Hans Ucko

There are those who feel that the Jewish-Christian dialogue has nothing to do with interreligious relations but that it is a genuine part of Christian ecumenism. They object to the desk on Jewish-Christian relations being part of the Office on Interreligious Relations and Dialogue and not Faith & Order in the structure of the WCC and instead praise the Vatican for having its relationship with Judaism within the context of promoting Christian unity. There are those who argue the opposite saying that the relationship with Jews should be conducted from the perspective of interfaith dialogue, lest we consider Jews to be almost Christian, that it is a way of co-opting Judaism.

The Jewish-Christian dialogue was born in trouble but its achievements throughout the last fifty years have made deep inroads in churches throughout the world or at least in churches, where Jewish history and presence has been or continues to be a reality. Christian liturgies, hymns, prayers, worship orders, sermons have been changed by the dialogue between Christians and Jews. There is an attentiveness to what language does to you. Taste the words: “He is a real Christian” and you get a feeling of trustworthiness; “he is a real Jew” and you get the feeling of something negative, related to Shylock, usury, etc..

Progress has been made. The age-old theological teaching of contempt of Judaism has been challenged by a theology disposed to provide space for living Judaism. The last fifty years have seen a conversion in the relationship between Jews and Christians, which Rabbi James Rudin called a revolution. Churches have taken a stand against antisemitism and said, "We call upon the churches we represent to denounce antisemitism, no matter what its origin, as absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith. Antisemitism is sin against God and man".i The question of mission to the Jews has at least been on the table and been questioned. “There are Christians who view a mission to the Jews as having a very special salvific significance, and those who believe the conversion of the Jews to be the eschatological event that will climax the history of the world. There are those who would place no special emphasis on a mission to the Jews, but would include them in the one mission to all those who have not accepted Christ as their Saviour. There are those who believe that a mission to the Jews is not part of an authentic Christian witness, since the Jewish people finds its fulfilment in faithfulness to God's covenant of old.”ii Many Christian declarations try their best to say that they know how much the State of Israel means to the Jewish people. Following the Vatican recognition of the State of Israel, there were Jewish voices saying that the goal now was reached; Christian churches had duly acknowledged as issues of vital interest to Jews the three concerns: antisemitism, mission to the Jews and the State of Israel. Could one really ask for more? Was there any rational and convincing reason to pursue the Jewish-Christian dialogue?

If one wants more from the Jewish-Christian dialogue, one cannot be satisfied with what has seemingly been achieved. We cannot close the book on the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Recognition of the State of Israel by the Vatican is by no means the same as saying that there is one issue less to discuss in dialogue. The Jewish-Christian dialogue was born in trouble. In spite of its many successes, it has one particularly troublesome feature: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For some time churches have tried to keep the two issues apart, one branch of the church did Jewish-Christian dialogue and focused on history, Bible and in some cases theology, another was involved in relations with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of justice and peace. The hope may have been that the twain would never meet. In the end, it became necessary to try to bring into conversation the Jewish-Christian dialogue and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The WCC made some few attempts towards facilitating this conversation, providing space for meetings between Christians involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue and Christians involved in addressing issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were even some bold efforts by the WCC towards dialogues on the spiritual significance of Jerusalem between Palestinian Christians and Muslims on the one side and Israeli Jews on the other side. But the tensions, exacerbated through the political development on the ground, have discouraged from any intentional and sustained continuation.

We are at a turning point in Jewish-Christian dialogue. That which has been achieved is not ex opere operato communicated or implemented. It requires a sustained implementation and follow-up. We still need to go beyond clinging to the status quo and realising that the current discussions are still much the same as a decade ago. We need a new context for the Jewish-Christian dialogue; it is obvious and fully understandable that World War II drove the first 50 years of dialogue. The Jewish-Christian dialogue needs today to get out of a certain defensiveness and needs to investigate ways in which it can be brought forward in a new and more open and less restricted direction.

