‘An Indissoluble Bond between the Church and the People of Israel’

Historical Fact or Theological Conviction?

                       
Simon Schoon
Theological University of Kampen, The Netherlands

A new Protestant Church Order

At the end of the 20th century, the two major Reformed churches in the Netherlands changed those parts of their Church Orders which formulated the relation of the Church to the Jewish people. In 1951 the Netherlands Reformed Church (Hervormde Kerk) had already ceased speaking of ‘mission to the Jews’, describing the task of the church as ‘dialogue with Israel’. The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Gereformeerde Kerken), as late as 1991, still spoke of the ‘task of the Church to confess to the Jews, inside and outside Israel, that Jesus is the Christ’. However, when the two main Reformed Churches and the small Lutheran Church united and formed the Protestant Church in the Netherlands in 2004, a new Church Order was accepted. The first article of this Church Order, the preamble, states that the Protestant Church in the Netherlands ‘is reaching out for the coming of the Kingdom of God, sharing in the expectation that is given to Israel’. And article I.9 on the relation between Church and Israel reads as follows:

The Church is called to express its indissoluble bond with the People of Israel. As a Christ-confessing community of faith, the Church is seeking a dialogue with Israel concerning the understanding of the Holy Scripture, in particular on the subject of the coming of the Kingdom of God (Kerkorde 2003, 9–10).

The churches of the Reformed and Lutheran traditions, which recognized each other by the Leuenberg Agreement, reached a consensus on the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people. At their fourth General Assembly in Vienna in 1994, new guidelines were accepted containing the following basic statements: ‘There is an inseparable connection between the election of the Church and that of Israel, between the “old” and “new” covenant’ and ‘For Christians and the Church, their relationship to Israel is inseparably bound up with the foundation of their faith.’
            Similar words appear in other ecclesiastical statements that describe the relation between the Church and the Jewish people. In the groundbreaking Roman Catholic declaration Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council (1965), this type of language is clear in the first sentence: The Synod ‘recalls the spiritual bond linking the people of the new covenant with Abraham’s stock’. And it continues, referring to ‘the great spiritual patrimony common to Christian and Jews’ (Fisher and Klenicki 1990, 27–28). In expressing the relation, or ‘bond’, between the Church and the Jewish people, Reformed and Lutheran statements of faith describing this bond have a clear preference for words like ‘indissoluble’ or ‘irrevocable’ or ‘inseparable’. It sounds as if these churches, against all the evidence of the past, against all historical facts, want to convince themselves with strong wording that there is a very special, indeed unique, bond between the Church and the Jewish people. Christian anti-Judaism is not forgotten or left behind but is regarded more as an incident in the past than as essential Christian teaching. Historical reality shows the opposite of an inseparable bond, but churches seek to establish a new beginning of the relationship that—in their view—revives the original situation of the first century. In this article the following questions are dealt with: Is the so-called ‘indissoluble bond’ a historical reality or is it only a theological conviction? Would it not be more honest to speak of a ‘definitely broken relationship’ than of an ‘indissoluble bond’? What are the prospects for the Jewish–Christian dialogue in general and in the Netherlands in particular? Is it realistic to expect much more interaction?

Historical background

How did the change of mind occur, so that expressions like ‘common patrimony’ and ‘indissoluble bond’ became the preferred wording in official documents? First, it must be stressed that this new approach is geographically limited to the United States and Western Europe and has almost no effect in other parts of the world. Historical events like the Shoah and the establishment of the State of Israel must be seen as the background of the start of a different way of thinking in the churches. After the Second World War, the model of dialogue slowly gained ground in the relation of Christians and Jews, but for decades it was only supported by a few far-sighted thinkers and activists. It took thirty to forty years before this approach became part and parcel of Christian thinking and practice, which compared with other changes in church history is a rather fast process. In the last twenty-five years of the 20th century, there existed among Christians in Western Europe and the United States an enormous interest in Jewish–Christian dialogue. In trying to trace the historical context of this interest, the year 1967 must be mentioned. In June of that year, the Six Days War broke out in the Middle East. Against the expectations of many, Israel not only resisted the Arab armies but captured Jerusalem and the West Bank. In the same period it became more and more clear to the public mind what the Nazis had tried to bring about with their plans for the ‘final solution’ (Endlösung). The fear of a new Shoah caused a deep trauma amongst Jews around the world. The Eichmann trial in 1961 in Jerusalem had functioned in Israel as a catalyst, releasing long-suppressed stories of survivors of the concentration camps. Eventually, the scale and horror of the Nazi crimes also penetrated the hearts and minds of Christians.

