By Rev. Isaac Rottenberg
“After being marred for nearly two millennia by Judaeophobia and anti-Semitism, Christianity is experiencing the beginnings of a revolution, as scholars, ministers, leaders and laymen in virtually every denomination of the body of Christ are engaged in the quest to reclaim the church’s Judaic heritage.” Thus states an informational folder of the Restoration Foundation. But what will that “revolution” look like? What will be its implications for the foundations of historic Christianity? What changes in theology and practice are required by a faithful listening to the Scriptures and their witness to the restoration of Israel?
Those are some of the questions being raised by the contemporary quest to reclaim the church’s Judaic heritage. This article will look at them in light of the work of one scholar who seeks “the dismantling of the anti-Jewish tradition of Christian theology and restatement of some of the central themes of the Christian faith.” That quote is taken from the preface to a new book by Clark M. Williamson, professor of theology at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. This one-volume “systematic theology” is entitled A Guest in the House of Israel: Post-Holocaust Church Theology (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), and is offered to the churches as a serious attempt to re-Judaize the Christian faith.
Dr. Williamson’s work contains a wealth of historical and biblical analyses that are worthy of our careful and grateful attention. So much is to be learned about the history of Christian anti-Judasm and so little of what recent scholarship has brought to light is actually being taught in Bible schools and seminaries. But the book also raises fundamental questions for those of us who stand in a broadly evangelical tradition and thus poses a challenge to engage in an internal Christian debate about the nature of the “revolution” we seek.
Let us begin by taking a closer look at the title of the book: A Guest in the House of Israel. Right from the start we Christians are called to a little humility, and in light of a long history of Christian triumphalism and replacement theology quite appropriately so. We Gentiles are latecomers in God’s dealings with the world. As a matter of fact, we are the true proselytes–those who have been added, or, in the apostle Paul’s famous imagery, we are the wild olive branches that have been engrafted into the covenant tree of Israel with its deep roots in the irrevocable promises of God (Romans 11:29). But, contrary to Paul’s urgings, Gentile Christians became boastful, setting themselves above chosen Israel, and eventually claiming exclusive right to the covenant and Kingdom of God for themselves.
So, Williamson believes that it is about time that we recognize our true status and start behaving as guests in the house of Israel. I sympathize with the author’s good intentions, but I cannot accept the underlying premise. We are not guests in the house of Israel; we are adopted children into the household of God (Ephesians 2). We have been made part of the family, which did not give us the right to take over the place, but neither should adopted children ever be referred to as guests. We are co-heirs of the Kingdom! Our status in the covenant community is not established by the fact that our Jewish brothers and sisters are our hosts, but that the God of Israel is our Father through Christ the Son. The answer to the churches’ false claims of supersessionism does not lie in toning down on this central gospel truth.
Still, Williamson is right when he points out that as Christians in dialogue with Jews we should never forget the horrible history of anti-Semitism which culminated in the Holocaust. This leads us to the subtitle of the book: PostHolocaust Church Theology. The author presents a double affirmation here: a) theology post-Shoah, as was already stressed above, must be done in a spirit of repentance because of past sins of the church, and b) theology should be done “in and on behalf of the Church” as well as “under the guidance of the Church” (p. VIII) . These are both laudable goals, but how does it all work out in practice?
For this reader a red flag went up very early in the text when our author, referring to the post-Holocaust nature of his theology, uses phrases like “a revisionist understanding of a range of Christian teachings” (p. 10) and the need to “reconstruct Christian theology in the light of the searching critique to which examination of its anti-Jewish past subjects it” (p. VII). In post-Holocaust literature this is often the language of those who call for radical revisions in basic Christian doctrines. As I shall show, that proves to be true in this case as well.
On the matter of presenting a “church theology,” Williamson points out that “every chapter articulates a thesis already propounded in and by one of the post-Holocaust teaching documents issued by the churches” (p. VIII). In support of this position, he heads each chapter with a quote from one of the many church pronouncements on the relationship between Christians and Jews issued by denominations over the past decades.
