WikiPortallus: Judeo-Christian.html

Judeo-Christian (or Judaeo-Christian, sometimes written as Judæo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, and considered, often along with classical Greco-Roman civilization, a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values. In particular, the term refers to the common Old Testament/Tanakh as a basis of both moral traditions, including particularly the Ten Commandments; and implies a common set of values present in the modern Western World. The values most commonly assigned to the Judeo-Christian tradition are liberty and equality based on Genesis, where all humans are created equal, and Exodus, where the Israelites flee tyranny to freedom.^[1] Other authors discuss more broadly the Jewish beliefs in progress and moral responsibility, as hallmarks of American culture that come from the Judeo-Christian reading of the Bible. ^[2] The term has been criticized by some theologians for suggesting more commonality than may actually exist. (Compare with Ebionites and Judaizers.)

The evolution of Judeo-Christian influence on America is most commonly the subject of historians looking at the development of democracy in America. The deep roots of Judeo-Christian values they explore go back to the Protestant Reformation, not the theological battles but the bloody struggle to win the right to translate the Bible into vernacular languages^[3] ^[4]. (see Wycliff, Tyndale,King James Bible) This led to a religious mandate for public education so that ordinary people could read the Bible. According to some authors, this development was crucial to the birth of the Enlightenment and rebellion against divine right of kings^[5]

In the American context, historians use the term Judeo-Christian to refer to the influence of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament on Protestant thought and values, most especially the Puritan, Presbyterian and Evangelical heritage. These founding generations of Americans saw themselves as heirs to the Hebrew Bible, and its teachings on liberty, responsibility, hard work, ethics, justice, equality, a sense of choseness and an ethical mission to the world, which have become key components of the American character, what is called the “American Creed.” ^[6]These ideas from the Hebrew Bible, brought into American history by Protestants, are seen as underpinning the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Other authors are interested in tracing the religious beliefs of America's founding fathers, emphasizing both Jewish and Christian influence in their personal beliefs and how this was translated into the creation of American institutions and character. ^[7]

To these historians, the interest of the concept Judeo-Christian is not theology but on actual culture and history as it evolved in America. These authors discern a melding of Jewish thought into Protestant teachings – which added onto the heritage of English history and common law, as well as Enlightenment thinking - resulted in the birth of American democracy. ^[8]^[9]^[10]

Multiple meanings

The earliest uses of the terms "Judeo-Christian" and "Judeo-Christianity" cited by the Oxford English Dictionary are 1899 and 1910 respectively, both discussing theories of the emergence of Christianity.^[11]

The term gained much greater currency particularly in the political sphere from the 1920s and 1930s, promoted by liberal groups which evolved into the National Conference of Christians and Jews, to fight antisemitism by expressing a more inclusive idea of the United States of America than the previously dominant rhetoric of the nation as a specifically Christian Protestant country.;^[12]^[13] By 1952 President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower was speaking of the "Judeo-Christian concept" being the "deeply religious faith" on which "our sense of government... is founded".^[14]

By the 1980s the description of the United States as built on a core Judeo-Christian culture had become ingrained, and no longer controversial.

The term became particularly associated with the conservative right in American politics, promoting a "Judeo-Christian values" agenda in the so-called culture wars, a usage which surged in the 1990s.^[15] Hot topic issues in the battles over the Judeo-Christian tradition include, in a typical example, the right to display the following documents in Kentucky schools, after they were banned by a federal judge in May 2000 as "conveying a very specific governmental endorsement of religion":

Prominent champions of the term also identify it with the historic Pilgrim/Puritan Protestant tradition. The Jewish conservative columnist Dennis Prager, for example, writes:

Liberal secularists reject the use of "Judeo-Christian" as a code-word for a particular kind of Christian America,^[18] with scant regard to modern Jewish, Catholic or more liberal Christian traditions.