            The remarkable interest amongst Christians in Judaism and Israel was, on the one hand, brought about by feelings of guilt because of the realization of the persistent anti-Judaism in the very heart of Christian tradition, which had to be regarded as co-responsible for the outgrowth of racist anti-Semitism. On the other hand, there was a peculiar admiration, especially after 1967, for the achievements of the young State of Israel. Many Christians saw this State as ‘God’s own miracle’ in our time. Jewish authors like David Flusser, Shalom Ben Chorin and Pinchas Lapide flooded the market with their writings, that sustained the Christian need to discover the so-called ‘Jewish roots’ of Christianity. Many Christians welcomed with great enthusiasm the thesis of Flusser that ‘Christianity and Judaism were in fact one faith’, and overlooked for convenience sake the whole context of his argument, in which he criticized Christian anti-Judaism and called Christianity a ‘cheaper Judaism’ (Flusser 1984, 269). In this period the Christian solidarity project Nes Ammim in Galilee, founded in 1960 and mainly inhabited by Dutch Protestants, reached the peak of almost two hundred inhabitants. The ideology of Nes Ammim to abstain on principle from mission to the Jews meant a tremendous challenge to the old positions of the Dutch Protestant churches in this matter (Schoon and Kremers 1978). In this period many churches issued official statements condemning their anti-Judaic past. They rejected the substitution theory that taught that the Church had replaced the Jewish people in the covenant of God.
             In the Netherlands the Consultative Body of Christians and Jews (abbreviation in Dutch: OJEC) was established in 1981, an organization in which the three major churches (both Catholic and Protestant), some smaller Protestant churches, and all Jewish religious communities, both Orthodox and Reform, were officially represented. The new body became a member of the International Council of Christians and Jews. In the statutes it was explicitly mentioned that the participants would work together without missionary intentions. In the 1980s many burning questions were put before churches and political authorities by OJEC and were debated in the media, the newspapers, and by the church bodies involved. The most important issues were: the controversy about a Carmelite convent in the former concentration camp Auschwitz, a test case in the courts against the anti-Semitic wording in missionary pamphlets of an evangelical couple, the discussion with the major churches to erase from their Church Orders all references to mission to the Jews, and political discussions with the Dutch Council of Churches concerning the recognition of the PLO (Schoon 1992). In 2006 OJECcelebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, but in the meantime interest in Jewish–Christian dialogue has greatly diminished.
The euphoria after the Israeli victory in 1967 faded away in the seventies and disappeared totally after the Israeli invasion in Lebanon in 1982. The first and the second Palestinian intifadahad a very negative impact upon the interest in Jewish–Christian dialogue. Every time the State of Israel feels threatened and defends itself fiercely, Christian enthusiasm for Israel becomes less, and Jews in the Netherlands are attacked because of the policies of the State of Israel. After September 11, 2001, there was an enormous growth in the interest for interreligious dialogue in general, and dialogue with Muslims in particular. Older church members are still affected in their attitudes by the Shoah, while younger people are much more influenced by the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Only the right and evangelical wings of the Protestant churches remain convinced by everything that Israel is doing, that God’s miracle is still going full swing.

Indissoluble bond?

