Chosen People

Christian views of Judaism are changing.

For Christians and Jews whose perceptions of one another are drawn from stereotype and caricature rather than actual interaction, three events made June 1987 a significant month.

The Reverend Bailey Smith, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was being publicly criticized once again. Smith had gained notoriety for his statement, “God Almighty doesn’t hear the prayer of a Jew,” but was later cited as an example of a repentant fundamentalist when he met with Jewish leaders and traveled to Israel as an act of reconciliation. Now the itinerant evangelist and member of the board of directors of the bankrupt PTL ministry told a conference of Southern Baptist evangelists in St. Louis that “unless [the Jewish people] repent and get born again, they don’t have a prayer!”

During the same month the 199th General Assembly of the 3.1 million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) passed a controversial paper, “A Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews,” after downgrading its status from “policy statement” to “study paper,” and modifying its statements on the State of Israel. Benjamin Weir, who had just returned from 16 months as a hostage in Lebanon, had made an impassioned plea to scuttle stronger statements in support of Israel. He told the assembly that he would find it “very difficult to live with the paper” if it called Israel the promised land for Jews. The study paper was changed to reject the notion that the State of Israel fulfilled God’s promise to the Jewish people. A small, but vocal group of Hebrew Christian Presbyterian ministers criticized “what the paper did not say.” And Herbert Links, executive director of the Committee on the Christian Approach to Jews, Presbytery of Philadelphia, complained that “the tone of the document advocates dialogue with Jews rather than a sharing of the Gospel.” Links asserted, “In any modern ‘inter-faith dialogue’ there’s always a Jewish hidden agenda which disallows any discussion regarding the real issue—the Messiahship of Jesus. How then can there be honest ‘dialogue’ between Jews and Christians if He is excluded?”

If the Presbyterian statement was embroiled in controversy even as a “study paper,” the 1.7 million-member United Church of Christ’s affirmative resolution made at its June 1987 convention in Cleveland, Ohio, was destined for continued bitter debate. To pass the declaration at their general synod, the resolution committee had to fight strong opposition even to get it on the floor; and floor leaders had to delete references to Israel’s “right to exist.” Surprisingly, the final resolution passed smoothly, expressing that Judaism and Christianity were equally legitimate and asking forgiveness for the historical Christian anti-Semitism that denied Judaism’s validity. While Robert H. Everett, pastor of Emanuel Church, Irvington, New Jersey, insists that the resolution “puts the U.C.C. on record as being in the forefront of Jewish-Christian relations,” he acknowledges that “the U.C.C. has been, on a national denominational level, rather hostile to Israel and we had expected problems in this area.”

Mainline denominations, such as the United Church of Christ, are huge aggregates of members of many different theological persuasions—with many different approaches to Christian-Jewish relations. In the past year, the UCC resolution has been assailed from both sides of the theological spectrum. Conservatives have accused the resolution of “giving away the whole theological store.” Some have gone as far as to state that “for our revelation to be true, Judaism has to be false,” and “the church is definitely the successor institution to Judaism.”

At the other end of the spectrum, liberal challengers insist that any validation of Judaism empowers Zionism, a philosophy they view as “imperialistic” and “racist.” Jewish leaders have been alarmed at anti-Zionist rhetoric from National Council of Churches’ administrators and United Church of Christ opponents that in Jewish eyes verges on hatred. They have taken note of deep pockets of anti-Semitism within liberal and mainline Protestantism, a phenomenon that both liberal and conservative Christian participants in Christian-Jewish dialogue sadly admit.

Evangelicals On The Rise

The strong feelings that surround Christian-Jewish relations do not occur spontaneously or in a vacuum. The Presbyterian paper had been originally presented in 1983; the UCC resolution had been the work of various committees over a three-year period. Bailey Smith had made his original infamous remark in 1980. Christian-Jewish dialogues had entered a new era of rapprochement during the 1960s, and considerable interaction among selected national leaders had taken place in the past two decades.

