God’s promises and man’s preferences
By Spengler
Few qualifiers are misused more often than “magisterial”. The term refers not just to intellectual authority, but intellectual authority embedded in thousands of years of devout tradition – specifically, the Magisterium, or teaching authority of the Catholic Church, the anchor institution of Western civilization.
Father James V Schall, the Georgetown University political philosopher, is “magisterial” in the full sense of the word, an authoritative thinker from a tradition that has stood for millennia.
Prominent among Schall’s many virtues is courage. Last August, for example, he suggested that Islam may collapse as suddenly
as communism once Muslims begin to question the authenticity of the Koran. “The fragility of Islam, as I see it, lies in a sudden realization of the ambiguity of the text of the Koran,” he wrote at the Catholic Thing blog.
“Is it what it claims to be? Islam is weak militarily. It is strong in social cohesion, often using severe moral and physical sanctions. But the grounding and unity of its basic document are highly suspect. Once this becomes clear, Islam may be as fragile as communism.” [1] Few political theorists could, or would dare to, go so boldly to the heart of the matter.
It was humbling for this writer to read to read Schall’s review of my essay collection, It’s Not the End of the World – It’s Just the End of You. Titled “On the Promises of God to Mankind”, it appeared on New Year’s Day in the Homilectic and Pastoral Review [2]. I use the word “humbling” with the same precise connotation that I use the word “magisterial” for the reviewer. Schall has read my work more keenly, perhaps, than anyone else, and perceived so clearly what I am after, that I now feel a bit like an undergraduate whose impatient professor gently suggests that he proceed with less distraction to the point. After reading his critique, I understand somewhat better what I was trying to say. There is only one error in his review, a small but significant one, which I will address momentarily.
I wish to call attention to two thematic issues among many in Schall’s wide-ranging review: One is the effort of a Jewish writer to understand God’s presence in the world and his promise for universal salvation as embodied in the living Jewish people, rather than the Incarnate God of Christianity.
The second has to do with the limits of reason in human affairs. The second is bound up with the first, for the Election of Israel is an act of inexplicable grace beyond the ken of human reason. “The unique issue that the book brings to our attention is precisely: What is Israel?,” Schall writes:
As [the Catholic philosopher Jacques] Maritain said, Israel is a “mystery” precisely because it is still present, and clearly has a role within salvation history itself, from which role it gets its purpose. The question for Israel remains whether its own mission is coherent, without a relation to the salvation history that ends in Christ, and continues through the Church, to “eternity, the eternal life that so concerns Goldman about the uniqueness of the Jewish nation”.
Schall quotes this passage from It’s Not the End of the World:
In the West, nations came by the hope of immortality through Christianity, which offered the eternal promise of Israel to the Gentiles, but only on the condition that they cease to be Gentiles, through adoption into Israel of the Spirit. Israel is the exception that proves the rule, the single universal nation whose purpose is the eventual recognition of the one God by all humankind. The history of the world is the story of man’s search for eternity. That is what Rosenzweig means when he said that the history of humanity is the history of eternal life, vouchsafed first to the Jews, that stands at the center of Western history. Christian Europe came into being by absorbing invader, and indigenous alike, into a super-ethnic Christian empire, whose universality was expressed by a single religious leader, whose authority transformed kingdoms, a single church, and a single language for liturgy and learning. Europe arose from a universal Christian empire and it fell when the nationalities mutinied against their mother, the Church, and fought until their mutual ruin.
And he writes in response:
I cite these passages in the Goldman book because they suggest the reason why he has to reject Christianity’s view of revelation, revising the Jewish view. This latter position makes Israel the light of the nations, not Christ. For the Christian, the light of Israel is only completed in Christ. Essentially, for Goldman, Christianity has failed in its universal worldly mission. As a result, the path is now open to China, India, Islam, and, yes, Israel to refashion the world in another image. Because of its divine founding, Israel has the strongest claim. As far as I read him, Goldman’s focus is inner-worldly, even when he talks of eternity. I do not mean that he doubts the existence of Yahweh, but he does doubt a plan that is primarily a message of salvation from this world, and not one that saves this world as a world.
