, Jew or Christian, Catholic or Protestant, Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist. I didn't include Muslim because in the '50s there weren't any around yet, but you get the pattern.

Although earlier it was not genteel to use certain language, possibly the notion of niceness in particular was part of post-World War II mentality. Grievous ills happened because of differences in WWII, and afterward there was a dominant aura of humility because of that. Then somewhat later we had the Civil Rights movement. In that era, too, the dominant voice of conscience led us to be on the right side of progress--not to repeat or rehearse past wrongs.

Eventually that dominant voice was accused of being an orthodoxy that restricts any criticism of minority groups and permits badmouthing of the majority only. PC/non-PC morphed into Left-Right; talk-show hosts complained that nowadays only white males could be insulted; conservatives howled about the hated rich, and so on. Be nice to the rich and powerful-- "reverse PC," I might call it. But reverse PC misses the point that the rich and powerful are by definition not a downtrodden or maligned minority. It can become an excuse for reactionary thinking--for starters, reverting to the same stereotypes about the minority du jour that had preceded the societal corrective. Resorting to such stereotyping or name-calling is not the antidote to political correctness.

In a still broader sense, "PC" became anything you couldn't say in polite society, hence the erstwhile Bill Maher show Politically Incorrect and its focus on the controversial.

But I want to come back to politically correct as being nice and as what your mother may have taught you. Looking through that lens I am going to limit my focus.

Recently there was little-noticed news from Norway that a lesbian married couple heroically saved some of Anders Breivik's potential victims. Was political correctness the reason those ladies didn't become big news? I don't think so, not in my sense of being nice (and maybe fair and kind, as well), because in that case it was the sensibilities of the majority that might be offended--reverse PC, as I called it above. News outlets killed the story not in order to be nice but because they decided it wouldn't sell to the majority. It didn't conform to the presumed majority narrative, so "let there be darkness" on the subject--thus effectively acting to maintain a cultural blind spot.

When Dennis was teaching Sunday School at the Unitarian church, Jesus was characterized in the prepared literature not as just a Jew but as a "Palestinian Jew." Well, there wasn't a Palestine in Jesus' time. Judea was renamed Palestine by the Roman emperor Hadrian after he suppressed the third Jewish revolt in 135 CE. No, the Philistines were not today's Palestinians. Islam arose in the 7th century CE, and Arab migration followed. But most Unitarians had their origin in the Christian tradition and also are liberals. So calling Jesus a Palestinian Jew may be another example of not offending the sensibilities of the majority--not what I'm referring to as PC in the sense of niceness (and, as I will get to below, maybe fairness and kindness).

So, in my sense, PC emphasizes niceness--not hurting the feelings of those who are different. What's wrong with that is if it stops there--just being nice. I can refrain from using epithets and derogatory names but still maintain the belief in someone's inferiority. Did our mothers want us not to think evil about the other, or did they just want us to be nice? Did they want us to be good or just look good? Let's hope we're evolving toward the former--even if we're not all the way there yet.

Silence alone could imply that what one remains silent about is not good and not to be spoken out loud, in other words, a perpetual "Don't ask, don't tell." I could refrain from calling names, and yet by my silence I could be deciding what gets the light and to what we shall remain blind. By where I permit silence to reign I could be choosing what societal narrative will prevail--and who will benefit as a result and who will bear its brunt. By my silence I myself could be participating in the "tyranny of the majority" while pretending otherwise. So the problem of PC is that it doesn't go far enough. Fairness, goodness, and kindness demand more--openness, inner struggle, honesty, courage. Being nice will get us part of the way there, but don't stop with that.

I want to talk about one more point. What if a member of a certain group does want to be recognized, or to point out one of their own? Something Dennis and I have struggled with is the fact I sometimes want to know if somebody is a Jew--say, some political figure or celebrity. Why in the world would I want to know that? To know who is one of me? Who to be proud of, or, maybe, ashamed of? Dennis wanted to claim his mother told him it wasn't nice to notice such things. I insisted she meant not to notice them for the purpose of putting people down. She was a very kind person and surely she wouldn't have regretted my having a sense of belonging, or maybe being affiliated with someone I could be proud of. Think African Americans and Jackie Robinson. Or the first black winner of the heavyweight title. Surely we shouldn't begrudge that.

