Salvation is from the Jews

The trouble with interfaith dialogue is that it so often is inauthentic. Everyone just pulls their punches and you have to read between the lines in order to figure out what people really think.

Jesus, it appears, did not suffer from mealy-mouthiness. He knew that being Jewish set him apart from those who weren’t. He knew who his people were. He knew that the God he worshipped and the people of whom he was one are bound together in a privileged relationship. And he said so in an in-your-face sort of way.

An example or two is found in his conversation with the Samaritan woman I referred to earlier (see, for example, John 4:22). The same directness characterizes his conversation with the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:25-30 // Matthew 15:21-28).

In my view, genuine dialogue inevitably brings to the fore the respective “confessions of faith” of those who participate. Thus, in the conversations I just alluded to, the exchange is shot through with confessional speech on both sides.

Genuine dialogue, it seems to me, is open-ended by definition. If the possibility that I might come over to your point of view, or you to mine, is precluded – in other words, if I am not allowed to evangelize you and you are not allowed to evangelize me, in accordance with whatever we respectively take to be “good news,” then why bother having an exchange in the first place?

I noted in an earlier post that after the Holocaust, the faith of Christians, or at least of some of them, depends in a sort of existential way on the faith of Jews. If Jews en masse stopped believing in their God after the Holocaust, Christians, or at least of some of them, would follow suit. Conversely, if Jews en masse continue believing in their God after the Holocaust, then Christians, or at least some of them, are encouraged to do likewise.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. My next post will describe how a novel by a Jewish author, Chaim Potok, clarifies the doctrine of substitutionary atonement for Christians better than ten tomes of academic theology ever will. After reading this novel, I predict, Peter Kirk will have nothing but good to say about substitutionary atonement.

Comments

[Bob MacDonald]

I am waiting for it! Which one of his novels?

[Peter Kirk]

Well, we'll see! But you will have to convince me that this is worth reading. I'm away for a few days in the morning, so this will have to stand out among hundreds of blog posts when I get back. A challenge for you!