Usage has shifted again, according to Hartmann et al, since 2001 and the September 11 attacks, with the mainstream media using the term less, in order to characterize America as multicultural. The study finds the term now most likely to be used by liberals in connection with discussions of Muslim and Islamic inclusion in America, and renewed debate about the separation of church and state.^[15]

It is used more than ever by conservative thinkers and journalists, who use it to discuss the Islamic threat to America, the dangers of multiculturalism, and moral decay in a materialist, secular age. Dennis Prager, author of popular books on Judaism and antisemitism, Nine Questions People ask about Judaism (with Joseph Telushkin)^[19] and Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, ^[20] ([1]) and radio commentator, has published an on-going 19-part series explaining and promoting the concept of Judeo-Christian culture, running for three years from 2005-2008, reflecting the interest of this concept to his listeners. He believes the Judeo-Chrisitan perspective is under assault by an amoral and materialistic culture that desperately needs its teachings. [2]^[21]

Basis of a common concept of the two religions

Supporters of the Judeo-Christian concept point to the Christian claim that Christianity is the heir to Biblical Judaism, and that the whole logic of Christianity as a religion is that it exists (only) as a religion built upon Judaism. Two major views of the relationship exist, namely Supersessionism and Dual-covenant theology. In addition, although the order of the books in the Protestant Old Testament (excluding the Biblical apocrypha) and the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) differ, the books are the same. The majority of the Old Testament is, in fact, Jewish scripture, and it is used as moral and spiritual teaching material throughout the Christian world. The prophets, patriarchs, and heroes of the Jewish scripture are also known in Christianity, which uses the Jewish text as the basis for its understanding of historic Judeo-Christian figures such as Abraham, Elijah, and Moses. As a result, a vast chunk of Jewish and Christian teachings are based on a common sacred text.

Judeo-Christian concept in interfaith relations

Promoting the concept of America as a Judeo-Christian nation became a political program in the 1920s, in response to the growth of antisemitism in America. The rise of Hitler in the 1930s led concerned Protestants, Catholics and Jews to take active steps to increase understanding and tolerance.^[22]

In this effort, precurors of the National Conference of Christians and Jews created teams consisting of a priest, a rabbi and a minister, to run programs across the country, and fashion a more pluralistic America, no longer defined as a Christian land, but ‘one nurtured by three ennobling traditions: Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism.” ^[23] “The phrase ‘Judeo-Christian’ entered the contemporary lexicon as the standard liberal term for the idea that Western values rest on a religious consensus that included Jews.”^[24]

Through soul-searching in the aftermath of the Holocaust, “there was a revolution in Christian theology in America. …(producing) the greatest shift in Christian attitudes toward the Jewish people since Constantine converted the Roman Empire.” ^[25] The rise of Christian Zionism that is, religiously motivated Christian interest and support for the state of Israel, along with a growth of philo-semitism, love of the Jewish people, has increased interest among American Evangelicals in Judaism, especially areas of commonality with their own beliefs, see also Jerusalem in Christianity. Interest in and a positive attitude towards America’s Judeo-Christian tradition has become mainstream among Evangelicals. ^[26]

The scriptural basis for this new positive attitude towards Jews among Evangelicals is Genesis 12:3, in which God promises that He will bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants, and curse those who curse them, see also Covenant (biblical)#Abrahamic Covenant. Other factors in the new philo-semitism is gratitude to the Jews for contributing to the theological foundations of Christianity, and for being the source of the prophets and Jesus; remorse for the Church's history of anti-Semitism; and fear that God will judge the nations at the end of time on the basis of how they treated the Jewish people. Moreover, Israel is for evangelicals God's prophetic clock, irrefutable proof that prophecy is true and is coming to pass in our lifetime.^[27] Great numbers of Christian pilgrims visit Israel, especially in times of trouble for the Jewish state, to offer moral support, and return with an even greater sense of a shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

Public awareness of a shared Judeo-Chrisitan belief system has increased since the 1990s due to a great deal of interest in the life of the historical Jesus, stressing his Jewishness, see also Jewish Christians. The literature explores differences and commonalities between Jesus’ teachings, Christianity and Judaism.^[28]^[29]^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33]^[34]