At the beginning of the 21st century, the word ‘ambivalence’ is still a clear characterization of Christian attitudes towards Jews and Israel. In their identity, Christians experience both kinship with Judaism and estrangement from it. In different historical and political contexts, Christian feelings switch between anti-Judaism and philo-Judaism. In 1991, after years of discussion in the local churches, the formulation of the ‘indissoluble bond with the People of Israel’ was almost unanimously accepted in the Synod of the Reformed Churches. This expression was taken over in the new Church Order of the United Protestant Church in 2004. This type of language is totally different from earlier descriptions of the Jewish people as ‘the people rejected forever’ or ‘the people that crucified its own Messiah’. In the last decades of the 20th century there was a strong tendency to emphasize the similarities and to suppress the differences. It was expected that the discovery of the ‘roots’ of the Church in Judaism would open the eyes of all Christians for the great heritage of faith they received from Israel. This would lead Christians and Jews to join forces in a common struggle for peace and righteousness in our world and to face together the great challenges of our days (Mussner 1979, 88–175, 379–387).
At the beginning of the 21st century, there is no longer much ground for this type of euphoric language. Must we conclude that what happened in the last decades of the twentieth century, in the rediscovery of Judaism by churches and Christians, was nothing more than a short-lived upswing that has faded away? Or can we speak of a real and abiding change that has found its way, not just into official declarations, but also into the hearts and minds of church members? Only the future will tell. At the moment there is not only decline but there is also consolidation. Much has changed for the better. There is room for study and dialogue between Christians and Jews, on the institutional level of churches, synagogues, and religious organizations, but also at high schools and universities. But critical questions must be expressed clearly. Is there reason to speak of a sincere sympathy for Jews and Judaism in the churches, or is this new interest only caused by the present identity crisis of Western Christendom? Is the aim of the study of Judaism not primarily to strengthen and enrich Christian identity? Does not the search for the ‘Jewish roots’ of Christian faith mainly find its impetus in the uncertainty of many Christians concerning their own identity? Although this background for the Christian interest in dialogue is psychologically understandable, it is as yet an unstable basis for a real encounter and dialogue. Christians stated their harmonizing views far too readily, maintaining that Jews and Christians live in the same Covenant, read one and the same Bible, and await the same Messiah (Oesterreicher 1970; Kremers 1973).
The text of the Church Order (accepted in 2004) of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands is criticized and accused of ‘harmonizing language’. But that is a superficial observation. The wording of the Church Order tries to steer clear of the rocks of anti-Judaism and philo-Judaism. On the one hand there is the confessional expression of an ‘indissoluble bond’ between the Church and the people of Israel, because of the origins of the Church in first century Judaism(s) and because of the common heritage of the Hebrew Bible. But on the other hand there is no concealment or denial of the big differences between Church and Israel. After the initial declaration concerning the ‘indissoluble bond’, the Church Order continues to state: ‘As a Christ-confessing community of faith, the Church is seeking a dialogue with Israel concerning the understanding of the Holy Scripture, in particular on the subject of the coming of the Kingdom of God.’ In seeking dialogue, the Church recognizes the great differences in the understanding of the Bible and in the view of the Kingdom of God.
The expression ‘indissoluble bond’ has raised particular questions amongst Jews in the Netherlands. The most critical question is perhaps: Is it ethically acceptable as a Church to formulate unilaterally an ‘indissoluble bond’, without the consent of the other partner, i.e. the Jewish people? More than once in recent years, the positive expression ‘indissoluble bond’ has caused mixed feelings on the Jewish side of the dialogue encounter. It is understandable that Jews expect concrete signs of Christian solidarity with the Land and the State of Israel on the basis of this confessional declaration. But in the wording of their confessional language, the authors of the Church Order had explicitly chosen for the concept ‘People of Israel’ and not for the concepts of ‘Land of Israel’ and/or ‘State of Israel’, although it was often stressed that Land and State were inclusively indicated in the concept of the ‘People of Israel’. Time and again debates flare up, among different groups of Christians, and among Jews and Christians, on the following questions: What should be the political consequences of the formulated ‘bond’ between Church and Jewish people for the position of (Western) Churches and Christians regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict? What should be the content and what the limits of the confessed solidarity? Could the State of Israel, on the basis of this declaration, expect unconditional support for its policies and actions from the side of the churches? And how should Western churches react to the mixed feelings and actual protests on the part of Palestinian Christians in the Middle East?[1]
On November 16, 2007, and April 10, 2008, the Synod of the Protestant Church discussed these dilemmas for many hours in an emotional debate, in order to specify its theological and political standpoints and to formulate guidelines for its projects in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The outcome was that the wording of the ‘indissoluble bond between the Church and the People of Israel’ in the Church Order was unanimously reconfirmed. Another result was that a resolution was accepted to give more attention to the justified plea of the Palestinians for statehood and to strengthen the ecumenical fellowship with Palestinian Churches and Christians.

Agenda for research

Questions and discussions like those mentioned above should stimulate study and research in the coming years, preferably in cooperation of Jewish and Christian scholars. Christians face the challenge of overcoming the status quo of the love–hate relationship and changing it into a two-way, respectful relationship. What items should be placed on the agenda of research and dialogue in the coming years? To get more clarity on the implications of the professed ‘indissoluble bond’ formulated by the Dutch Protestant Church, I would like to propose at least four urgent themes: The Parting of the Ways, Covenant(s), Mission and the Question of Truth, and the State of Israel. Study of these themes could illustrate both the affinity between Jews and Christians and their estrangement. Jews will approach the themes mainly from a historical angle, Christians will adopt a more theological approach.