The question of the inner-worldly purpose of human life in this world is one that is ever fascinating, especially when it often has its roots in a subtle effort to use this “mission” as an alternative to, or rejection of, the transcendent purpose that was embodied in Christ, and His relation to each individual human person. As Benedict said in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, what scripture said of Christ is in fact true. He is the Son of Man. He did exist in this world; he was resurrected on the “third day.”
This presence in the world of time makes everything different. One thing seems certain; the primary purpose of revelation cannot be inner-worldly, to build an earthly city. We simply cannot allow the billions of those who have thus far existed in the imperfect cities of men to become tools to some future, finite, temporal city as the explanation of why men exist in this world.
With due reverence to Schall, it is not that I believe that “Christianity has failed at its universal worldly mission”, or that I am concerned with matters of this world as opposed to salvation in the World to Come; rather, I observe (or rather credit Franz Rosenzweig’s observation) that the Desire of Nations will never leave this world. Christians always will want what the Jews have: to be Chosen, that is, eternal, and to have a sign of eternity in their own flesh. That is the dark, existential longing which no arguments can assuage.
I do not doubt that Christianity might succeed, and (except where conversion of Jews is concerned) I hope Christianity will succeed. My point is more subtle: for Christianity to succeed, it must “Judaize” to one extent or another. That is why America is the only remaining Christian nation in the industrial world: it succeeded in styling itself a new (almost) Chosen People in a new Promised Land. And that is why the Jews remain indispensable to Christians. One learns to Judaize from the Jews.
As Professor Eric Nelson of Harvard observes in his remarkable book The Hebrew Republic, America’s founders drew on Medieval rabbinic sources as well as the Bible in their new Mission in the Wilderness.
As Michael Wyschogrod observes, Christians believe that God is incarnate in Jesus Christ, whereas Jews believe that God’s Shekhinah abides in the living flesh of the Jewish people. From what we Jews observe, believe in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is not enough for Christians; they also want to be sanctified in their own flesh. That is not the doctrine, of course, but that is the usual outcome; each of the European nations in turn arrogated to itself the idea of Election. And the Church (as well as the Protestant churches) too often appeased this desire.
To assert such a dark, existential Desire of Nations necessarily assigns a lesser role to reason in human affairs. It is not that reason is unimportant, but rather that it is our reason, whose exercise is unimaginable in world in which we do not exist in some recognizable way.
I do not think Christianity ever will fail; on the contrary, I believe that it will succeed and fail to different degrees and under different circumstances. It has failed in Europe, tragically, but flourishes in the Global South. There is no reason America should not succeed as a Christian nation, and I pray it will prevail until the Messiah comes. Schall acknowledges this sort of exemplary role for Israel. As he points out,
Several years ago, the Belgian Jesuit, Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, published an essay on the Christian understanding of the place of Israel in Christian revelation. Following the Pauline lead in Romans 11, Vanhoye argued that God did not take back His promises to Israel. The fact is that the vast majority of Jews did not, and do not, understand the Hebrew Bible as leading to, and as completed in, the divine origin and earthly life of Christ. This line of thought required a new interpretation of history. The original promises made to Abraham and Moses continue. They eventually result in an account of Israel as itself having a divine founding unlike other nations. None the less, Israel’s very existence symbolizes and illuminates what nations ought to be. The universalism of the Hebrew tradition, if it might be called that, was thus focused on the examples of believing Jews finally gathered in their homeland after centuries in the diaspora in which their identity was kept alive in the synagogue’s worship.
“The question for Israel,” Schall concludes, “remains whether its own mission is coherent, without a relation to the salvation history that ends in Christ.” That is a challenge to Jews from a Christian, and a fair one: if Jews forget that what makes them unique is also what makes Israel’s mission universal, they will have failed in their purpose and fade away like other nations. As Schall says, “Israel’s very existence symbolizes and illuminates what nations ought to be.” The nations must live in this world, even if Christians look to the next world, and Israel’s mission is to evince an exemplary national existence. But we can accomplish this only by transporting eternity into everyday life.
