Recently at a symposium[1] held at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, I had the opportunity to become better aware of a significant new approach, primarily on the part of Roman Catholics, to the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. The advocates of this approach were Gregory Baum, Rosemary Ruether, Monika Hellwig, John Pawlikowski, Claire Huchet-Bishop and others. The central point of their position is that Christians must stop teaching that Jesus Christ is the “fulfillment” of the Old Testament, because this teaching is theologically incorrect and morally dangerous.
The doctrine that Jesus has fulfilled the Old Testament is considered to be theologically incorrect because, according to this view, Jesus did not, as a matter of fact, fulfill the expectations of the messiah held by the Jews. The Jews, it is claimed, were and still are, looking for a messiah who will establish justice on the earth, punish the wrongdoers, effect a cosmic transfiguration and bring the Kingdom of God in power—all of which Jesus of Nazareth did not do.
The fact that both Jews and Gentiles through the ages and today have thought and believed that Jesus is the Messiah, who has fulfilled the Old Testament in his own person and offers the experience of the messianic age to all men in the mystical life of the New Testament Church, and that this same Jesus will come again at the end of the ages to establish the Kingdom of God with power throughout the whole of creation, does not alter the fact, in the view of these authors, that the Jews as God’s chosen people were not and are not expected to believe this, since God Himself did not expect them to do so. In a word, God’s original covenant with Israel according to the Law stands by the will of God until the end of the world, and Christians should recognize and affirm the religious and spiritual legitimacy of non-Christian Judaism as God’s will until the end of the ages. This means, on a practical level, that Christians must understand and present Christianity as a partial and limited “religion,” co-existing necessarily with Judaism as well as with all of the other “religions” of the world, since these also are revelations of God, each witnessing in its own way to the richness of divine action in the world and moving in its own direction toward the final consummation of all things in God.
In order for Christians to make their position very clear about the partial and, one might say, private and personal character of the Christian “religion,” all missions and attempts at the conversion of Jews, as well as adherents of other religious traditions, should cease, and only those converts should be accepted into the Christian faith who wish to come for reasons of their own, whose non- acceptance would be a violation of their personal liberties and individual rights. Thus, Christians are called to present their “religious tradition” as in no way truer, fuller or better than any other, and to give a new interpretation of the New Testament scriptures in which, it is conceded, the universal and perfect character of the Christian faith is clearly proclaimed. In this “new interpretation,” it is said, the New Testament writings have to be understood in the light of the peculiar situation of the early Church, in which the universal claims of the faith were sociologically and psychologically natural and even, in a sense, justifiable.
A fledgling new religion under the strain of persecution is allowed hyperbolic and exaggerated proclamations. This was the case of early Christianity. But such proclamations can no longer be considered as valid or true, particularly in times and places where Christian power dominates, and where such theology has a different sociological impact. The apostolic scriptures must be appreciated in “historical perspective” on the basis of “sound scholarship” in the context of our new “sociological conditions” and in the light of our new and more advanced “religious consciousness.” Practically this means that much of the New—and even the Old—Testament scriptures, especially those passages employed for Christian instruction and inspiration and traditionally read in the context of “fullness” and “fulfillment,” must be carefully explained, or textually altered, or perhaps even omitted altogether, in order not to continue to give the wrong impression that the Christian faith has in fact a universal significance which makes it “superior” to Judaism and to the other religions of man. In addition, Christians are urged to read—especially in their official liturgical assemblies—writings of modern Jewish authors, as well as those of other religions, in order to impress the fact very clearly upon themselves that others besides Christians have received wisdom and insight from God, and that their religious traditions are in no way inferior to those of the Christians, and most certainly are not sterile, impotent and dead.
Essential to this new approach to non-Christian religion, this veritable “new theology,” and underlying it, is the teaching that the “old theology” of Christians was not only theologically wrong, but morally dangerous. Because classical Christian scripture, theology, liturgy and preaching proclaimed Christ as “the fulfillment of the law and the prophets,” with the Christian Church as the fulfillment of Israel, as God’s chosen people in the final and everlasting covenant, there naturally emerged not merely the false claim of superiority of the Christian “religion” over all others, but the false and dangerous claim of superiority of the Christians themselves. This false superiority gave Christians the right to foster hatred and contempt not merely for other religious traditions but for the adherents of these traditions as well, primarily the Jews, and as such inevitably led to the infamous and despicable persecutions, inquisitions, pogroms, holy wars and holocausts of which Christian history is full. Therefore the “new theology” must be accepted and practiced immediately as the only hope for the end of religious oppression, persecutions and murders, to which the old “fulfillment theology” has necessarily led its advocates and their zealous and unenlightened supporters.