The Parting of the Ways

In particular, studies by Jewish scholars have thrown new light on what is generally called ‘the Parting of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism’ in the first century. This term is rather vague and confusing. The parting of the ways in the first century was by no means total, and only in retrospect can one speak about ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism’ in this period. There were all kinds of overlapping movements that included Jews and so-called ‘Judeo-Christians’. Many different Judaisms existed in the first century, and there were all kinds of different factions in the Jewish ‘Jesus movement’ and the groups of Gentiles who adopted the new messianic faith. Daniel Boyarin proposes not to use the term ‘Parting of the Ways’: he prefers to speak about ‘a variety of ongoing conversations’ between Jews on the one side, and between groups of Jesus-believers, both Jews and Gentiles, on the other side. He especially likes the concept of ‘overlapping stories’ (Boyarin 1999, 1–12, 93–126; Boyarin 2003). In 2003, a volume was published with the provocative title The Ways that Never Parted (Becker and Reed 2003). A lot of interaction existed between Jews and ‘Christians’ in the first centuries (Becking and Rouwhorst 2006). There were Pharisees who recognized Jesus as Messiah, and Gentile ‘Christian’ believers who kept the kashrut commandments, and all kind of variants in between. Many groups were more or less ‘Jewish’ and more or less ‘Christian’, very different from the ideal types of rabbinic Judaism and Orthodox or Apostolic Christianity that were described—and more or less also designated as such—by Rabbis and Church Fathers in their writings of the second to the fifth century. Only in the Early Middle Ages could one speak of a definite parting of the ways between Jews and Christians and the establishment of a clear distinction between the Jewish and Christian tradition.
It should be clear that the mother–daughter metaphor, used in the later part of the 20th century to describe the origin of Christianity as ‘daughter’ of the ‘mother’ Judaism, does not do justice to the historical reality of the first centuries. This popular metaphor was a protest against the dominant, centuries-old image of the Church as ‘mother’ who had definitely replaced the disobedient Jewish people and was the legitimate heir of the Scriptures of Israel. Would it perhaps be better to drop all kinds of metaphors that are related to family and kinship? The Jewish scholar Allan Segal has proposed an alternative metaphor: The ‘mother’ Israel had two sons, twins, like mother Rebecca in the story of Genesis. The two sons were Rabbinic Judaism and Orthodox Christianity (Segal 1986). Like Jacob and Esau, Jews and Christians struggled for the right to be the first-born son. Although this metaphor seems to resemble more the historical reality of the first centuries, it is imprecise like every metaphor and image. Family metaphors suggest an organic development in the origins of the two ‘religions’, which does not describe historical reality. In antiquity there was not such a phenomenon as ‘religion’, as this concept was only defined in modern times. Perhaps it is better to speak of ‘embedded religion’, a phenomenon embedded in polity, culture, ethnicity, and kinship (Stegemann 2003). Because metaphors influence and sometimes even create the reality that they are pointing to, they are not innocent. They have as a symbol an enormous impact on the historical consciousness of a group of people and on the experience of their identity. The challenge must be taken up anew in careful research and ongoing dialogue to study the complex parting of the ways between Jews and Christians in the first centuries, without inhibitions by prejudices, the urge of harmonization, or the need to strengthen one’s own identity. One must realize that historical research can lead in the present to threatening questions for the members of both faith communities. What should, for example, be the consequences on the Protestant side of these new insights for the professed ‘indissoluble bond’? The newer scholarly insights also mean a threat to Jewish identity, as could be illustrated by a quotation from the English Reform rabbi Tony Bayfield, who asks himself in astonishment: ‘Is that the implication of the sibling metaphor? Is that the implication of the parting of the ways? Are Jews required, in return for a renunciation of supercessionism, to regard themselves no longer as God’s first love, but rather as the numerically far less successful child of God’s first love—and not even one of the two, but just as one of the three children of Abraham?’ (Bayfield 2000, 125).

Covenant(s)