As noted, there is one error: He wrongly concludes that I think that “the wrong side won” the Civil War, citing my statement, “The US South chafes in anger and shame at its own defeat, and the North recoils in horror from its own victory.” On the contrary, I emphasize the horrific consequences of Abraham Lincoln’s policy the more to measure the spiritual grandeur of his character. Americans lacked the grandeur of their great leader, an almost-prophet for an almost-chosen people. After killing 30% of military-age southerners (at the cost of a tenth of its own military-age men), the Union decided that the judgments of the Lord, as was said 3,000 years ago, were not altogether just and righteous.
But Americans had marched to war singing of the Grapes of Wrath in allusion to Isaiah 63:3, where God declares, “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.”
I do not propose that Americans now should emulate the Master of Legions and seek out enemies to trample, but rather that they should tremble in awe at their God-intoxicated forefathers whose Biblical faith inspired them to such great and terrible things.
As Schall observes, I have a bone to pick with the late American political philosopher Leo Strauss. “Goldman’s problem with Strauss,” Schall writes, “is rather like his problem with Aquinas and Christians, in general: namely, their granting a place to reason within the revelational purpose itself.”
I might quibble and point out that I have no such problem with Karl Barth, but that is beside the point. The conservative intellectual consensus in America rests on two blocks, namely the neo-Thomism of Catholic natural law theory, and the Classical rationalism propounded by Strauss among others. The proximity of the two camps is such that my friend Professor Hadley Arkes, a prominent Strauss student, converted to Catholicism in 2010.
Much as I admire many individuals in the Thomist and Classical Rationalist schools, respectively, I see the world quite differently. Sacrifices on the scale that Lincoln demanded during the Civil War, for example, overwhelm human reason, and the efforts of Strauss’ students to portray Lincoln as a sort of 19th-century Socrates strike me as hopelessly obtuse. Thinking rationally, one might easily read my characterization of the horrors brought about by Lincoln’s policy as condemnation rather than praise, as did Schall. In that respect, the one wrong note in his review is revealing.
“A Catholic thinker,” Schall continues, “would find this sentence most curious: ‘Biblical faith has no need of theodicy’.” For Jews, the fact that we live today (and by implication, all Jews who ever lived continue to live in us) is a grace so palpable that we require no further proof of God’s goodness and mercy. But Schall well understands this. He writes,
In a large class of undergraduate students, I recalled the quip of Walker Percy which I thought was both amusing and pertinent to a discussion of the Old Testament and political philosophy: “Why are there no Hittites in New York?” Percy wondered. I expected some laughter, but, as far as I could tell, no one understood the point. Since obviously we find many Jews in New York but no Hittites, what can explain that survival over the millennia of Jews but not of the Hittites?
For a Christian to draw conclusions about God’s mercy from the survival of the Jews – now, that is theodicy. |
– to first meet Fr. Schall at the University of San Francisco and then take a seminar taught by him at Georgetown University. A joy to study philosophy with him, but he also able to write an essay on how watching the Hoyas basketball team is a form of Aristotelean comtemplation!
I would assert that Abrahamic religions are all equally philo-semitic. The Hebrew identity is a nebulous, receding horizon that all the major Western religions, and most cults, explicitly or implicitly claim, with credibility ranging from dubious to remotely plausible. And yet, the very earliest Hebrews of 1000 BC (let’s ignore the legendary period) wouldn’t even recognize those of 500 BC.
In a twisted sense, the dogmatism and fanaticism of Islam is a necessary tool to avoid looking too closely at the pesky facts of the ancient Hebrews; it’s the ideal that matters here, not the precise measurements. Christianity favored ritualism over the Muslim’s high testosterone approach, and that is why it is failing and Islam is now the tallest dwarf in the room. Ritual can be smashed by the state through more education; trying that on fanatics only strengthens them. Judaism’s solution of scholasticism has held up as a very strong niche so far, but it isn’t as properly married to politics and war as Islam. Nothing is. Islam wins if the state wins.
Civic nationalism simply doesn’t tolerate the moderate assertiveness of the typical religion, but it cowers in fear of fanaticism. Ethnic nationalism is gone, and its void is filled by Islam. In that sense, they hold the strongest argument for being the universal Hebrews.
Comparing Islam to communism and then suggesting it is a fragile entity that will collapse under the weight of reason is neither magisterial nor authoritative but something else entirely.