During those decades, the Jewish leadership, more comfortable with liberal theologians, had to come to grips with the ascent of conservative Christian theology. The rise of political fundamentalism and the emergence of evangelical Jimmy Carter (Newsweek declaring 1976 “The Year of the Evangelical”) led to a surprising number of articles and books on conservative Christianity. A 1976 Gallup poll indicated that approximately 50 percent of all Protestants and 20 percent of all American Catholics claimed to have been “born again.” The 1970s also brought a deeper awareness of the Holocaust and Christian anti-Semitism, as theologians and historians grappled with the moral failure of Christendom. Israel and Zionism were increasingly under attack at the United Nations; and in worldwide perception, the Jewish state was increasingly viewed as a Goliath, rather than a David.

Jewish leaders involved in dialogue were often caught in a revival of liberal-conservative Christian spats. Jews interested in evangelical-Jewish conferences were asked by liberal Christian colleagues: “Why do you want to have relationships with those evangelists and religious bigots?” And some evangelical leaders asked their newfound Jewish friends: “How can you dialogue with those liberals who do not support Israel, despise the Bible and Jewish peoplehood?”

Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark’s Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism (1966) was cited by liberals to “prove” that the more conservative a Christian was the more anti-Semitic he or she tended to be. One famed liberal church historian used this study to explain to Jewish readers (alarmed by Jimmy Carter’s overt evangelicalism) that while most evangelicals supported the State of Israel, their support was “puzzling to Jews, because domestically Evangelists have often tended toward anti-Semitism, while mainline and liberal Protestants, not known for anti-Semitism ‘next door,’ often are more ambiguous in their support for Israel.” Jewish readers were not quite sure they wanted to know the evangelicals this liberal historian caricatured:

Evangelicals produce those Miss Americas who tell you over lowcut bathing suits and evening gowns how much they love Jesus. They favor Marabel Morgan, who teaches slavish submission of wives to husbands for Jesus’ sake, in The Total Woman. She gives Evangelical wives counsel on how to dress up in boots and baby doll nighties and to “put out” sexually so that hubby will give many material goodies in return. They are behind what is often called the Jocks for Jesus movement, being almost obsessed with sports.

Within a few years, however, this same church historian observed that evangelical-Jewish relations was “the most significant religious trend in the United States.”

Misunderstanding of evangelicalism persists: The PTL and Swaggart debacles have not helped change the Elmer Gantry stereotype of evangelists. (To the Jewish community, evangelical and evangelist are synonyms.) Jews generally expect tracts, disrespect, dishonesty, and a hard-sell approach from evangelicals: During televised football games, the fans lifting banners inscribed with John 3:16 must be “evangelicals.” And a 1986 Anti-Defamation League survey of evangelical attitudes included Mormons as “evangelicals.” (Nevertheless, this survey showed more positive attitudes toward Jews than a 1966 survey.)

Evangelicals And Jews

As evangelical-Jewish relations have matured through three national dialogues (1975, 1980, and 1984) and numerous local conferences throughout the United States, the seeds of conflict (as well as understanding) present in mainline denominational struggles have also been seen among evangelicals. Evangelical theologian Donald G. Bloesch, of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and a participant in the Second National Conference of Evangelicals and Jews, is concerned that both the Presbyterian study paper and the UCC resolution “tend toward universalism and religious relativism.” Ken Myers, an evangelical member of the PCUSA and editor of This World and the newsletter Public Eye, noted that he was “struck by how many assertions of the Westminster Confession are compromised if one accepts the teaching of the new PCUSA statement.” Several evangelical leaders in the Reformed tradition are concerned that Jews will not accept as “good, decent Christians” those who cannot share such universalistic statements.

Off the record, other evangelicals remarked that both the PCUSA and the UCC were honestly trying to deal with the historic anti-Semitism within the church and the problems vexing Christian-Jewish relations. These evangelicals believed the declarations were making grassroots Christians more aware, and one evangelical leader observed that in spite of the problems, the declarations were “a breath of fresh air” in the stagnant denominational atmosphere of anti-Jewish rhetoric.

And yet, most evangelicals involved in dialogue with the Jewish community realize there is a fine line between holding to their beliefs and drifting into a live-and-let-live ecumenical relativism. Evangelicals do not have the luxury of choosing beliefs as their liberal counterparts do. At the same time, evangelicals know little about modern Jews and modern Judaism. Demographically and socially they are often separated from their Jewish neighbors, and they face the daily anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry propounded by the surrounding culture. They stereotype and caricature the Jewish community as extensively as the Jewish community stereotypes and caricatures them.