In Dutch, the word ‘bond’ (verbondenheid) is related to the word ‘covenant’ (verbond). The language of the Church Order could, therefore, be understood as an allusion to the conviction that Church and Israel are partners in the same covenant. The Dutch Protestant Church has a Calvinist background, and especially in churches of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition, ‘covenant’ has always been an important theological concept. The word itself derives from the Bible and has been reinterpreted many times in Judaism and Christianity, mainly with opposing views. Most exegetes hold the view that the Hebrew word berith should be translated not by ‘covenant’ but by ‘obligation’. Berith expresses the sovereign power of God, who imposeshis will on his vassal Israel: God promises in a solemn oath to fulfil his word to his people Israel,who have only to be faithful and to obey. Early in its history, the Church regarded the ‘old covenant of Israel’ as definitely abrogated; the text on the ‘new covenant’ in Jeremiah 31 was explained as pointing to fulfilment in Christ. Meanwhile, there was a growing emphasis in rabbinic Judaism on the mutuality of the covenant relationship between God and His People.
For the Reformer Calvin, the salvation revealed in the New Testament is the same salvation as in the Old, only in a new phase and a fuller light. He writes on dispensations of the one and eternal covenant, of which the basis is always the same, namely Jesus Christ. Calvin’s high esteem for the Old Testament permeates the later Calvinist tradition, where it is often regarded as the ‘proper Bible’. The term covenant plays a less prominentrole in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox tradition than in Protestantism. It is much debated in the Jewish–Christiandialogue whether the concept of covenant, in its one-covenant version or in its two-covenant version, could function as a bridge between the two traditions. In the last decades of the 20th century, numerous official ecclesiastical statements declared that the covenant of God with His People was never abrogated.Covenant theology often assisted in the renewal of relations between the Church and the Jewish people. The famous declaration Nostra Aetate (1965) of Vatican II follows the concept of the two covenants: ‘The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the People with whom God in his inexpressible mercy deigned to establish the ancient covenant.’ (Korn and Pawlikowski 2005). Like the Dutch Protestant Church, the German Protestant Church of Rhineland, in its declaration of 1980 Towards a Renewal of the Relationship between Christians and Jews, follows the one covenant perspective in its declaration: ‘We believe the permanent election of the Jewish People as the People of God and realize that through Jesus Christ the Church is taken into the covenant of God with His People.’ (Schoon 1998, 225–250; Ahlers 2004). In several Jewish publications as well, the concept of covenant was evaluated in the last decade as a central concept in the Bible and a useful word in the dialogue with other religions (Ochs and Borowitz 2000; Greenberg 2000, 49–101; Signer 2000). More interesting than the Christian dogmatic debate on the theories of the one-covenant and the double covenant, in which discussion all the above-mentioned phenomena of interaction, harmonization, and separation can be distinguished, the conclusion may be that ‘covenant’ has proven to be a useful concept in the dialogue between Jews and Christians. The challenge for Christians will be to prove that it is possible to speak about a special ‘bond’ with the Jewish people and to relate to the biblical concept of ‘covenant’, without falling (again) into the trap of triumphalism and without trying to define what the role of the other should be in the covenant.

The Question of Truth

One of the most sensitive issues in the relation between Jews and Christian is the so-called Christian mission to the Jews. One cannot imagine a more striking illustration of the estrangement between Jews and Christians than the well-organized Christian attempts to separate Jews from their people, convert them to the Christian faith, and make them members of a Christian Church. Jews regard this as deeply offensive and absolutely reprehensible. But some Christians view it as their most important task to convince Jews of the truth that Jesus is the only way to God and the only means of salvation. For them this Question of Truth is the most important issue on the table of the dialogue. In the 18th century, the pioneers of the organizations for mission to the Jews were somehow forerunners in their love for the Jewish people, resisting the ever present Christian anti-Semitism in church and theology. By the turn of the 20th century, the defenders of mission to the Jews in the mainline churches were fighting a rearguard action against the majority opinion that regards Judaism as a living religion and therefore wishes to abolish all forms of mission to the Jews. But in large parts of the growing evangelical movement, the mission to the Jews is still seen as a high priority. In a declaration of the evangelical Lausanne Movement it was stated that the discrimination and suffering that has been inflicted on the Jews in the name of Jesus Christ is deplored. But at the same time it is emphasized: ‘If the bygone history is used to make the church keep silent in its witness to the Jewish People, we must protest; it would be an act of grave discrimination to withhold the Gospel from the Jewish People.’[2] For Jews, there is nothing that casts so much doubt on the officially expressed readiness by Christians to encounter living Judaism than the activities of mission to the Jews. From a Jewish point of view, this mission is the ultimate expression of a relationship with Christianity that is definitely broken, because it does not leave Jews room to choose their own destiny.
            The debate has not yet ended. The Dutch Reformed theologian A. van de Beek wrote recently: ‘Mission to the Jews belongs to the very essence of the Christian faith’ and ‘Christians cannot accept that Jews will be saved by the works of the law, because this makes the cross of Jesus powerless’ (Van de Beek 2002, 177, 213). In Catholic publications as well, the tension is sometimes felt between, on the one hand, the new view that Judaism is a living religion of salvation and, on the other hand, the conviction that the Church has to proclaim universal salvation in Christ (Henrix 2004, 83–220). In particular the viewpoints of the late Cardinal Lustiger of Paris, who did not hide his Jewish descent, have aroused thorough theological discussion (Lustiger 2002). In agreement with his position, some Catholic theologians have defended the view that Jesus Christ must be regarded as the ‘destiny’ of salvation history (Menke 2005). Jesus as Messiah must be enunciated as hope for Israel. Many Jewish partners will regard this conviction as a subtle attempt to maintain the Christian claim on the ultimate truth.

