Opinion Essay                                                                                                               January, 2005

Our Race Against Time?

Eric Geller

Eric Geller is a student in graduate courses in Christian-Jewish relations in the Boston area.

I’m not a theologian or a scholar. I’m a 57 year old Jewish lawyer from the Reform tradition who has, in the past three years, made a personal effort to learn about Christianity’s “Theology of Judaism” before and after the adoption of Nostra Aetate in 1965.

My quest was generated from pain that I was unable to dispel on my own, even though I have lived and thrived in a non-Jewish world, in tolerant, diverse communities for my entire professional and personal life.  The pain emanated from my belief that Christians and their political and religious leaders had for so long oppressed Jews out of a sense of religious duty, a duty that was set in motion shortly after the parting of the ways, picked up speed, and gained momentum through succeeding centuries.

What I have learned (at institutions such as the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College) has produced tearful relief, at least with regard to post-Holocaust theology. The principles of Nostra Aetate have flourished throughout Western Christian thought, creating an environment that was unimaginable by Christians and Jews four decades ago.

However, I have found some recent events to be of concern and have begun to worry about the staying power of Nostra Aetate. I have begun to wonder whether the theology launched by Nostra Aetate will continue to develop into a coherent, accepted, positive “Theology of Judaism” for our children and their descendants. Others before me have observed, sadly, that we may be witnessing Christians wearying of references to the Holocaust, to antisemitism, and to the extraordinarily difficult changes demanded by Nostra Aetate and its progeny.

What I’m going to say in this essay should not be surprising for readers who spend their time engaged in the world of theology, but perhaps I can bring a different perspective to the discussion.  I spend my time in the non-theological world, in the world inhabited by the majority of Christians who have never heard the words “Nostra Aetate,” who were born and raised in a world after Vatican II, and who do not have the tools, and understandably do not have the desire, to understand the truth of the relationship between Christians and Jews for two millennia. 

I agree with those theologians who are disturbed about the religious illiteracy of Christians and Jews. Sometimes they blame secular culture; sometimes they blame us for our limited attention spans; sometimes they blame themselves. Whatever the reasons, the reality is that we are illiterate in the basics, let alone the nuances, of theology and history. That fact portends danger, because every prescription I have read for reducing or eliminating residual anti-Judaism, for continuing the journey begun by Nostra Aetate, demands a nuanced understanding of scripture and history.

It seems to me that we are living in a “Post-Holocaust Era of Good Feeling,” a time when, driven by historical revelation, guilt, and shame, Western Christian (broadly defined) theology toward the Jews has been stood on its head, a time when ordinary, lay Christians and Jews of goodwill began tentatively to reach out to each other in new and creative ways, a time when courageous theologians and scholars within the Christian world pushed and pushed and then pushed some more, and a time when Jews began to feel increasingly hopeful that perhaps what started in 1965 is not merely a passing phase in Christian thinking. 

But there’s one necessary uncomfortable corollary to this “Era of Good Feeling,” a corollary that might be thought of as a “yellow caution flag” in what I believe is our joint race against time. In short, despite the monumental changes in the past 40 years, my view is that no living person can accurately predict whether Nostra Aetate and the theology it has begun to spawn will endure.  

Does that sound unduly pessimistic? Let me put it this way: In hindsight, Nostra Aetate was the easy part, as counter-intuitive as that might sound. To use a current expression, the tentative, almost primitive, step taken in 1965 was mere “low hanging fruit.” Indeed, if the Catholic Church would not exonerate the Jews of the charge of deicide after Auschwitz, when would it ever do so?  If the process of undoing the “teaching of contempt” would not commence after Christian eyes saw the genocide of unimaginable proportions in the heart of “Christian” Europe, when would that process ever happen?

Here’s what I see, as an outsider looking in: I see a confluence of remarkable events that came together over 60 years, events that permitted the post-Holocaust Christian world to focus its attention on its tortured relationship with the Jews:  

• first, courageous Catholic and Protestant theologians began to peel back Christian history, determined to understand whether Christian theology had in any way contributed to the horrors, and not just the Shoah; 

• second, when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, he was succeeded by Cardinal Roncalli who, as a compromise candidate at age 77, was an unlikely revolutionary;

• third, Pope John XXIII summoned a Vatican Council just months after his election, a Council that would meet for years but would ultimately wrestle the Church into the modern world (Hans Küng wrote of John XXIII, “In five years he renewed the Catholic Church more than his predecessors had in five hundred years…Only with John did the Middle Ages come to an end in the Catholic Church”[1]);

• fourth, Pope Paul VI was willing to defend and put his name on Nostra Aetate, which, although ambiguous and the product of significant compromise, finally challenged the supersessionist and Jew-hating impulses of the Church; and

• fifth, a Polish Cardinal, Karol Josef Wojtyla, who had witnessed the ashes himself, was elected Pope: as John Paul II, he could most assuredly “remember.”

Random acts of happenstance or divinely inspired, this incredible series of events cleared out of much of the underbrush that had made reconciliation between Christians and Jews impossible.

Now we are in a race against time. Indeed, I submit that we are actually running out of time, that time is not on our side. I think there is a real possibility that Nostra Aetate and its progeny may ultimately wither unless the next generation of theologians, scholars, and leaders takes up the cause with renewed vigor, with even more bravery, and in more public ways.