This was the intention behind the Jewish-Christian dialogue organised at Temple Emanu-El in New York by the WCC, The Centre for Interreligious Understanding in Secaucus, NJ and The Association for Progressive Judaism November 12-14, 2003. Called “Understanding Oneself through the Other”, this Jewish-Christian dialogue brought together rabbis from US and Christian participants from all over the world. While the original intention of the consultation was to launch a theological process on the consequences of Jewish-Christian dialogue for Jewish and Christian theology, early on the focus shifted first towards a discussion on how we can contribute to a revitalisation of the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Here it was necessary to ask whether we really know who the other is. A presentation was congenially entitled “Can we talk?” asking the question whether Jews and Christians in the conversation were really themselves or maybe more playing the role that the other wanted the counterpart to incarnate in the dialogue.

Christians today are more likely to be Christians from the South having difficulties shouldering the responsibility or incarnating the role of European Christians in their troubled relation to antisemitism. Jews today are not per definition hard-core settlers in the West Bank or even their sympathisers. In the consultation, Jews and Christians expressed in different ways the need to get out of the stereotypes that we have of each other. This may open new vistas in the Jewish-Christian dialogue. If we want to build a constructive relationship, then must we not abandon congealed images of the other as e.g. permanent victims and victimisers? In what way are we attributing roles to each other, which are so difficult to get out of but so necessary if we want to create space for common freedom and a mutually challenging creativity? It is obvious that dialogue must entail a good portion of saying who we are in order for us to define ourselves. However, when we go beyond this stage, is the next stage necessarily that we confirm what the other says about him/herself? Our dialogue should not require us to affirm the convictions of the other. What is the rationale behind Christian affirmations of Judaism such as “the covenant between God and the Jewish people endures for ever”? The same could be asked about Christian statements about the State of Israel as being intrinsic to the self-understanding of the Jewish people. Seeing it as an expression of Jewish faith does not necessarily mean that it is the way to solve the Middle East conflict. It is to the credit of the participants in the consultation that it was possible to broach in a Jewish-Christian dialogue conflicting perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even more to agree that it needs to be pursued.

The consultation enabled us to raise issues that could provide material for a deepening or renewal of the Jewish-Christian dialogue. The keynote addresses allowed for freewheeling discussions on the role and place of the Jewish-Christian dialogue today. Despite frustrations, there was willingness on both sides to ‘keep talking’ and a realisation that the dialogue should proceed beyond looking for areas of agreement. Dialogue is or should be a way towards knowing truth that neither party possesses prior to the dialogue. For this to happen, we may have to be more attentive to the world we are living in and not only busy ourselves with our own internal agendas of dialogue. We may think that the climate of dialogue and life together between Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages was due only to the resources of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But when we probe deeper into the climate of this flourishing civilisation of dialogue, we discover that the atmosphere common to them all, the glue that kept them together was more than anything else the Aristotelian philosophy of life. This was the interpretative key. Today we have to ask ourselves about the environment of Jews and Christians, which could enable a dialogue that goes beyond the confines of each community or even of a sort of Jewish-Christian coalition. Maybe a wider conversation could liberate the Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Not least Bishop Krister Stendahl, veteran in Jewish-Christian dialogue, has broken new ground in the Jewish-Christian dialogue and contributed to an inspiring reading of the apostle Paul in the context of Judaism. However, he has also repeatedly warned against a dialogue between Jews and Christians that fosters the feeling of Jews and Christians against the rest of the world. It was most appropriate that The Centre for Interreligious Understanding honoured him with the Faith in Dialogue Award. His participation in this consultation opened the door to Jewish and Christian soul-searching, necessary for a true renewal of the Jewish-Christian dialogue. This consultation was a beginning in such a direction. At first deploring that the theme of the consultation was not properly addressed, I came to appreciate that before entering such explorations, we may have to raise issues, which still remain controversial in the relationship between Jews and Christians and calling for similar encounters that go beyond being self-serving.

Notes:
i. WCC Assembly, Amsterdam 1948
ii. Ecumenical Considerations on Jewish-Christian Dialogue

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