Communism brings to mind the ridiculous martial skills of the Vietnamese, and the athletic excellence of East Germany. Much larger and wealthier Western nations simply couldn’t compete. In an increasingly technocratic era, and the US in stagflation, the best quality thinkers actually were predicting a Soviet win. It looked invincible from all angles, and even held the moral high ground in being less aggressive.
The comparison with Islam is very strong. If it collapses, no one but the broken clock crowd will have guessed and timed it correctly.
Forgive me if this question sounds obtuse ( or even worse, disrespectful), but aren’t there also Chinese, Indians, Armenians and even Ethiopians in New York City?
Yes, but none of them speaks the same language their ancestors did 3,000 years ago; the Chinese might but have no real way of knowing. There are Chinese characters from 1,600 B.C. but no-one knows what the spoken language sounded like. There are very, very ancient Sanskrit texts, but no-one knows quite how ancient.
Chinese has a strong, almost musical emphasis on tonal accuracy to filter out speaking errors. It’s almost certainly the same language today as it was 4000+ years ago. Sanskrit might as well be pre-Egyptian. These are spectacularly ancient cultures.
Yes, we do know how Ancient Chinese was spoken. A number of Chinese and Western linguists, such as Fang-kui Li and Bernard Karlgren, pioneered the reconstruction of how Ancient Chinese was pronounced. The use of old dictionaries which grouped together words that rhymed helped in this endeavour; the comparison of how present-day dialects of Chinese pronounce the same written characters also provides information about linguistic change over the millennia.
Ancient and even Archaic texts still exist and can be read today by scholars trained in the historical linguistics of the Chinese language.
But you’re still only guessing whether the original speakers would comprehend what they were saying. Ancient linguistics is another unverifiable science, much favored by tenured elites, meaning a study of one’s own navel, without possibility of contradiction…you know… not science at all.
I offer one bit of what would be, in real science, evidence of my position: Noam Chomsky is not, and has never been, the least bit correct in any provable way on all his deranged political theories. He is a smelly, foolish demagogue with bad grooming. What makes you think he knows anything about linguistics, either?
These false “sciences” are the homes for far too many busybodies masquerading as experts. They simply hold identical beliefs, so they call each other brilliant. Who’s to say otherwise? Indeed, who else is even interested?
On the other hand, the Jews are still here, and given all the times other peoples tried to arrange differently, they have prospered. That’s evidence of something. We can always debate exactly what caused that, but one must at least consider God in there somewhere.
I think the point here is that, whatever the similarities/differences between ancient and modern Chinese language, there was no “Chinese” people/nation until modern times, if even now. And it is easy to forget the various tribal identities of China. In other words, the culture is ecumenical or imperial, with a significant difference between high Chinese, and the various local vernaculars. The situation with Sanskrit would be similar. The question, then, is why does the national language (and religion) that assimilates popular to high culture become a vehicle for the survival of one small people over the millennia, or why does the people become a vehicle for the survival of the national (not imperial) language and religion, over a time of exile when various other Jewish and non-Jewish languages were spoken by Jews?
The Ethiopians and Armenians are much like the Jews, if a little younger, inasmuch as Christians translate the Bible into local vernaculars and turn that language into a high culture with a long-lived national identity.
The funniest thing I ever read online was a forum discussion in which Chinese people discussed, in fluent English, how much they hate the way people in other parts of China speak. Mandarin is, or so the consensus among “dialect” speakers goes, a parvenu. Many speakers of Cantonese insist that their language bears the strongest resemblance to Classical Chinese. Scholars do agree that modern Cantonese retains many elements that Mandarin has jettisonned, but of all the Sinitic languages, that of Teochow (spoken mainly among Chinese diaspora settlements in Southeast Asia) has the most archaic flavor of them all.
Drawing conclusions about God’s MERCY is not theodicy. We can (and should) draw the same conclusions from every day of our life and every second because they are all gifts from our Creator and a sign of His neverending mercy.
Christians and Jews have much in common but one should be careful not to forget that there is also a huge difference. And that difference matters more than anything else because Christ matters more than anything else. God’s incarnation in flesh is a single most important moment in history of mankind, history of salvation. It makes all the difference.