The success of the evangelical-Jewish conferences among leaders has been in bringing the two different communities of faith with two different agendas together to share their concerns. Evangelicals often approach dialogue with a theologically oriented agenda, genuinely interested in deepening their knowledge of the Jewish roots of Christian faith: “What do they believe about the Messiah, sin, atonement, redemption, and interpreting the Bible?” Jews, on the other hand, have a this-world, socially oriented agenda: “Let’s talk about human rights, social action, religion and politics, Israel, and prejudice.”

In the national conferences between evangelicals and Jews, both agendas were incorporated with a pleasant broadening effect. In the first national conference, “The Messiah” was the second topic area discussed, while “Responses to Moral Crises and Social Ferment” was the fifth topic. Jews learned that evangelicalism does have a social conscience. Evangelical scholars learned that modern Judaism has an impressive dimension of theological expertise. After coming together with a measure of fear, friendships began to evolve as caricatures began to dissipate. Sensitivity developed during frank and honest discussions, and the great diversity found in both communities led to the exclamation: “Why haven’t we worked together before in these areas of moral concern?” In fact, in a number of conferences, participants had to chuckle at times during vigorous ad hoc discussions when they realized that a Jew and an evangelical were arguing fervently on the same side of an issue, while a Jew and an evangelical on the other side zealously opposed their views.

Most evangelical and Jewish leaders involved in dialogue puzzle over how to reach the grassroots of their communities where significant attitudinal change may occur. For example, most evangelical laypeople (like most clergy) are unaware that Judaism teaches grace and faith; that torah is mistranslated as “law,” and is actually related to the root “to teach”; that the Pharisees were some of the best people of their day and a highly diverse group; that both Jesus and Paul were observant Jews; that when Paul says man is justified by faith and not by works of the law, he is saying nothing foreign to Judaism. Nevertheless, even in Sunday school curricula published by the four major evangelical companies, dichotomies are often drawn between Christianity and Judaism that build a false impression of Judaism. Evangelicalism is just as guilty as other segments of society of “bearing false witness” about Jews and Judaism.

In addition, evangelicals are basically unaware of how Christian teaching has been abused to persecute Jewish people for centuries. Sunday school curricula for the spring quarter of 1988 from the four major publishers include quite a few allusions to “the Jews” killing Jesus. The teacher’s booklets do not mention the danger of forming anti-Jewish attitudes through such teaching; there are no warnings of possibly engendering hatred or stereotypes in the minds of the students.

Richard V. Pierard has recently called into question the perceptions that a nationally known evangelical clergyman has imparted about Jews and Judaism. “Of course, he did not belittle or denigrate Jews in every sermon, but even a single disparaging remark is one too many,” the evangelical historian at Indiana State University stated. “And … on numerous occasions through his rhetoric, choice of words, and even intonation … he has manifested a kind of antipathy to Jews and Jewishness.”

Pierard’s concerns over sermons that portrayed “the wickedness of the Jews,” spread the “Christ-killer” theme, distorted Judaism, and stereotyped modern Jewish people through biblical allusions would unfortunately apply to sermons heard weekly from evangelical pulpits. Even a prominent leader of a Jewish evangelistic organization repeatedly commits such caricature. A number of evangelicals have grave concerns whether progress in relationships between the two communities can really gain ground unless these false beliefs are changed. The question is whether evangelical Christianity must build itself up at the expense of an inaccurate portrayal of Jews and Judaism. Certainly, most evangelicals believe their faith needs no such false foundation, but lack of sensitivity to such portrayals necessitates a major reorientation in evangelical teaching.

Convincing And Converting Jews

More visible, but not necessarily more important than Christian ignorance of Judaism, is the conflict over evangelism. In dialogue, Jews soon found that evangelical leaders deplored any deception in presenting the gospel to Jewish people. Deceitful techniques and lack of respect for potential converts was mourned by evangelical and Jew alike. Evangelicals insisted that undue pressure on the prospective convert was out of order, because only the Holy Spirit could convict and convert. The Christian’s task was to be a faithful “witness.” Jews learned that Christianity at its very core was witness-oriented—the early Christians were evangelistic; in fact, first-century Judaism was evangelistic.