I’ve made this point on occasion to a few Christian leaders who are deeply involved in the post-Nostra Aetate movement. In general, I have received skeptical looks and furrowed brows. I’ve often heard, “We’re never going back to the old thinking again.” As my Grandpa Harry used to say, “From their mouths to God’s ear.”

But the truth is that within a few short decades, all of the witnesses will be dead, as will all of the brave and courageous theologians and scholars of the past decades; our descendants will be left with grainy footage, news accounts, and books describing what happened oh so long ago; Christians then living will not feel personal guilt or shame; and the priorities of the Christian world will inevitably lie elsewhere.

And, underlying all of those realities, the “problematic” texts, those foundational texts which are never going away and are so easily “misunderstood,” the language of polemic which I need not repeat here, will remain for future theologians and scholars to interpret.  If the hard work demanded by Nostra Aetate is carried on with greater determination than we have seen since Nostra Aetate, then the future relationship between Christians and Jews may very well be bright. If not, if the forces of time conspire to choke off further positive development, if future generations grow weary of this very thin slice of Christian theology, then all bets are off.

Mary Boys wrote only five years ago, in Has God Only One Blessing?: “Many, if not most, mainline Protestants and Catholics are at best dimly aware of the substantial rethinking of the past thirty-five years. Anti-Judaism…remains alive and all too well within the church” [emphasis mine].

Cardinal William Kasper said as recently as December 6, 2004: “We are only at the start of a new start of a ‘Christian Theology of Judaism’; despite many good initiatives such a theology of Judaism still remains a desideratum. Many decisive questions still remain open.” I had to look up “desideratum.” What I found was, “Something considered necessary or highly desirable.”

So, ominous clouds hover, 60 years after Auschwitz and 40 years after Nostra Aetate: we are only at the start of a new start.

We have all seen some recent events, anecdotes really, which may well illustrate the concerns raised by Sister Boys and Cardinal Kasper in the real world. As anecdotes, they may or may not represent something important.

At a recent symposium on Christian-Jewish relations, a Jewish scholar stated, in a rather direct way, words to the effect, “The first litmus test of the sincerity of Christian theology since the adoption of Nostra Aetate was the release of The Passion of the Christ. And the Christian world failed that test.”

At first I took umbrage with that statement, and I frankly felt embarrassed as a Jew in a room full of Christians, all of whom were people of goodwill, committed to continuing the momentum of Nostra Aetate; after all, how could a movie be a litmus test of anything? But, upon further review, I came to understand what he was saying. In short, with a few notable exceptions, Christian theologians, scholars, and leaders fled the tempest and avoided the public debate, leaving the mass media to those Christians who were angered by Jewish concerns and who were more than willing to publicly excoriate the “secular Jews” of  Hollywood.  

In the recent Christmas season, the media was filled with stories of Christians angry at the “secularization” of Christmas and the frustration of being required to subsume their public expression of Christian faith to overly sensitive religious minorities; many bristled that store clerks said “Happy Holidays,” not “Merry Christmas.” Disputes arose about the lighting of menorahs and the placement of crèches. 

The media catered to the disputes, happily televising and reporting the views of angry Christians and defensive Jews. Certain people purporting to speak on behalf of Catholics and Protestants (e.g. William Donohue of The Catholic League, Pat Buchanan, and James Dobson of Focus on the Family), appeared on mainstream television to criticize the power of “secular Jews” to create a homogenized, non-Christian holiday season. (William Donohue, December 17, 2004, on MSNBC: “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular…You also have ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group…There are secularists from every ethnic and religious stock. But when people talk about Hollywood, they are talking mostly about secular Jews.”)     Donohue and the others are entitled to their views, of course, and I know that they no more speak for Catholics or Protestants than some rabbis in Gaza opposed to disengagement speak for all Jews. 

Still, this angry, public rhetoric about “secular Jews” was painful to hear, and I longed for Christians of prominence, cardinals, bishops, theologians and scholars, to seek out the airways, demanding equal time. By and large, I am sad to report, I felt the stilled voice of Christian leaders, at least in the mass media. 

Indeed, while all the heat was turned up over “The Passion” and “secularization,” I kept thinking: Will documents, symposia and conferences on Christian-Jewish relations be the few places where learned theologians and scholars will have the strength and fortitude to confront the truth as expressed by Cardinal Kasper and Sister Boys? Will only a few brave individuals be willing to face the public with their concerns and face the anger of their fellow Christians?

A wise Christian scholar once told me, “On some issues, Jews should refrain from telling Christians how to behave, particularly in matters of theology.” This was also a concern of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the influential American Orthodox thinker in the last half of the twentieth century, who counseled Jews that, “it would be both impertinent and unwise for an outsider to intrude upon the most private sector of the human existential experience, namely, the way in which a faith community expresses its relationship to God.”[2] That is sound advice, and I will follow it here. Christians know better than I what remains to be done.

My only question is: If Cardinal Kasper says that we are only at the “start of the start,” are there others out there who believe we are in a race against time, a race that might be lost?

Further Reflections on This Essay:

A Thought on Eric Geller's Essay...

Nostra Aetate was at the same time an expression of the best in Christianity and a response to the worst in Christendom. That's the irony and the dilemma. In religion, the civilizing ideals of the founders are often overwhelmed by the baser motives of the followers.

 

Still, one must make a choice and stay with it however difficult. Christian-Jewish Learning may or may not be travelling with the majority but it is certainly travelling with the best in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

From Art Rosen, Lakes Region of New Hampshire