But what about when I hear Christians celebrating their tradition in the public sphere? For example, one of my favorite fun fiction authors, Alexander McCall Smith, has begun defending Christian mores in recent books and even gratuitously put the subject of a sermon into one. Sometimes I've had a reaction of distaste, as though right away this is more tyranny of the majority and shouldn't be brought up. But, no--that is not kind or fair. With respect to me, Christianity may be "the majority," but mainstream Christianity--and in fact, faith traditions in general--can be besieged entities these days and in need of defense. Nor is McCall Smith trying to deep-six awareness of other traditions. I remember there was a little discussion in one book of an individual who had converted to Judaism and found a new world opening to him. In another book there was a philosophical society that was described as convening an annual meeting in Tel Aviv. Let him celebrate!

I Shall Not Hate, by Izzeldin Abuelaish--A Review and Discussion

In my previous post, I recommended I Shall Not Hate, A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, by Izzeldin Abuelaish, as helpful in viewing Israel-Palestine. I had heard him speak twice but hadn't read his book. Now I have, and here are some comments.

First, Dr. Abuelaish tells the truth about a number of areas that are frequently subject to political distortion. For instance he does not try to deny the reality of terrorism. It sounded like he was going to take that tack early on (p. 21), where he says a checkpoint's purpose is to "screen for what Israel called terrorists." Subsequently, though, he refers directly to terrorism without denying or justifying it. He doesn't try to deny that the events of September 11, 2011, constituted terrorism. He talks directly about the sponsoring of suicide bombers by Hamas. He deplores the election of Hamas, saying the hand of Gazans was forced by elections pushed on them too soon. He does not equivocate about calling what went on in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah civil war. He openly deplores the shooting and maiming of PLO security men in Gaza by Hamas. Those PLO workers, he says, were not outside agitators. They were sons and relatives and friends who had jobs as security personnel. He is also fairly honest and direct as to past wars. He does not try to claim that Israel started the 1967 war to gain territory. He does say Israel's cabinet voted to launch an offensive, but not without describing what the Arab countries had done first: how Nasser had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel, and how the other Arab countries massed behind Nasser. He is also straightforward about Jordan and Egypt's pre-1967 goal of extending their own territory and ruling the Palestinians rather than setting up an independent Palestinian state. He is fairly direct about the frustration and inhumanity of checkpoints whether manned by Israelis, Egyptians, or Palestinians themselves. He is highly critical of Hamas as well as of Israeli leadership.

It may appear that by enumerating the above points I am setting a low bar for truth and honesty, but these are points frequently denied by those who wish to avoid any appearance of legitimizing Israel or even recognizing the humanity of Jews. I have had someone try to tell me, for example, that Israel started the 1967 war to seize more land. Some news outlets routinely refer to terrorism against Israeli citizens as "so-called terrorism" or "an understandable reaction." So when Dr. Abuelaish does not do that but rather is upfront on such matters, he is signaling that he has not set out to write a polemic or otherwise justify a preconceived narrative.

He also totally lauds what goes on in Israeli hospitals--how people are treated according to their needs, whether Jews, Christians or Muslims--or whether Palestinians. That good treatment included the repair of maimed knees Palestinians had suffered as a result of the civil infighting and retaliation. In fact, it's from the medical model at its best, which Dr. Abuelaish experienced in Israel, that he has derived his vision of Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement. He describes how he has made lasting friends among fellow medical staff in Israel, and how they advanced his career, supporting him in arranging internships and circumnavigating the considerable obstacles, and how they sustained him in all difficulties. He freely contrasts those experiences with the corruption in Gaza hospitals, where, he says, how you are treated depends on who you are and who you know, not on what you need.

On the other hand, the first 85 or 90 pages of the book are a lengthy report of what the Palestinians have suffered. Although the author says he finds it more helpful to look forward than back, many pages of his book are devoted to looking back, and primarily from the Palestinian point of view. The effect is such that he gives the impression of perceiving his mission as one of advocacy as well as peace.