On the other hand, the response of Jews towards the "Judeo-Christian" concept has been mixed. In the 1930s, "In the face of worldwide antisemitic efforts to stigmatize and destroy Judaism, influential Christians and Jews in America labored to uphold it, pushing Judaism from the margins of American religious life towards its very center." ^[35] During World War II, Jewish chaplains worked with Catholic priests and Protestant ministrs to promote goodwill, addressing servicemen who, "in many cases 'had never seen, much less heard a Rabbi speak before." At funerals for the unknown soldier, rabbis stood alongside the other chaplains and recited prayers in Hebrew. In a much publicized wartime tragedy, the sinking of the USS Dorchester, the ships multi-faith chaplains gave up their lifebelts to evacuating seamen and stood together 'arm in arm in prayer' as the ship went down. A 1948 postage stamp commemorated their heroism with the words: 'interfaith in action." ^[24]

In the 1950s, “a spiritual and cultural revival washed over American Jewry” in response to the trauma of the Holocaust.^[23] American Jews became more confident to be identified as different.

Two notable books addressed the relations between contemporary Judaism and Christianity, Abba Hillel Silver’s Where Judaism Differs and Leo Baeck’s Judaism and Christianity, both motivated by an impulse to clarify Judaism’s distinctiveness “in a world where the term Judeo-Christian had obscured critical differences between the two faiths.” ^[36] Reacting against the blurring of theological distinctions, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote that "Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism".^[37] Novelist and theologian Arthur A. Cohen, in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, questioned the theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it was essentially an invention of American politics, while Jacob Neusner, in Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition writes "The two faiths stand for different people talking about different things to different people".^[38]

By the 1990s Jews had joined the culture wars, and liberal Jews were likely to vigorously reject all talk of Judeo-Christian culture as attacks on separation of church and state, or even on Jewish religion. For example, as one rabbi, Gershon Winckler, puts it:

Law professor Stephen M. Feldman identifies talk of Judeo-Christian tradition as supersessionism

In contrast,conservative Jews continued to embrace the term and meaning of Judeo-Christian, and to cherish their alliance with conservative Christians.

Breakdown of liberal Judeo-Christian alliance

At the same time that the positive attitude of Evangelicals towards Jews and Judaism has grown, the Judeo-Christian alliance between liberal churches and synagogues that was begun in the 1920’s, has seriously decayed in recent years.^[43] ^[44] ^[45]"The liberal Protestant churches, unlike their conservative counterparts, have become anti-Israel bastions in recent years."^[46] ^[47] Some liberal churches have absorbed anti-Israel political stances that at times have developed into modern forms of anti-semitism, writes Dexter Van Zile in "Hate at the Altar". ^[48] Presbyterian elder James Woolsey, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Bill Clinton criticized the Presbyterian USA General Assembly's 2004 decision to characterize Israel as an apartheid state and adopt a divestment policy, with these words: "We have, I'm afraid, moved into a posture…that, unless what we did two years ago is rejected, we are clearly on the side of theocratic, totalitarian, anti-Semitic, genocidal beliefs, and nothing less." [3](See New Anti-Semitism, also Sabeel).^[49] [4][5]

"Jewish groups were caught off guard. They were outraged that divestment, a tactic utilized against apartheid South Africa, was now being advocated by a major American Protestant denomination as a means of pressuring the Jewish state. "Prior to its pronouncement, had you asked me if this is on the agenda, I'd say I can't imagine it," said Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.^[50]

Among some liberal churches, the influence of Palestinian Christians hostile to Jews has led to a rebirth of antisemitic imagery, belief in supercessionism, and even political action, resulting in conflicts in relations between the Jewish community and local or national churches. For example, Sabeel is a formal partner of Presbyterian U.S.A., and has been invited to put on multi-day conferences at Boston's historic Old South Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ. Sabeel's Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel conference was widely condemned by Jewish and Christian organizations because it "included imagery explicitly linking the modern Jewish state to the terrible charge that for centuries fueled so much anti-Jewish hatred and bloodshed" that "Israel is guilty of trying to murder Jesus as an infant, of killing Jesus on the cross, and of seeking to prevent his resurrection."[6].