When I read Schall’s text, and maybe I’m wrong, I see a challenge. In one way it is a challenge to all Jews but that is only a side effect , for benevolent arrow is aimed I believe at David himself and his ratio. After all , Schall is a Jesuit priest and as Spengler correctly observes in his essays – Christians are always proselytizing. We must, because we have come to know the Truth and we want to share it with the world. It is like looking at most beautiful sunset but your friends are looking in other direction. You just have to call them : ” Come and see! ”
USA,Iran,India,China,Europe,Islam,theopolitics, geopolitics, art, history, fertility … everything fades into insignificance compared to salvation of one’s soul . And it’s not complicated but rather simple. Like a sunset.
“The question for Israel remains whether its own mission is coherent, without a relation to the salvation history that ends in Christ, and continues through the Church”
I am thinking of returning to school. Shall I study philosophy or theology or both? It seems their division is not so great as their unity.
Returning to school at what level? The best undergraduate program in Western thought is St. John’s College (Annapolis or Santa Fe). The Western tradition has been uprooted and survives in fragments — you had better check out very carefully the curriculum and faculty of any program you consider.
I was considering graduate level – though I’ll have to do some undergraduate study first. Yes, I have heard good things about St. Johns. Until you mentioned it, however, I did not realize it was so exceptional. What would be wrong with Georgetown?
Georgetown is a fine secular institution in the modern era. I attended there for graduate studies in theology. Would I recommend it for theology (or other majors reliant on the Western cultural tradition). No. Try Catholic University. A friend of mine went to Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion for his Ph.D. and he found it good. Most Universities these days have no understandiing of the Western tradition, even though they may study it after a fashion. The key phrase is “after a fashion” since it is possible to study something using a methodology tthat blocks one from understanding it (imagine studying medicine only by examing medical instrruments for example).
Not Catholic U. After sitting in a class there I argued with the philosophy prof that one cannot separate a philosopher’s work from its historical context or else you distort the meaning – especially by mistaking ironic wit for true earnestness. (Think Voltaire.) His weak response was that the words in a text mean something on their own. (Yeah, whatever he wanted them to mean, not what the author was trying to say.) Don’t want to deal with more bad apples like that one.
Spengler once again talking himself into stupor. If the veracity of an assertion can only be ascertained by self referance, then that statement is a tautology. In other words, scientific sounding blabber,
Scientific? When did I try to be, “scientific”?
“Christians always will want what the Jews have: to be Chosen, that is, eternal, and to have a sign of eternity in their own flesh. That is the dark, existential longing which no arguments can assuage.”
That is a might arrogant Spengler! That kind of thinking and condescension is what gets Jews into trouble, you should speak better for your people. I do not know of any Christians that want to be part of a selected country club run by a God who says “though shall not enter unless chosen”.
The beauty of Jesus is that we choose him, no one come to the Father but through him. Free will is a beautiful thing. Jesus said that all nations who follow him shall be blessed.
Do you really think a transcendent loving God, who created the cosmos, has this giant ego that says “Ah sorry humanity, but I have already chosen my people, better luck next time”.
Heavy Chutzpa Spengler.
You don’t seem to get the joke: If the nations of the world thought that we were delusional to consider ourselves chosen (eternal), they would ignore us. Who cares what the crazy Jews think? What gets us into trouble is that the nations believe that we chosen, and want to be chosen instead of us; if they didn’t believe in our election, why would they cover it? The history of Christianity is largely a history of each nation deciding that it, rather than the Jews or its neighbors, really is the Chosen People,and killing each other (and sometimes us, too) in order to assert that claim). If you think that Jesus of Nazareth has nothing to do with the election of Israel, that’s not a mainstream Christian view, but no skin of my nose. The fact that it bothers you tells me that something else is at work. The Jewish view is that Israel is God’s first love, but (as Michael Wyschogrod writes), God can choose whomever he wants to choose. His covenant with us is eternal, but not exclusive.
“If you think that Jesus of Nazareth has nothing to do with the election of Israel, that’s not a mainstream Christian view, but no skin of my nose. The fact that it bothers you tells me that something else is at work.”