Those “official” ecclesiastical documents do indeed represent a significant body of literature, meriting the careful attention of students in the field. But Mr. Williamson uses those materials so selectively and, in some cases, interprets them so tendentiously that his conclusions cannot be supported by a careful analysis of the full texts. In those instances, instead of ending up with a church theology that reflects the thinking of synods and councils, we are presented with the views of a small inner group of scholars who call for a radical reconstruction of the faith.
Let us look at some specifics:
In answering that question, Williamson finds a prime example, not in literature still available in plentiful supplies, defaming the Jewish people or denying God’s faithfulness to his original covenant people Israel, but in a seminary advertisement that offers an M.A. degree in missiology “with concentration in Judaic Studies and Jewish Evangelism.” Mind you, the content of the course is not the issue at stake here, but rather the very fact that there are still Christians who believe that witness to the Jewish people is part of the gospel mandate.
Now, no one who has studied the history of Christian-Jewish relations, who knows the truth about forced conversions (under the threat of death!) and forced baptisms (often of little babies torn from their mothers’ arms), will deny that this is a very sensitive and complex issue. That fact is clearly and rightly reflected in the language used by the formulators of church statements on the issue in recent decades.
Never should we forget the centuries of Gentile triumphalism which has struck terror in Jewish hearts. In the post-Holocaust era Christian witness to Jews can only be done in a spirit of humility and repentance. In his novel The Gates of the Forest, Elie Wiesel has one of his characters say, “Stop thinking about our salvation and perhaps the cemeteries won’t be so full of Jews.” What a horrible indictment! Nevertheless, one we need to hear, because it is a judgment rooted in a long history of atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people.
Christians are not "Guests in the House of Israel." We are adopted into the household of God. We are part of the family.
For some post-Shoah scholars the solution to the dilemma lies in a cutting of the Gordian knot by declaring that a Christian proclamation (kerygma) to Jews is never justified. At best we can maintain a Christian witness in terms of service (diakonia), usually interpreted as showing an active concern for Jewish interests. No major church body has articulated such an either-or position in their pronouncements.
They have evidenced a spirit of caution and ambiguity, sometimes by using intentionally vague language. As Dr. Williamson correctly points out, many of those documents have declared that Jews and Christians have a common responsibility to be “a light to the nations” (p. 3). But surely there is no contradiction in gratefully acknowledging Jewish obedience to the eternal truths of Torah and at the same time believing that God’s revelation through Jesus in the midst of Israel as confessed by the church is worth sharing with Jews and Gentiles alike.
Israel plays a unique role in God’s dealings with the world. The very survival of this people is a witness to the faithfulness of God. Some church statements correctly emphasize that witness to the Jews, who have received Torah, is not the same as mission to the “heathen.” Others warn against all attempts to make Jews conform to our Gentile ways, a position which, in our author’s opinion, “contradicts any notion of a conversionary mission to the Israel of God” (p. 29). Yes indeed, if conversion is made to mean adopting a de-Judaized faith. But no, if witness means confronting our Jewish brothers and sisters with one of their own, the Jew Jesus, an encounter that has meant a radical transformation for multitudes of people, both Jews and Gentiles.
Professor Gabriel Fackre, commenting on the 1987 pronouncement of the United Church of Christ on the relationship between the church and the Jewish people has stated the dilemma as follows: “Anti-supersessionism does not forbid sharing the gospel with Jewish people. Exclusion, in fact, is a subtle form of discrimination... How this non-exclusionary mission mandate is carried out, while honoring the continuing covenant of God with Israel, is not clear” (New Conversations, Summer 1990, p. 26). Well, we ought to talk about that in the spirit of a true ecumenical dialogue. As the 1985 Vatican declaration shows, Roman Catholics are struggling with the same issues.