Sister Ruth Lautt, National Director of Christians for Fair Witness^[51] on the Middle East condemned Presbyterian U.S.A. and the South Boston United Church of Christ for legitimizing Sabeel's anti-Semitic preaching. Palestinain Pastor Ateek preaches that “in this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around Him …The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily."^[52]

Such programs have led to an unprecedented breakdown of cordial relations in the Judeo-Christian alliance between the liberal Protestant churches and the American Jewish community that was launched in the 1920s to combat American anti-Semitism.[7]^[53]^[54]^[55]

This breakdown in the Judeo-Christian alliance has not gone unnoticed by concerned Christian churches and laypeople, who have formed numerous organizations to combat growing anti-Semitism in liberal Christine churches.

Judeo-Christian concept in American history

Nineteenth century historians wrote extensively on the United States of America having a distinctively Protestant character in its outlook and founding political philosophy. It is only since the 1950s that the term "Judeo-Christian" has been applied to it, reflecting the growing use of that term in American political life. By some the term is used casually, simply as a commonplace term, or as an inclusive synonym for the religious. Others, including for example Prager, argue the term is appropriate in its own right, capturing a distinctively Old Testament dimension (though not necessarily that of Judaism) in the Puritan character of early American Protestantism.

The notion of a distinctive religious basis for American democracy and culture was first described and popularized by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1840’s, in his influential book, Democracy in America. In Chapter Two, De Tocqueville describes America’s unique religious heritage from the Puritans. His analysis showed the Puritans as providing the foundational values of America, based on their strong Hebrew Bible view of the world, which included fighting for earthly political justice, an emphasis on laws and education, and a belief in the chosenness of the Jews which the Puritans identified with, giving them a sense of moral mission in founding America. As de Tocqueville observed, the Puritan’s Biblical outlook gave America a moral dimension which the Old World lacked. De Tocqueville believed these Biblical values led to America's unique institutions of religious tolerance, public education, egalitarianism, and democracy.

This concept of America’s unique Bible-driven historical and cultural identity was developed by historians as they studied the first centuries of America’s history, from the Pilgrims through Abraham Lincoln. The statements and institutions of the founding generation that have been preserved are numerous, and they explicitly describe many of their Biblical motivations and goals, their interest in Hebrew^{citation needed} and the Hebrew Bible, their use of Jewish^{citation needed} and Christian images and ideas. These Judeo-Christian values were especially important at the key foundational moments of the settling of America, the War for Independence and the Civil War.^[58]

Perry Miller of Harvard University, wrote in 1956, “Puritanism may be described empirically as that point of view, that code of values, carried to New England by the first settlers. …the New Englanders established Puritanism- for better or worse-as one of the continuous factors in American life and thought. It has played so dominant a role…all across the continent…these qualities have persisted even though the original creed is lost. Without an understanding of Puritanism …there is no understanding of America.” (^[59]

This view about American history and culture has been questioned in recent decades by multiculturalists. In 2007, one prominent multiculturist professor, Jon Butler, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Howard R. Lamar Professor of American History, Yale University, published a book on religion in colonial America which, according to the reviews, explodes the myth that “the piety of the Pilgrims typified early American religion,” corrects the image of “colonial America as a type of grey, monolithic, uniformity”, is critical of the Puritans, and adulatory towards third-world contributions: “Butler explores the failure of John Winthrop's goal to achieve Puritan perfection, the controversy over Anne Hutchinson's tenacious faith, the evangelizing stamina of ex-slave and Methodist preacher Absalom Jones, and the spiritual resilience of the Catawba Indians.” (^[60]In Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776, Butler argues against a “Europeanized” or predominantly British identity of colonial America, and underlines contributions by Ibo, Ashanti, Yoruba, Catawba and Leni-Lenape.^[61]

