wfn.org | Archbishop of Canterbury addresses Jewish-Christian relations

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2001-123

Archbishop of Canterbury addresses Jewish-Christian relations during visit to 
U.S.

by James Solheim

     (ENS) Relations between Christians and Jews may be at a "unique moment," 
said Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey during a recent visit to the United 
States, mainly because Christians are willing to address the Holocaust and the 
murder of millions of Jews during the Nazi era.

     Delivering the inaugural lecture at Washington's College of Preachers April 
25 to honor a predecessor, Archbishop Donald Coggan who died last year, Carey 
called attention to "an immensely exciting and hopeful initiative from the Jewish 
community" in America. The statement, Dabru Emet, "To speak the truth," was 
signed by 170 leading rabbis, scholars and leaders across the theological 
spectrum. 

     Unlike similar statements in the past, this one creates "a new situation" 
because it is a "specifically Jewish response to Christian contrition over the 
horrors of anti-Semitism and persecution," Carey said. Instead of regarding 
Judaism as "a failed religion or a religion that prepared the way for, and is 
completed in, Christianity," the climate has changed dramatically, with 
Christians expressing remorse about the treatment of Jews. Christian teaching and 
preaching "can and must be reformed so that they acknowledge God's enduring 
covenant with the Jewish people and celebrate the contribution of Judaism to 
world civilization and to Christian faith itself," according to Dabru Emet.

     The Jewish leaders who signed Dabru Emet said that "it is time for Jews to 
reflect on what Judaism may now say about Christianity," drawing on the worship 
of the same God and "seek authority from the same book," work together for 
justice and peace and recognize that "nazism was not a Christian phenomenon" and 
that the Jews have a claim to the land of Israel.

Cross-shaped witness

     Yet Carey said that the context still raises the question of how the two 
religions relate to one another--and whether it is "ever permissible for a 
Christian to invite a Jew to consider Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel."

     A traditional missionary stance has, in the past, been based on the 
conviction that "Christians have replaced Jews as God's elect people, and thus 
the church inherits all the promises God made to Israel."

     In recent years, many Christian theologians have moved to embrace a "two 
covenant" position, based on the belief that there are two ways to relate to God-
-Jews through the Mosaic covenant and Gentiles through Jesus Christ. Some 
interpret the action of the 1988 General Convention, Carey said, as a 
redefinition of Christian witness to Jews as dialogue, "a sharing of one's faith 
convictions without the intention of proselytising." Others suggest that this 
position contradicts the Apostle Paul, because it implies that Christianity is 
for non-Jews.

     Is there a better model for Christian witness, Carey asked, one between 
aggressive proselytizing and ignoring the need to witness?

      "Christian witness to Jews or any other faith community must ever and 
always be cross-shaped," Carey contended. "Our understanding of the cross takes 
us into theological empathy with our Jewish brothers and sisters. We can only 
approach the question of the 'silence of God in the Holocaust' when we Christians 
take the cross into it," he added.

     This theological empathy "must transform the way Christians bear authentic 
witness to Jesus Christ," Carey argued, a witness marked by "deep humility and 
tenderness," incorporating both words and action.

Looking at differences

     Speaking on a more personal level, Carey said, "When I meet with Jewish 
friends I do not approach them as people to convert. I approach them as people 
already known and loved by God and therefore to be respected and esteemed by me. 
But I do not abandon that desire to introduce them to my faith and the way I see 
it. However, that will only come at the right time, in the right context, and 
usually when my friend takes the first step."

     A cross-shaped witness also "surrenders its results to God," Carey 
concluded. 

     In an interview on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, the PBS television 
program, he said that Jews and Christians still had to wrestle with their 
differences in an honest way. "I regard Jesus Christ as the way to the Father, as 
the human face of God. And a Jew would look at that person differently." That 
requires, Carey said, that we "look at the differences. Let's see how far we can 
travel together, walk together, understand one another better, and share a 
responsibility for the world in which we live."

     During his time in Washington, Cary made a brief visit to the White House to 
meet with President George W. Bush and then went to the mountains of western 
North Carolina for some rest and relaxation.

--Jim Solheim is director of Episcopal News Service.