In response to this general view, as least two basic questions must be asked. First, can Christians admit that Jesus of Nazareth is not to be understood by all people as the personal fulfillment of the law and the prophets of Israel; the fulfillment and personal realization of all that is true, right and perfect in man; the fulness of God in human, fleshly form? And secondly, is it really true that, if one believes Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel, the unique incarnate Son of God, by whom, in whom and for whom all things were made, he or she inevitably is led to depreciate and degrade all other people and their religious views and practices in a way that necessarily results in contempt, hatred, ridicule, persecution and finally even annihilation?
In the first place, I believe that the position according to which Jesus is “in some sense” the Messiah for Christians, and in no sense the Messiah for Jews and for those of other religions, is untenable.
Jesus is either God’s Messiah for all people or for none. Although it may be held-and I believe this-that God from eternity knew, as a matter of fact, that Judaism would persist as a religious tradition after the coming of Jesus, a tradition in which the truth and holiness of the law of God would be loved and cherished by many who would be the victims of the contempt, ridicule, hatred and violence of countless Christians whose attitudes and actions must be condemned in the name of Jesus, it still can in no way be contended that God willed, planned or caused things to be this way. The fact of the persistence of Judaism as a religion in the world after Jesus, and the fact of sin and wickedness among members of the Christian community cannot be the basis for a new theology about God and men, and Christ and the Church.
To proclaim Jesus as the Christ does not mean that Christians have any claims to personal or communal superiority, and their faith most certainly does not by itself lead to the persecution of others. Nothing is more foreign to the teaching of Jesus himself, of the apostles, of the martyrs and saints of the Church, than contempt and persecution of others. Once again, the fact that Christians at times have been contemptuous of others and have committed violent, criminal acts, cannot alter another fact: that “the Truth is in Jesus” who condemns every falsehood and sin, and who gives his own life for the life of the world. The sins of Christians can only be deplored and condemned. They cannot serve as the basis for revision of the New Testament faith.
If it were true, however, that the “fulfillment” teaching about Jesus necessarily leads to hatred and persecution of others, there would clearly be no hope for any genuine spiritual union among men on the basis of a universal view of reality, whether Christian or not, because a universal view necessarily corrupts and leads to hatred and persecution of those who do not hold it. The only safeguard against religious violence would be religious relativism: the affirmation, on the one hand, that all religious traditions are partial, and, on the other hand, that all theological views and spiritual practices must be affirmed as true and valuable for their respective proponents, however opposed and contradictory they may be in themselves. In other areas of human endeavor, including the sciences, such an attitude would be rejected as illogical and absurd. The truth does not corrupt. It liberates and vivifies. This must be so in the religious, as well as any other area. Jesus cannot be the Messiah for some and not for others, The Way, The Truth and The Life for some and not for all. He must either be God’s incarnate Son for all men, or for none.
Christians and Jews are united in their commitment to follow the way of the law and the prophets—and call all men to do so—by affirming the Truth and the Right wherever and in whomever the Truth and the Right are found, by denying every falsehood and sin, also whenever and in whomever they are found, and by questioning and searching in areas where obscurity remains, always and everywhere, with spiritual, mental and moral testing and debate as the only means of correction and persuasion. If Christians believe that the Truth is in Jesus, they must prove it by intellectual argument and spiritual demonstration. If Jews—or anyone else—believe that the Truth is not in Jesus, they must also say why not, and prove it by logical argument and spiritual witness. But to dismiss the problem by a new theology of the kind now being offered leads nowhere and helps no one, Christian or Jew or anyone at all.
By Thomas Hopko
St. Vladimir Theological Quarterly, Volume 18, Number 4/1974, pp. 213–217
[1] Auschwitz, beginning of a new era? : Reflections on the Holocaust : papers given at the International Symposium on the Holocaust, held at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, June 3 to 6, 1974
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