Nice try David, but your allusion to anti-semitism is tired and weak. I assumed you were beyond that. Sounds almost Jacksonian (Jesse) that one should not question a philosophical viewpoint lest you be labeled a bigot.
I think Jesus has everything to do with the election of Israel, he being the Son of a Triune God, brought a new covenant. He turned the old into the new.
Love replaced an “eye for an eye”, personal sacrifice replaced animal sacrifice. The pharisees crucified him for his gall. Jesus will bring a ” new Jerusalem” All, Jew and Gentile, that believe in him will be sanctified. By believing in Jesus you are believing in the Triune God, the God of Israel and of the nation.
Personally I am a die hard supporter of Israel, despite the foibles of her progeny.
I have to give it to you David, you can sleight of hand with the best of them.
You can patronize Fr. Schall, and still eviscerate him with the carefully chosen pablum of a crafty word smith.
One caveat:You need the Goyim for your books and columns to be successful.
Your statement that I did not “get the joke” is another slight of hand for you to deceive us from your original arrogant statement. You are better than that
David.
An “eye for an eye,” always meant that you can’t kill someone for putting your eye out; you have to sue them and get appropriate damages. The former is the pagan way of doing things; the Christian world adopted the ancient Hebrew approach. And that ain’t Hammurabi (in his code, if I accidentally kill your child, you get to kill one of mine, and so forth). The whole idea that Jesus replaced a law of vengeance with a law of mercy (“You put my eye out, and I’ll offer you the other one”?) is nonsense. And if you think that Jesus eliminated the “old covenant” you are way out of the Christian mainstream.
Good point. Jesus came in fulfillmenmt of the Old Testament, not as a refutation of it. Indeed, if one actually spends enough time reading and contemplating the scriptures, Old and New, besides just regurgitating what they’ve been told in Church, it becomes apparent that Jesus’ main purpose was to bring the understanding of Yahweh by the Jews back to the original, Mt Sinai setting, wherein Yahweh was their King, directly, cutting out all the political middlemen.
Thus all the experiments with priests, judges, prophets, all meant to find a way to establish a direct link between God and his People. The problem was that man was just too imperfect for direct contact with God, who cannot be imperfect (and accepting imperfection would make Him imperfect, which cannot happen). To make sure they were complying with God, they set up Laws and Rules to protect the ignorant. Just read what went on at the base of Mt Sinai. He was a strict Boss!
Eventually, the ancient Jews set up way too many layers of Law and Rules, so that the Laws and Rules no longer always aligned with God’s wishes. He was hardly the first, but Jesus’ function for Jews was to remind them that it was not enough to be legally pure, if your heart was wicked.
If that is so, then a man of pure heart can still be close to God without the Laws and Rules. I think all the rest is too many monks with too much time on their hands. The 3 days and a lot of other things are nice touches, but really, did God do this for his own amusement? No. He did it for simple, bronze age us, so that we would listen up!
This is why noone can rightly claim that Islam is just an offshoot of Abraham. Christianity takes Judaism and streamlines it to, “Do as God wants you to do”. I never met a Jew who would argue too long on that. He might want to add a few things, and have a long complicated discussion on the whys and hows, but so would most Jesuits!
Islam, instead, only takes the Laws and Rules, and enforces them brutally. It entirely misses the point. This is why Jews and Christians have advanced so far, while Islam hasn’t budged since the Middle Ages. Jews and Christians seek to perfect their relationships with God. Islam thinks it’s already perfect (which, of itself, is sinful)!
Love did not replace “an eye for an eye,” nor did anything else – at least in this country. You just don’t understand what an eye for an eye means, apparently hewing to the common, but mistaken belief that it means revenge or somesuch. The true meaning is that the punishment should fit the crime. Or as a wise person, whose name, unfortunately, I can’t recall, once asked: Would you prefer a limb for a tooth? Or a life for an eye? I am not aware of any law, in any Christian-majority country, where the prescribed “punishment” for even the most minor crime is complete and total forgiveness. The closest we come in our society is when a judge lets a defendant off the hook – but then, the very concept of judging comes from Judaism (New Testament: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”).