The State of Israel

Christian attitudes towards the modern State of Israel vary greatly. They range from support for the Greater Israel Movement to the conviction that the State of Israel is racist and should disappear as soon as possible. Appalling events in Israel and the Palestinian Territories can suddenly change deep-felt love into hatred, or hatred into love. Philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism can alternate quickly. The different Christian views and attitudes show both affinity and estrangement toward Jews in general and the State of Israel in particular. It may be helpful to distinguish a number of models in conceptions of Jews and Judaism held by Christians. The models cannot always be separated but must certainly be distinguished. The most important models are the following, indicated with keywords:

Replacement
This model dominated in Church history. It asserts that after Jesus Christ, the Church has taken the place of the people of Israel. The task of Israel was only to bring the Messiah, and after fulfilling that mission, its task in salvation history was finished. In this model the New Covenant replaces the Old Covenant, baptism replaces circumcision, and the Gospel replaces the Law. Often the dispensation of ‘Ancient Israel’ is seen as earthly, the dispensation of the Church as spiritual. In this model the State of Israel has, in theory, no special theological or religious significance for Christians. In practice this frequently means, however, anti-Judaism in sermons and religious teaching, and anti-Zionist reactions against the State of Israel.

Typology
In this view, Israel in the Old Testament is regarded as typos, pointing to the fulfilment in the New Testament. This can, but does not necessarily, imply replacement of Israel. It means for example in Calvinism that the ‘shadows’ of the Old Covenant are now seen as clearly lifted in the light of Christ. The present people of Israel are viewed as still living ‘in shadows’. A triumphalist theology is the consequence. In this view only a mass conversion to Christ can bring about a solution of the conflict in the Middle East.

Illustration
In this model, the Jews are regarded as an illustration of an especially sinful people. As an obstinate people in the Old Testament and as an unbelieving people in the New Testament, the Jews show how disobedient all people are. Their behaviour is paradigmatic and contagious. In Christian sermons the Jews became from the very beginning—and are still today—the illustration model par excellence. In their own State, the Jews illustrate as paradigm the sinfulness of humankind.

Eschatology
In this model the conviction is expressed that the eschatological and apocalyptical texts in the Bible are being fulfilled in our lifetime, before our very eyes. Many evangelical Christians look particularly upon the unification of Jerusalem in 1967 as the beginning of the End Time. They see the events involving the Jews and the State of Israel as the setting of the stage for the Second Coming of Jesus. They hope to hasten his coming by unconditionally supporting the State of Israel. In their view there is no real place for Palestinians in the Promised Land.

Israel as ‘notion’
Some Christians like to deal with the biblical concept of ‘Israel’ as a critical notion both toward the present-day Church and to the modern Jewish people and State. For them the direct self-identification of the Jewish people and the Jewish State with the name ‘Israel’ is objectionable. Biblical Israel is in their view not a ‘nation’ but a ‘notion’, which in our days becomes especially visible among the poor and oppressed in the world. In this view the Jews are often idealized as a wandering people, who have to live in exile. The Jews are chosen, as long as they are the suffering people. For those Christians, the Palestinians have today replaced the Jews and deserve the title ‘Israel’ or ‘People of God’ because of their suffering.

Experiment
In this view the Jews are regarded as God’s particular chosen people and the State of Israel as a kind of ‘experimental garden’, where exemplary justice must be done by its inhabitants. They are called upon to live up to the biblical commandments of peace and justice, as an example for the whole world. Those Christians tend to judge the State of Israel by higher standards than all other peoples and states in the world.

A sign of God’s faithfulness
In the second half of the 20th century, confessional statements of some Protestant churches, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, have called the return of the Jews to the Land and State of Israel ‘a sign of God’s faithfulness toward his Covenant People’. These declarations stress that God’s election of the Jewish people is irrevocable. These positions—in the Netherlands as early as 1959, in Germany in 1980—have come nowadays under strong criticism, but they should be regarded as the theological background of the wording of the ‘indissoluble bond with the People of Israel’ in the Protestant Church Order.