More important, Jews learned that for an evangelical to denounce witness altogether meant ostracism from his or her faith community. This past spring, one periodical sought to have a debate by evangelical theologians over whether one should witness to Jewish people—only to find that those who would disparage evangelism completely were not considered evangelicals. Nevertheless, in the 1970s Billy Graham expressed his concern over the emphasis at Key ‘73 on missions that target Jews alone, stating that he had “never felt called to single out the Jews as Jews nor to single out any other particular groups, cultural, ethnic, or religious” (CT News, March 16, 1973, p. 29). And in 1977, the American Jewish Committee gave this evangelist their first National Interreligious Award, noting that Graham had strengthened “mutual respect and understanding between evangelical and Jewish communities” (CT News, Nov. 18, 1977, p. 49).

Evangelicals, on the other hand, are continually learning the shocking anti-Semitism couched in historic Christian “witness.” From Chrysostom to the Crusaders, from Martin Luther to the Holocaust, “evangelism” and “proselytization” have often been attempts to eradicate Judaism. The Jews’ only escape from Christian persecution throughout the medieval period was to convert to Christianity. In fact, the Nazi regime was the first time in history that conversion could not save the Jew. Thus, when Jewish people meet an evangelical, they expect to be pressured to convert.

Some missionary enterprises to Jewish people have techniques of confrontation and insolence. At the least, Jewish people experience the same irritation during evangelical witness as do most evangelicals when a pair of very knowledgeable and proof text-laden Jehovah’s Witnesses rap on their door. Ironically, Jewish people are often eager to know what an evangelical believes if a friendship is built on mutual respect.

Mainline denominations have had heavy involvement in Jewish evangelism in the past. The Presbyterians, for example, set up many Hebrew Christian churches in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, most Jewish missionary organizations today are supported by evangelicals.

Evangelicals are also involved in modern “messianic synagogues,” to the consternation of the Jewish community. While some Jewish leaders can bring themselves to accept the evangelicals’ need to evangelize, “Hebrew Christian” churches and “messianic synagogues” are perceived as deceptive attempts to convert Jews who would not otherwise become Christians. Indeed, messianic synagogues that turn toward more traditional Judaism are soon out of business, and those converts searching for a more Jewish worship often complain that the messianic synagogue in their area “is just a glorified charismatic service with a few Hebrew words thrown in.” And, unfortunately, many leaders and workers in missionary enterprises to Jews oppose evangelical-Jewish dialogue. They fear such dialogue will damage both the financial support for their ministries and also evangelical good will toward their organizations.

Jews point to the tens of thousands of dollars spent to make one Jewish convert to Christianity. Although such converts are few (and just as many Christians convert to Judaism every year without such solicitation), there is great fear of the annihilation of Judaism through missions aimed solely at Jews. Even the Philadelphia messianic synagogue, Beth Yeshua, that has opposed Moishe Rosen and Jews for Jesus, is intensely opposed by the Jewish community. Nationally, a Jewish leader who would accept Hebrew Christians or Messianic Jews as Jews would soon lose status in the Jewish community.

Still, some Jewish leaders have come to understand that evangelicals cannot be told to cease to evangelize entirely, as many liberal Protestants have done. Even the respected Anglican proponent of Christian-Jewish relations, James Parkes, insisted that Judaism was not an “alternative scheme of salvation to Christianity, but a different kind of religion.” For the most part, Jews have no desire to make modern Christians into nominal Christians, but rather are seeking to eradicate the religious intolerance that has led to Jewish persecution in the past. Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman of the prestigious Washington (D.C.) Hebrew Congregation explains that the Bible is both the Christian’s and the Jew’s “spiritual rock of ages,” the “beacon of moral guidance and salvation” on which evangelical-Jewish relations will continue to grow.

The Erosion Of Christian Zionism

Evangelicals have been recognized in Jewish circles as supporters of the State of Israel. On the grassroots level, the large majority of prophecy-minded premillennialist evangelicals wholeheartedly support the Jewish state and hold the Jewish people of history in awe. But in academic circles and in leadership positions, evangelical support is much more equivocal. They point out that Arab and Palestinian Christians have been exerting pressure for a more balanced viewpoint, and evangelical missionaries in the Middle East have found it necessary to be as firmly supportive of the Arab cause as their more liberal colleagues. The mood at most evangelical seminaries and colleges is currently ambivalent towards the Jewish state, and several evangelical periodicals have totally abandoned a prophetic Christian Zionist stance.