In case it seems that I only think he is sometimes one-sided because I am a Jew and not a Palestinian, here is an example that has nothing to do with Israel or the political plight of Palestinians. In describing his family, he tells how his father left his first wife for a second woman he married after he fell in love with her. He explains that the norm among Muslims in his community is not to have a lot of wives at once, but that if a marriage is not working out, the husband will replace the first wife with a second. The author is describing the difficulties of being the children of the second wife, and how the grandparents preferred the first wife and those other grandchildren. His words express continuing resentment about how he and the rest of the second family were treated. He tells how his father never divorced the shunned first wife. My point is that even as an adult writing this book, the author expresses no empathy for the first wife's predicament of being tethered to a man who had rejected her but never divorced her so she could also seek happiness with someone else. The impression is that his continuing resentment has eclipsed any empathy he might feel. At least with the Israeli-Palestinian situation he is actively struggling, even though his line between advocacy and peace may be fuzzy at times.

A case in point is his clinging to the right of return. He discounts the argument that Israel is too small a country to accept the Palestinian refugees back, since "Israel has plenty of room to bring Russians, Argentinians, Ethiopians, and others of the Diaspora to the Promised land" (p. 214). But he fails to mention the Jewish immigrants or their parents or grandparents who were forced out of their former countries or fled debilitating persecution both before and after the founding of the state of Israel and who have no right of return.

He describes his family as having been landowners who left their home in 1948, thinking it was just for a little while until Israel was overcome and they could return. Instead they ended up becoming refugees. Many other Arab families stayed put, neither leaving on their own like Dr. Abuelaish's family nor being driven out, so that they are now Israeli citizens making up 20% of the population. Krista Tippett (On Being) has included reports on them with her stories on the region from this April and May 2011.

Families in similar situations during those decades who got to make such decisions had to do the best they could with the information they had. In Israel, Muslim and Christian Palestinians who stayed were the winners. In the 1930s, Jews who made the decision to stay in Europe met disaster. In still other situations in the world around that time families and individuals got no choice at all--witness the brutal events surrounding the partition of India and Pakistan where those people got no right to stay and no right of return.

There is a long section toward the end of Izzeldin Abuelaish's book on Operation Cast Lead and the killing of his daughters. After the war began, the media had no access, and so Dr. Abuelaish made himself available for phone interviews on Israeli television. So I expect he has already said everything on TV that he later writes in his book. Since there was no visual, only audio, I imagine his picture on TV as his words were broadcast, just as I have seen for stories on American TV from Sudan and other places where there is a reporter but no camera. He writes about the tank driver who advanced on his and other homes but retreated after the author got a call through to friends in Israel to tell what was happening, and about the eventual explosion that killed his daughters and niece in their bedroom. His call for help in the aftermath was also broadcast live. The newscaster who took the call believes that dramatic interview changed the Israeli public's perception and led to the cease-fire that occurred shortly thereafter.

He also describes how bad he felt later when an Israeli woman accused him of its being his own fault, that he must have been harboring terrorists. I think it can be said that one group's telling a second group that their suffering is deserved entails the dehumanization of that other group--no matter who they are.

When people expected him to demand reprisals or otherwise urged hate on him, Dr. Abuelaish says it's a disease to "use hatred and blame to avoid the reality that eventually we need to come together (p. 188)." He goes on to ask which Israelis he was supposed to hate. The ones who gave him work as a teenager? The doctors who struggled to heal his other relatives who were injured? Babies he had delivered? "Hatred is an illness. It prevents healing and peace." He says the loss of his daughters even strengthened his peace orientation but that at the same time he is also consumed with the craziness of what happened. He says anger is a sign he doesn't accept what happened, and it spurs him on to make a difference. But he says one must choose for anger not to spiral into hatred and revenge, which will only "drive away wisdom, increase sorrow, and prolong strife." He espouses non-violence. He says that truth has to be pursued through talking with and respecting each other. If the leaders won't, it's up to the people.

In the words of the author's friend, the Israeli physician Zeev Rotstein, Palestinians entering Israeli hospitals for treatment say they never imagined Jews were human. They have been incited from birth and say they were expecting monsters. If it's necessary for people on both sides to get to know each other, that's part of what has to be overcome.