Finally, it should be pointed out that many Jewish leaders fully recognize the fact that the missionary imperative is a matter of conscience and not an optional choice for millions of Christians. In the words of the late Dr. Jakob Petuchowski, “...while I, as a Jew, have no right to demand from my Christian neighbor that he give up an essential part of his religious obligation in order to suit my Jewish convenience, I would plead with him to have some regard for both historical realities and the power of God” (Face to Face, Fall/Winter, 1977). That seems fair enough.
Robert Israel Lappin, a businessman who has held top positions in major Jewish organizations, said it about as well as anyone: “I would like my fellow Jews to know and to understand that the essential religious mandate of Evangelicals is to share the gospel of Jesus with all people–Jews and Gentile alike. Suggestions that this activity be curtailed, be they implied or expressed wishes, are inappropriate and insensitive. Just as true enlightened Christians are sensitive in their witnessing, so should my fellow Jews learn to distinguish between those who ‘proselytize,’ an illegitimate form of sharing, and those who ‘witness;’ that is those who leave to God the change of people’s hearts. Jews should further recognize that enlightened Christians will witness with unconditional love; that is the kind that does not require of Jews to accept Christian theology in order to merit their support. . .” (Network News of the Christian Community of the North Shore of Boston, February 15, 1993).
As noted before, in order to buttress his argument that he is offering a Church theology, Williamson heads every chapter with a quote from an ecclesiastical pronouncement. Chapter 7, dealing with Christology, opens with the following affirmation by the Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland: “We confess Jesus Christ the Jew, who as the Messiah from Israel is the Savior of the world and binds the people of the world to the people of God” (p. 167).
Chapter 8, entitled “The God of Israel and Church,” features a 1977 pronouncement by the Mennonite European Regional Conference: “In the end, we know God–specifically in the Messiah–as no one other than the God of Israel” (p. 202). Good points!
But, our author would really prefer if Christians learned “to articulate the significance of Jesus Christ without using the title ‘the Messiah’ ” (p. 244). First of all, as is generally acknowledged today, the Hebrew scriptures and later Jewish tradition do not attribute a coherent and universally accepted meaning to the term “messiah.” And secondly, however Christians may interpret the inauguration of the new age through salvation achieved in Jesus Christ, the Jewish expectation of a messianic age in which justice and peace reign upon the earth did not materialize (p. 42).
However, reinterpretation of transmitted tradition in light of new historical experiences was not uncommon in Judaism of that day. And that is precisely what the early Christians did in light of what they believed about Jesus, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection. God, they confessed, was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (II Corinthians 5:19), and that was an event of supreme significance for all creation. Hence the New Testament witness is clear: He is the One in whom the promises of the God of Israel and the hopes of Israel’s prophets and seers have come true. Ergo: He is the Messiah! Millions of Christians continue to confess that, including the Church of Rome, which in its new Catechism of the Catholic Church repeatedly refers to Jesus as “Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world.”
Jesus is the One in whom the promises of God and the hopes of Israel's prophets have come true. Ergo: He is the Messiah!
Reconciliation has come in Christ, and now God’s people look forward with ever-greater intensity to the redemption of the whole creation. The New Testament constantly emphasizes that Christians, like the Jews, live their historical existence as a people of hope. We share a common sense of the unredeemedness of the world. The forces of sin (principalities and powers) are still very strong. In hope we have been saved (Romans 8:24), just as conversion to Christ means a rebirth of hope (I Peter 1:3). The difference is that the central foundation for Christian hope is believed to be God’s mighty act in Jesus Christ. Witness is one way of giving an accounting of the hope that is in us (I Peter 3:15). Sin has been atoned, reconciliation is offered, forgiveness experienced, and the Holy Spirit opens people's lives to a new future.
Throughout this book Dr. Williamson puts strong emphasis on “God’s thoroughly gracious covenant with Israel” (p. 37) and on “the radical free grace and total claim of the God who redeems the ungodly, hence in ways that do not ‘nullify the faithfulness of God’ (Romans 3:3) to the Israel of God” (p. VIII).