William Sanford LaSor pointed out some of these pressures two decades ago while professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. In defending Arab rights following the 1967 Six-Day War, LaSor explained that “only one who has lived in the Arab world and has talked intimately with Arabs knows how deep are the wounds caused by the formation of the State of Israel.” He related the extreme difficulty of using the Old Testament with its passages on “Zion” in a Christian service in the Arab world, and stated candidly: “If you ask an Arab Christian what solution he has to offer to the present problem, you will get the same answer you get from a non-Christian Arab: Israel must be effaced, every Jew must be driven into the sea.”

Thus, the issue of Israel has created a deeper division among those involved in Christian-Jewish relations than has evangelism. The few Christian Zionists involved in mainline denominational leadership positions are vehemently opposed, ridiculed, and have been forced from administrative roles. For instance, the Reformed Church in America is reported to have removed the Reverend Isaac Rottenberg from his administrative position in the denomination for his pro-Israel stance. This liberal clergyman until recently headed the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel. In addition, those Catholic priests who expected the Roman church to recognize Israel during the nation’s fortieth anniversary have been sadly disappointed. Is this anti-Zionism in its various degrees and forms in the church anti-Semitic? Father Ed Flannery responds: “Not necessarily, but almost always … it has become more difficult with time to remain anti-Zionist and non-anti-Semitic, given the mortal threat to Israel’s existence by its Arab enemies.”

Roman Catholics: Fighting Anti-Semitism Inside The Church

At a recent national convention of Christians and Jews, a well-respected Catholic speaker was asked, “Where are the evangelicals in this conference?” He quipped: “That’s all we need … them here passing out their tracts!” If the truth be told, however, many of the anti-Jewish Christian attitudes, portrayals, and cliches were conveyed to the Western world through this leader’s church.

When Pope John XXIII decided to undertake a study of anti-Semitism in the church, conservative leaders in the Vatican immediately opposed the initiative. Although the pope had made it clear to the Curia that the forthcoming Vatican Council II should strive to take a firm stand against the evil of anti-Semitism, the cardinals rejected the first Christian Unity draft proposal because it hinted that the Vatican should grant diplomatic recognition to Israel. (In 1963, Arab diplomats made it clear to the new pope, Paul VI, that any attempt to speak out or act on behalf of the Jews might jeopardize the well-being of the nearly three million Roman Catholics in Arab lands.)

The elimination of the “Christ-killer” theme has posed an even thornier question for Roman Catholic leaders. Meeting in synod on November 20, 1964, the bishops initially agreed upon a strongly worded resolution affirming the hope that Christians “may never again present the Jewish people as one rejected, cursed, or guilty of deicide.” Yet this simple statement failed to gain the necessary votes. Also rejected was the statement that church workers and priests should “not teach anything that could give rise to hatred or contempt of Jews in the hearts of Christians.”

For two decades, more liberal Catholic leaders have been working to elaborate the positive theological perspective of Jews and Judaism missing from Vatican II’s 1965 Nostra Aetate (or Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions). In March 1988, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) authorized the publication of Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion, which Eugene Fisher, executive secretary of the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish relations of the NCCB, said sought to eliminate an “unfortunate tendency to set up a dramatic, but unhistorical opposition between Jesus and the Jewish people in depicting the events of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion.” Edward H. Flannery, the priest who graphically depicted the history of anti-Semitism in Christendom in The Anguish of the Jews, has devoted his life to dispelling such caricatures of Jews and to bringing a more positive Catholic stance toward the State of Israel.

By David A. Rausch.

In the evangelical community, the debate often ensues over prophetic interpretation. “I have yet to see a Reformed amillennialist leader who has come to grips with the reality of the State of Israel,” one respected premillennialist evangelical leader privately contended; “they have the same trouble overcoming their Augustinian interpretation that Catholic leadership often has. Unfortunately, this attitude is transferred to the Jewish people.” Pastor Doug Shearer of the New Hope Christian Fellowship in Sacramento, California, and leader of TAV, a Christian Zionist organization involved heavily in dialogue, yet refusing to compromise its witness, maintains that “premillennialist leaders today are not picking up the gauntlet on Israel” and that they continually “trivialize Zion.”