Izzeldin Abuelaish says people have to have the will to solve the problem instead of keeping hate and anger front and center. He encourages kavod (respect) and shivyon (equality), and for that, people do have to know each other. He says that Israelis and Palestinians are alike. He hosted Israelis in his home or the homes of friends prior to the second intifada. "We'd have coffee and sweets together--all of us, the Israelis and the Palestinians. We'd discuss and argue. These get-togethers brought home to me how similar we are when it comes to socializing. We're expressive. We talk loudly, and the decibel level goes up with the intensity of the conversation. The more interesting it gets, the noisier we become. That's how Palestinians and Israelis are."

The author also comments, "I feel I cannot rely on the various spokespersons who claim they act on my behalf. Invariably they have some agenda that doesn't work for me." On February 17, 2011, I went to hear him speak. The presentation was sponsored by a literary group but took place at a church whose sanctuary could accommodate the large audience. The question-and-answer period afterward was hijacked by a group who used the time to speak out against Israel in a one-sided way, to which Dr. Abuelaish reiterated his mantra that though anger can be appropriate, hate is not. This book could never be fitted into the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel agenda because of the author's emphasis on people's knowing each other and respecting the humanity of all.

Because of my criticism of Dr. Abuelaish's attitude toward his father's first wife, I would like to make clear that, like many other writers on the subject of peace and reconciliation, he sees women as central to the establishment of peace and democratic progress. He says that where you can easily find 1000 men in favor of war you would be unlikely to find five women. He is for the reform of Arab society in its attitude toward woman and opportunities for them.

Finally his courage in writing this book can't be overestimated, given the danger to moderates who speak out.
(Post completed on June 12, 2011.)

A Double-Edged Sword, Part 1a

An Emory student organization erected an anti-Israel display during Hanukkah last year in early December. I didn't see it on campus but some members of the church I attend with my husband posted the accompanying Emory Wheel article on Facebook. I thought they posted it to celebrate the display and notify friends it was there.

These occurrences feel like slaps in the face. The best way I could figure out to respond at the time was observing that they had chosen our holiday time for the attack. Although Hanukkah is not the most important Jewish holiday, in America some people think it is (or it's the only one they know about), which probably figured in the timing of the display.

Finally I sat down and began to write a full response. Part 1 was the result, after more than a month and deleting one draft, then taking the second down for a rewrite after the first time I posted it. Writing it seemed to be my job.

The claim that the Emory display was "political" and not "against Judaism" (or that it was "against Zionism," not against the religion of Judaism) is ludicrous, since it would mean the demonstrators know what Judaism is and could make such distinctions.

Since then, a lot has happened--revolution in Tunisia and Egypt and demonstrations and unrest in other Arab countries. I even wondered if Malcolm Gladwell's conclusion that "the revolution will not be tweeted," which I discussed in Part 1, was correct. Was this revolution tweeted? Yes and no. Yes, in that Twitter and social media may have been the proximate cause. No, because preparation and study and inspiration and organization had been developing for years. I still think Malcolm Gladwell has a point.

What does all this revolution have to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with anti-Israeli fervor, or with anti-Judaism? For a moment at least the people of these Arab countries stopped looking at Israel, or the West, and started looking at what they themselves wanted and at their actual oppressors--their own despotic leaders. The rulers had been playing people against each other and specifically used Israel-hatred to distract attention from themselves. I don't believe that this one dynamic is the only dynamic in play. Be that as it may, anti-Israeli sentiment has been a tool of despotic Muslim rulers, who therefore have an interest in keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict going. From that vantage point, Israel-hatred is no peace movement. It is not a liberal value. It should be seen in its guise as a reactionary tool used in support of authoritarian power.

There was no state of Israel until 1948, but historically Jew-hatred has been useful in power politics. Manipulation of hatred of other groups has certainly occurred as well, but in Europe, it was the Jewish people who played a role similar to that played by race in the U.S.

Currently, one narrative about the backlash against the Copts in Egypt is that it is a reactionary effort instigated by Mubarak's supporters to regain power by playing people against each other. Those preferring that narrative should be able to comprehend the uses of hatred in the pursuit of power.

It seems to me that the usage of Jew-hatred has historically been the prerogative of the right wing--the conservatives, the powerful, the "haves." That's the case in the Middle East right now. Then how is it that over here it's the Left that's carrying that torch today? They are having to bend over backward to argue that they are not antisemitic. They insist they must tell their truth even if they sound antisemitic and no matter how strange their bedfellows. Why has hatred of Israel become so important to them?

