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)
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)
No comments:
Post a Comment