Shearer further states that “premillennialists are not responding to the moral crises of the day,” with the result that a new postmillennialism is making inroads into the Christian community. These ultra-Reformed “Christian reconstructionists” purport to have definite answers and definite solutions that Shearer believes are dangerous to both Christians and Jews (see CT, Feb. 20, 1987, “Democracy as Heresy,” for a report on this movement). Shearer, like a number of other leaders contacted, believes that such movements, coupled with anti-Israel bias in evangelical academic circles, will change the grassroots support for the Jewish state within decades.

Nowhere is the change becoming more evident than in charismatic and Pentecostal circles. A contingent of Christian Reconstructionists and Reformed amillennialists have become part of Pat Robertson’s CBN University, where a debate now ensues. In Pentecostalism’s fastest-growing denomination, the Assemblies of God, the premillennialist interpretation required of all ordained pastors, as well as the churches’ historic support for Israel, is being eroded. David A. Lewis, a popular Assemblies preacher and teacher involved in dialogue, has recently written:

Dominion theology [Christian reconstructionism] has previously had its greatest influence among non-Charismatics, but has strongly penetrated Charismatic circles and is admittedly determined to take over the Charismatic movement’s theological mode of thinking. Although they have their differences, there is this in common: a theological antisemitism is almost universal in these new doctrinal constructs. This theological antisemitism manifests itself in both contempt for the Jewish people and the idea of replacement (the church takes the place of National Israel. God has no further use for Israel as a nation or people).

Lewis organized the Evangelical Christian Leadership Summit Conference that convened in Tulsa, December 9–12, 1987. His concerns are shared by already beseiged Assemblies leaders on state and national levels.

For their part, Reformed amillennialist evangelicals argue that their theology should be welcome in Christian-Jewish dialogue, and that their sincere opposition to anti-Semitism should not have to lead to theological affirmation of Jewish people or a Jewish state. They feel alienated and spurned in Christian-Jewish dialogue by a basically premillennialist evangelicalism on the one hand, and a universalist mainline ecumenism on the other. “We must be honest that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and the church is now God’s covenant community,” one leader commented; “the Jews are no longer the covenant people of God, and Judaism has no more validity than Islam.”

Grassroots Gains

Although tensions are clearly visible on the national level between Christians and Jews, frank discussions and stronger relationships continue to blossom. On the local level, among Christians and Jews who lack national prominence, some of the greatest gains in understanding and day-to-day friendships are being accomplished: housewives and businesspersons, clergy and teachers. This is as it should be, for unless the grassroots of this nation build bridges of friendship and understanding, unless the millions of Christians and Jews dispel damaging prejudices and caricatures about the other, official pronouncements from leaders accomplish little. In getting to know one another through discussion, Christians and Jews have been able individually to break down incredible barriers.

“Loving your neighbor as yourself” is a Jewish dictum that continued as a Christian dictum because it was commanded and modeled by a very Jewish Jesus. Christians have begun their journey as neighbors often by feeling the pain of the Jewish people through history. Jewish people have responded appreciatively to those who have grappled with the injustice of this history, those who feel pain and regret over what has been done in the name of Christ.

The norm governing relationships between human beings in Judaism and in the teaching of the Jewish Jesus is compassion and love; and one finds that Christians and Jews who have become friends often acknowledge that their interaction became firmly grounded in love and concern. Through mutual respect and a spirit of humility, they gained a budding friendship. The task of reconciliation was so large that emotional and spiritual healing had to take place. The “strangers” became “neighbors” by making themselves vulnerable—vulnerable to misunderstanding; vulnerable to rejection. They agreed to listen to one another; to learn of the other’s tradition and faith.

Because of the history of anti-Semitism and the deep involvement of committed Christians in that history, it is necessary for the Christian to listen, learn, and love the most at the outset. Jews should not be expected to meet the Christian halfway (although, surprisingly, many do).

David A. Rausch is professor of church history and Judaic studies at Ashland College and Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio. He has published more than 200 articles on Jewish-Christian relations and has participated in numerous dialogues on the national and local level. His eighth book, Building Bridges: Understanding Jews and Judaism (Moody Press), was released earlier this year. He is also the author (with Carl Hermann Voss) of Protestantism: Its Modern Meaning (Fortress Press).

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