As the renowned theologian Karl Barth used to say, Christians who claim that Jews do not deserve to be called a covenant people any longer, because they have fallen short in their performance of the divine will, cut off the very branch on which they themselves are sitting. Is God faithful to us Christians because of our superior performance? Nothing could be a greater distortion of gospel truth!
In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20), the master asks those who complain about his payments to the “less deserving” (from the point of view of a tit-for-tat mentality): “Do you begrudge my generosity?” This parable reflects the resentment Gentile Christians have often displayed toward their Jewish brothers and sisters, as they failed to apply their belief in the gracious faithfulness of God, whose promises are irrevocable, to the Father’s first love–the people Israel. That indeed is worksrighteousness at its worst.
Williamson is so right to emphasize that point. But, amazingly enough, he then proceeds to undermine the central Christian (and Jewish!) belief in atonement by claiming that it smacks of works-righteousness. Atonement, as historically taught, is interpreted as a “punitive doctrine” lacking in agape love. Writes he: “Seldom noticed is that the impact of understanding of God as power devoid of sympathy on the doctrine of atonement is works-righteousness: someone has to perform the good work of setting things right between us and God” (p. 208).
The whole meaning of Torah as embodying God’s righteousness and holy will is at stake here; of course, the law of God must be done! The will of God must be established upon the earth. That’s not legalism; it is the gospel of the Kingdom. The gift-nature of the law was clearly and joyfully recognized in Israel, because the law is an essential element in God’s saving dealings with the world. It is the law of the Kingdom, the mold, as it were, in which the new creation will be cast, when God’s righteousness will dwell upon the earth. The divine demand that the law be fulfilled has nothing whatsoever to do with works- righteousness. Works-righteousness of the wrong kind has to do with our “handling” of the law as if God had not acted in the midst of Israel when, in an initiative of sovereign grace, Christ did what we could not do: fulfill the law in holy love.
The word "radical" literally means going back to our roots in Israel, as well as in the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings.
Atonement through the cross of Christ as a once-for-all act of redemption, leading to reconciliation between God and the world, troubles some post-Holocaust theologians, because of what they see as exclusivist claims. They prefer a Christology which makes Jesus the way of salvation for Gentiles while Torah remains the way for Jews. Such a view evangelical Christians cannot accept and, in this case, “evangelical” refers to a broad spectrum of believers to be found in virtually all denominations. The Vatican has stated emphatically that it does not accept that position either.
In the sacrificial cult, as practiced in Israel, the emphasis falls on the confession of sin on the part of the person who appears before the Holy One and a gracious assurance that the God of Israel “covers”our transgressions and thus takes care of a past that is beyond our grasp, except in the memory of guilt which can put us in the grip of despair. Through forgiveness comes a new freedom and a new openness to the future. “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered; blessed is the person against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin” (Psalm 32:12; Romans 3:7-8). That is the gospel of grace and agape love, rooted in the faith of Israel and, for Christians, fulfilled in the cross of Christ.
My critical remarks should not obscure the fact that anyone who is engaged in the quest to reclaim the church’s Judaic heritage can learn much from this book. But those of us who seek radical changes in the churches’ relationships with the Jewish people and in the way we have done theology must be honest with each other. The word “radical” literally means going back to the roots–our roots in Israel–as well as our roots in the gospels and the apostolic writings with their witness to Jesus the Christ.
Every believer must face fundamental choices. It is not enough to critique the views of others. We are challenged to set forth how we are conducting the quest and how we are dealing with the question as to what aspects of historic Christianity can and must be retained and what elements of our traditional views must be revised unless we hold on to the heresy of supersessionism and fall into sinful anti-Judaism.
May “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory give [us] a spirit of wisdom and revelation . . .” (Ephesians 1:17).
Rev. Isaac Rottenberg is a retired official of the Reformed Churches in America. He has written extensively on theology and is a frequent contributor to various journals, focusing on the restoration of the church's Jewish roots.
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