Disentanglement

How do Jews react to the stream of declarations from the Christian side in the last decades of the twentieth century? Do they rejoice in the newly declared ‘unique bond’, as formulated by Christians, or are they still reluctant and suspicious, on the basis of their experiences with Christianity in many centuries? Can Jews agree with the concept of an ‘indissoluble bond’ between the Christian Church and the people of Israel? Could such a particular ‘bond’ with the Church or partnership in the covenant of God be acceptable to Jewish thinking? For most Jews this is certainly unacceptable and unthinkable. They realize that the love–hate relationship from the side of the Christians is not only something of the past. They are still confronted with attitudes both of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism from Christians. Sometimes there is also a kind of anti-Semitism in the new garb of anti-Zionism.
In recent years there were a number of statements, not only by Jews but also by Christians, that warn about too much harmonization and a too vigorous embrace. I will mention two striking examples, from the Jewish and from the Christian side of the dialogue spectrum, that demand more respect for the ‘other’ in Jewish–Christian dialogue. In the year 2000, more than 200 rabbis and Jewish scholars signed ‘A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity’, called Dabru Emet (Speak the Truth), published in two important newspapers in the United States, in which they recognized the profound change that had taken place within Christianity vis-à-vis Judaism, and in which they described what Jews and Christians had in common religiously. The American-Jewish Bible scholar Jon Levenson warned, in a critical reaction to this statement, against too strong an embrace between Jews and Christians and too naïve a harmonization between Judaism and Christianity, by which the enormous theological differences were neglected (Levenson 2004). He criticized historically and theologically the suppositions of the Dabru Emet document, which included statements that ‘Jews and Christians worship the same God’, that ‘Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of the Torah’, and that ‘Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish People upon the Land of Israel.’ Levenson called such statements counterproductive. He advocated a dialogue in which differences are not overlooked but clearly expressed. He firmly rejected a kind of dialogue that resembles a negotiation table where two parties are deliberating and forcing each other to compromise for a common cause.
A publication by the British Orthodox chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, deals with the much wider scope of globalization, the market economy, the imperative of education, poverty, and environmental sustainability. But a main thread running through his impressive book is his strong plea to make room for the otherness of the other (Sacks 2003). The context of his message is not primarily interreligious dialogue, like the statement Dabru Emet, but the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The subtitle of his book is How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, referring to the book by Samuel Huntingdon (Huntingdon 1996). Sacks is convinced that a paradigm shift in thinking and behaviour is needed in our world to avert the dangers of religious fanaticism and of coercive universalism. According to Sacks, God the Creator is teaching humanity to make space for the dignity of difference: ‘God may at times be found in the human other, the one not like us’ (Sacks 2003, 53).
Two authoritative voices on the Christian side of the dialogue scene come from German theologians, the Protestant New Testament scholar Peter von der Osten-Sacken and the Roman Catholic systematic theologian Michael Welker. At a symposium in 2003 on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the study program in Israel for German theologians (Studium in Israel), they both warned of the danger of annexation (Vereinnahmung)of Jews and Judaism in the context of dialogue and interreligious study. Von der Osten-Sacken, who wrote many pioneering studies in the field of Christian–Jewish dialogue, points to the need of disentanglement (Entflechtung), so that the other can keep his otherness (Von der Osten-Sacken 2004). Michael Welker wants to abstain from models of the relation between Christians and Jews that define the Jewish other only from a Christian perspective and in this manner annex Judaism for the purpose of Christian identity. He himself defends the model of two different ways, one for Jews and one for Christians, that could be understood as complementary. Both perspectives—the Jewish and the Christian—should not be harmonized and brought together in one concept, but can be made to bear fruit in their being different, for the witness of God in our world (Welker 2004).

