June 18-19, 2000

A paper by David Novak of the University of Toronto on "Avoiding Charges of Legalism and Antinomianism in Jewish-Christian Dialogue" established the framework for this discussion.   He observed that the conduct of the contemporary dialogue between Christians and Jews is itself a theological issue. Therefore, the dialogue can have serious meaning only when conducted on a theological level, with each side carefully avoiding hostility, capitulation, syncretism, or relativism in its theological vision of the other.  

He argued that at the ultimate level, Judaism and Christianity assert truth claims that are mutually exclusive.  The highest form of worship of God is either by the Torah and Jewish tradition or by Christ and Christian tradition. One cannot live as a Jew and as a Christian in tandem. However at the penultimate level there is rich commonality that can be respected without necessarily falling into the dangers mentioned above.  The ultimate-level impasse will be resolved eschatologically, and this eschatological horizon should guard each community from triumphalism about its witness of the truth given to it.

For too long Christians and Jews have made wrong assumptions about the place of Torah or Law in either tradition.  Christians accused Jews of seeking to earn salvation through the doing of works of the law, while Jews charged Christians with an antinomian abandonment of God's commands.  However, in reality, both traditions acknowledge the need for law in common. How could any relationship with God not have normative consequences for humans?  Christians can no more be antinomian than Jews can be legalistic and maintain any theological cogency.  The real divide between them is over what those immutable commandments are, when and where they are heard, and how one keeps them.  The task for Christians is to overcome the false charge against Judaism as legalistic. The task for Jews is to understand how Christian lawfulness can be seen as consistent with Jewish normativeness without being made subordinate to it. 

Novak went on to discuss the Noahide laws as the most fundamental of all commonalities between Judaism and any gentile nation on earth. The acceptance of the Noahide law is really the acceptance of natural law.  It applies to all humankind.  Jews can very well see in Christians those human beings outside the people of Israel who have understood these truths of natural law best.  In addition, a community that acknowledges the supreme Lordship of God is a community Jews can respect in principle.

Christianity has appropriated only part of the law of the Torah for itself, the moral law, and has not appropriated those laws that are addressed to Israel in its very separateness (diet, dress, etc.).  This partialness of the Christian appropriation of Jewish law is the key problem with Christian normativeness for Jewish theology.  It was an extremely intense problem in regard to early Jewish Christians who were seen as discarding parts of the Torah; but it is a lesser problem concerning Gentile Christians who can be understood as voluntarily taking on parts of the Torah beyond Noahide Law.  Christians, of course, understood that they had superseded the Old Law with a better one.  This asymmetry between the two traditions shows why neither group would want the other to have superior political power - the other would inevitably assume a second class status. Neither can tolerate the other as "Israel."

Novak suggested that it is better to understand the normative commonalities between Judaism and Christianity as overlappings, not as related subspecies of the genus "Israel."  The latter would make the commonalities greater than the differences and justify the assimilation of the weaker species by the greater.  An overlapping model provides a more even playing field. Such overlapping commonalities would be seen as more analogous than identical, and empower both communities to promote ethical norms that enhance the value of human personhood in resistance to the idolatry of secularity. We can see each other as both commanded by the same God.

Ingrid Shafer of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma then responded. She began with the observation that she and Novak were approaching the topic of Jewish-Christian dialogue from opposite directions.  Shafer described her hermeneutical lenses as focused on the "cosmic core" - the God who reaches out in unconditional love, waiting to be activated in human hearts and minds. This God is beyond the total grasp of any religious tradition. Therefore, the world religions are diverse faith languages or, to use Raimundo Panikkar's metaphor, various instruments in a spiritual orchestra. They are a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom, but can also be used to legitimize tyranny, discrimination, and violence.  All believers are obligated to help their tradition mature beyond such destructive usages. 

Shafer thus found deeply disturbing Novak's stress on natural laws commanded by God, which sounded uncomfortably like a demand to accept unconditionally religious truth claims as valid for all times and peoples. Such approaches are dangerous for both Christians and Jews.  A commanding God is not consistent with a God of unconditional love and mercy.  

Shafer found only hostility to be a truly dangerous risk of interreligious encounter. Syncretism, relativism, and capitulation (better, "conversion") could be appropriate individual responses if moderate and balanced.  The challenge facing all religions is to collaborate in pursuing a vision of the world in which all of us, despite our differences, can imagine ourselves as siblings, working together for peace and justice. 

Novak briefly responded that the differences between himself and Shafer were more philosophical than theological, a manifestation of the current "culture war" that crosses religious boundaries. Novak's effort was to justify his understanding of Christianity to his own Jewish community.  He felt that Jews and Christians immersed in secular culture need to talk to one another to develop the full philosophical potential of their response to secularism. 

Much of the resulting general conversation revolved around Novak's statement that Judaism and Christianity make mutually exclusive truth claims.  Was it not possible that the unprecedented theological dialogue now beginning between Jews and Christians would leave the participants as different Jews and Christians, but still Jews and Christians?  What could make participants in interreligious dialogue different from their co-religionists would be the desire to articulate their truth claims in ways that did not exclude the other tradition but still maintained the distinctiveness of their own.  

Similarly, it was asked why Jews could not think of Christians as divinely commanded to realize Israel's mission to be a blessing to the nations. How would such an approach be contrary to Jewish truth claims?  [Novak: but the Church's claims about Christ are more than that. Does not Judaism have to react Christianity according to Christian self-definition?] 

A related issue was the question of who speaks for a community, especially in a post-modernist world in which people feel they can only speak for themselves. Yet, interreligious dialogue presupposes community.