One answer for today may simply be confusion fatigue--the desire to escape back into a theologically familiar place. Today the situation in the revolutionary countries--Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, even Syria--is growing more and more complicated, sometimes violent, not always clearly aiming toward democracy, unkind to women and minorities, not clearly prepared for democracy. Liberal American Christianity and its so-called peace movement is showing signs of wanting to resume anti-Israel business as usual and is agitating for "revolution" in Palestine. They want to round up the usual suspects and get things back in the usual boxes. On March 29, the Rev. John Calhoun, in an article entitled "It's Time for Palestine" on the website of The General Board of Church and Society of the Methodist Church, bemoaned the fact that with all the despotic governments falling, no successful revolt had taken place against Israel's "undemocratic, militaristic rule over millions of civilians suffering under its administration." The Rev. Alex Awad, who serves families in the West Bank and pastors an East Jerusalem interdenominational church, writing on April 5 for God's Politics, the Sojourners blog, called for rebellion, first, each person in his own heart, then, "to get rid of the old regimes and replace them with regimes under the control of the Spirit of God."

Now, with Palestinians marching against Israel's borders, in some cases (e.g., Syria) with official government support, I can imagine the Revs. Calhoun and Awad and others cheering. But by all accounts those marches are not non-violent.

What we have here is corruption by politics, known by some as "Constantinianism." Are voices such as those just quoted speaking out for what is right? If you are pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, you may want to say yes. But do they speak out against violence when committed by their own proponents? Or when Muslims commit violence against Christians or other Muslims? If they are not speaking out in those and similar cases, but only against Israel, then they are confusing what is right with whose side they are on and with personal vindication. This is not the pursuit of justice. This is the pursuit of power.

What this all boils down to is that the constant pressure from the Left is putting Israel on the defensive and driving it to the right. There is consensus that Israel has moved much further rightward in the past decade--predictable in the face of the constant antagonism. The support of Israel by the Religious Right in the U.S. also has been greasing that rightward slide in Israel. It is almost as though American liberal and conservative forces have been working together to move Israel further to the right. The American Left and Right bash each other over the head with Israel, and to the extent they are pursuing, not justice, but power for themselves, no clear moral voice rings out from either.

What needs to happen is not the revolt against Israel the Revs. Calhoun and Awad are agitating for. The revolt they want will help keep despots in power. Moreover, hate (like love) is not divisible. If they sow hate against Jews, they will reap hate against Christians, too.

Instead, there need to be two revolutions. The Israeli Left within Israel needs to be enlivened and expanded by people with a vision who care about Israel and its founding goal of justice. And the Palestinian people need to revolt against leadership that keeps it focused on enmity. They need to revolt against leadership that demands a constant militancy. They need to demand peace, too. They need to ask themselves what they as Palestinians want, and build it. That is the message of Izzeldin Abuelaish, whom I've heard speak twice. He is pointing us in the right direction. He is the Palestinian doctor who had been working in Israel and who lost three daughters in Operation Cast Lead. Yet he has not used them in a crusade for hate. Rather he is continuing the peace work he already was championing. He is determined his children will not have died for nothing and that their deaths will promote peace. His book is I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.

Right now, from the news about Hamas and Fatah's reconciliation, it is sounding from some quarters as though the purpose of that reconciliation is to have a common enemy. If that is the goal, and if that is the direction Egypt is moving, then how disappointing it will be if enmity absorbs all the energy of the Arab Spring.

How does Dr. Abuelaish not hate? I think it is something to do with being able to think outside the box and that it is the only way to peace. We are learning that people have their passions and prejudices first, and only later spin their rationalizations and justifications. Research from several disciplines is showing the passions come before the reasons people give for their behavior. If the passion is hate, the rationales justify it and the actions based on it. Dr. Abuelaish may be on to something. He seems to be building on something else beside hate. I think that is worth investigating.

I have a button that reads PEACE HAS BEGUN WITH ME. That must mean not to demonize anybody. It must mean to associate with people who are not just like me and who are not in my group. It must mean to understand that each and every person is a mixture of bad and good. It must mean to seek them for the good in them and not to reject or condemn them for the bad that is in them. It must mean to show mercy.