Conclusion

It is difficult to make predictions about the future of the relations between the Church and the Jewish people. It cannot be foreseen, for example, whether the change in Christian theological thinking that started because of the shock of the Shoah will be continued in the twenty-first century, when the living memories of the Shoah will slowly fade and become part of history. Are the Protestant declarations on Jews and Judaism, issued in the last decades, only to be seen as a reaction to the Shoah, or do they actually signify a fundamental change in theological outlook? Will expressions like ‘indissoluble bond’ and ‘inseparable connection’ be tenable in the twenty-first century to describe the relation of the Church towards the Jewish people? Only the future can tell whether Church and theology after Auschwitz will be capable of overcoming the old ambivalence towards Jews and Judaism. The question cannot yet be answered whether Christians will learn to live with the duality of kinship and distinction in their relationship to the Jewish people. They have to find their way between the Scylla of harmonization and the Charybdis of indifference. The twenty-first century will reveal whether Judaism will be respected by Christians as a living tradition, and whether the theological significance of the existence of the Jewish people will be recognized. This needs a real paradigm shift in church and theology. In my opinion the confession of an ‘indissoluble bond’ of the Church with the people of Israel is an important theological beginning. It is the expression of a Christian theological conviction, on the basis of the origins of the Church within the people of Israel in the first centuries, on the basis of the common Scripture, and on the basis of sharing the expectation, given to Israel, of the Kingdom of God. This confession means a challenge for dialogue, research, and action. What steps must be taken in the coming years to realize these goals? As a conclusion, a few points can be mentioned.

 

The fruitfulness of difference

Christians should recognize that the fact that Judaism and Christianity are different is an enrichment and not a threat. Recognition of the ‘fruitfulness of difference’ will create space for an open and authentic dialogue (Poorthuis and Middleton 1997). Attempts to harmonize reduce the room for encounter and are an obstacle to a real dialogue. Dialogue will end up in failure if Judaism is only studied as a means to a Christian aim and is used as a ‘solution’ for Christian identity problems.

Reciprocity

There has to be growth in reciprocity in the dialogue between Jews and Christians if it is to be a viable option for the future. The statement Dabru Emet mentioned above is—despite critical remarks—a sign of a growing Jewish preparedness for real dialogue. In the fields of research and study there is already frequent cooperation. Reciprocity in dialogue can only be reached if the asymmetry of the dialogue is accepted. Christians tend to emphasize the symmetry, while Jews give more attention to the asymmetry. But even when Christians wholeheartedly accept the asymmetry, they are unable theologically to give up the relationship. A quotation of the German theologian Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt clarifies this Christian position: ‘Also when Israel maintains the right to keep distance, we have the obligation of relationship’ (Marquardt 1994, 164).[3]Jews and Christians will always put efforts into a theology of the other, more explicitly into ‘a Christian theology of the Jewish People and Judaism’ and into a ‘Jewish theology of the Church and Christianity’. But a relationship, and certainly an ‘indissoluble bond’, can never be imposed upon the dialogue partner. To quote Emanuel Levinas: ‘The other is not reducible to myself’ (Levinas 1969, 85–95). The other makes his appeal to me, and I am called to responsibility. Jews have the moral right to expect in dialogue a Christianity that will never again constitute a threat to them.

Interreligious dialogue

In the coming years, part of the Jewish–Christian dialogue must be dedicated to the ‘trialogue’ between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and even to the wider, multifaceted interreligious dialogue. The practice of these different dialogues needs further theoretical work into both a theology of the Jewish–Christian dialogue and a theologia religionum. From the heart of their own identity, Christians cannot give up the particularity of the Jewish–Christian dialogue and have it merged into a greater ‘universal’ dialogue. The image of different concentric circles could make this clearer. For Christians the inner circle is confined to the Jewish–Christian dialogue because of the origins and the history of Christianity. The second wider circle points to the dialogue of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Beyond this, other wider circles encompass the dialogues with other religions and world views. The achievements of the Jewish–Christian dialogue should stimulate the whole spectrum of interreligious dialogue.

Dialogue of the heart

In the Jewish–Christian encounter more room should be made—next to the dialogue of reason—for the dialogue of the heart (Küster 2003, 9–10). Many people in our time are in search of a meaningful spirituality. Cheap harmonizations, like the Kabbalistic views adopted by Madonna, should be avoided. Study of the differences and points of contact of the mystical traditions, and in particular a comparison of the spiritual experiences in Judaism and Christianity, could open up a promising field of research (Van den Berg and Süss 2006). The question should be answered whether it is possible to participate in intercommunal spiritual worship and experiences without giving up one’s loyalty to one’s own religion.

The other as mystery
Without respect for the mystery of the other and for the other as mystery, every dialogue will turn out to be a failure. Zealotry to convert the other and the urge for harmonization should be changed into acceptance of the otherness of the other. The declared ‘indissoluble bond’ is not a fact either in history or in the present. It is a theological conviction that should inspire Christians to strive for its realization in practice. It could turn out to be a dangerous conviction for Jews, when Christians want to change the Jews into their own image. To express it once more in line with the thinking of Emanuel Levinas: By the epiphany of the other our life will be upset. The other brings confusion to the I because of his subjectivity and makes an appeal to my obligation to responsibility (Fryer 2000).

 

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