Michael Novak, a specialist in the religious beliefs of the founding fathers, argues that because of the power of academics promoting multiculturalism, moral relativism, and secularism, academic censorship is applied to information and analysis supporting our Judeo-Christian heritage ^[62]

Use of term in United States law

In the legal case of Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state legislature could constitutionally have a paid chaplain to conduct legislative prayers "in the Judeo-Christian tradition." In Simpson v. Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors^[63], the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Supreme Court's holding in the Marsh case permitting legislative bodies to conduct prayer in the "Chesterfield County could constitutionally exclude Cynthia Simpson, a Wiccan priestess, from leading its legislative prayers, because her faith was not "in the Judeo-Christian tradition." Chesterfield County's Board included Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy in its invited list.

Judeo-Christian-Muslim

The term Judeo-Christian has been criticized for implying more commonality than actually exists. The Slovenian postmodern philosopher Slavoj Žižek has argued that the term Judeo-Muslim to describe the middle-east culture against the western Christian culture would be more appropriate in these days^[64], claiming as well a reduced influence from the Jewish culture on the western world due to the historical persecution and exclusion of the Jewish minority. (see http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html for a different perspective on Jewish contributions and influence.) A Judaeo-Christian-Muslim concept thus refers to the three main monotheistic religions, commonly known as the Abrahamic Religions. Formal exchanges between the three religions, modeled on the decades-old Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue groups, became common in American cities following the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo accords.

Following 9/11, there was a break-down in interfaith dialogue that included mosques, due to the increased attention to Islamic sermons in American mosques, that revealed “anti-Jewish and anti-Israel outbursts by previously respected Muslim clerics and community leaders.” ^[65]

One of the country’s most prominent mosques is the New York Islamic Cultural Center, built with funding from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia. Its imam, Mohammad Al-Gamei'a, disappeared without warning two days after 9/11.

The interview was published October 4 on a Web site affiliated with Cairo's Al-Azhar University, Islam's most respected theological academy. Immediately after 9/11, Imam Al-Gamei'a had presided over an interfaith service at his mosque. At the service the imam was quoted as saying, "We emphasize the condemnation of all persons, whoever they be, who have carried out this inhuman act." The Reverend James Parks Morton, president of the Interfaith Center of New York, who attended the service, called Imam Al-Gamei'a's subsequent comments "astonishing." "It makes interfaith dialogue all the more important," Reverend Morton said.^[66]

Post 9/11 remarks made by Muslim leaders in Cleveland and Los Angeles also led to the suspension of longstanding Muslim-Jewish dialogues. Some Jewish community leaders cite the statements as the latest evidence that Muslim-Jewish dialogue is futile in today's charged atmosphere. John Rosove, senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, and other Jewish participants withdrew from the three-year-old Muslim-Jewish dialogue group after one of the Muslim participants, Salim al-Marayati, suggested in a radio interview that Israel should be put on the list of suspects behind the September 11 attacks.^[66]

In Cleveland, Jewish community leaders put Muslim-Jewish relations on hold this month after the spiritual leader of a prominent mosque appeared in (a 1991) videotape …aired after 9/11 by a local TV station. Imam Fawaz Damra calls for "directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." The revelation was all the more shocking since Imam Damra had been an active participant in local interfaith activities.^[66]

Good Jewish-Muslim relations continue in Detroit, which has the nation's largest Arab-American community. Jewish organizations there have established good relations with a religious group called the Islamic Supreme Council of North America.

Judeo-Christian.html

Contents

Multiple meanings

Basis of a common concept of the two religions

Judeo-Christian concept in interfaith relations

Breakdown of liberal Judeo-Christian alliance

Judeo-Christian concept in American history

Use of term in United States law

Judeo-Christian-Muslim

See also

Related terms

References

Further reading

External links