Nor, by the way, is a God of Love a Christian innovation. For example, everyone knows the story of Noah and the Ark, where God causes a great flood to cleanse the earth of evil. Less cited, however, is the aftermath, when God expresses regret for what he did and promises never to do it again. And of course, he rescinds his order to Abraham to kill Isaac.
But I digress. The point is, as Mr. Goldman points out every so often, is that the New Covenant that God makes with gentiles is “in addition to” the one he has already made with the Jews, it does not replace it. Jews achieve immortality through their membership in an eternal people; Christians achieve it in heaven through faith in one particular Jew, Jesus, through whom God made a separate covenant for non-Jews. Jews who want eternal life in heaven are free to convert to Christianity; gentiles who want eternity on earth can convert to Judaism – we do accept converts, you know. So you about, I respect your covenant and you respect mine?
You made me laugh when you wrote: “I do not know of any Christians that want to be part of a selected country club run by a God who says ‘though shall not enter unless chosen’.” Should I want to be part of a “selected country club” run by a God who says, “though shalt not enter except through Jesus?” And that’s especially true of Jews. Why would I, who can pray to, speak to and even argue with God directly, want to “join a club” where I must take myself farther from God, being able to reach him only through an intermediary?
Most of us need to go through one or probably several people to reach the President of the United States; a few can just pick up the phone and call him directly. I can see how some members of the former could resent the latter, but for most of us, really, it’s nothing to lose sleep over.
“You made me laugh when you wrote: “I do not know of any Christians that want to be part of a selected country club run by a God who says ‘though shall not enter unless chosen’.” Should I want to be part of a “selected country club” run by a God who says, “though shalt not enter except through Jesus?” And that’s especially true of Jews. Why would I, who can pray to, speak to and even argue with God directly, want to “join a club” where I must take myself farther from God, being able to reach him only through an intermediary?”
It is difficult to reply to your pedantic rebuttal, but I’ll try.
First off, we Christians believe Jesus is God made flesh, he is not an intermediary. God became man, the word became flesh. Jesus is the “son” of the Triune God. So coming to the Father through him, means by loving Jesus through
ones own free will, one is thus loving God. Jesus is God. God wants us to love him of our own volition. Nothing can be closer to God , than God becoming Man; Ergo being a Christian has the offering from God, of a true personal relationship.
You and David need to get a grip on the “eye for an eye” thing. Anyone who studies knows it’s meaning, it is not privy only to Judaism. It is merely one example I submitted regarding Jesus’s “new law” , a law of love and forgiveness. If someone plucks out your eye, forgive him. Forgive 7 times seventy seven Jesus said. He turned other statutes of the Mosaic law on their heads also. Preaching and healing on the Sabath, throwing the money changers out of the Temple, associating with non-Jews such as the Samaritan woman.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
As for Noah, do you really think the God of the Universe (many universes)made a mistake? He is transcendent, beyond time, how can he make a mistake or feel bad about the flood? God was sorry that he had to destroy the earth, in that man had fallen so far, but he surely knew what he was doing. God did not apologize, he merely stated he will never again destroy the earth by water.
I know you are a fellow traveler with Goldman, but at least try to be objective in your posts.
Kevin, anyone with even a basic understanding of traditional *Jewish* education knows the phrase “an eye for an eye” is a reference to collecting damages. Among other things, it’s an assertion that all are equal under the law (i.e. the eye of a poor farmer is worth as much as that of a rich businessman and compensation should be commensurate). It is *not* a demand for revenge. The claim that it is was made by anti-Semitic individuals within the Christian community whose understanding of their tradition was triumphalist: viz. they had to show how they were better than the Jews and did so by lying about Jewish tradition.
Again, anyone with a little education knows this. The fact that you don’t shows something about your sources. Here’s a little suggestion: if you want to understand Jewish tradition, read Jewish sources. What you are doing is equivalent to citing Muslim sources on Christianity and then accusing Christians of lying about their tradition when they point out any misrepresentation, countering that everyone who has studied the issue knows the veracity of your claims. Well, yes, that would be anyone relying solely on specific sources with a specific agenda – which in the case of your sources, happens to be anti-Semitic. Yes. Really. I’m not saying this due to a philosophical disagreement, but specifically because your sources knowingly lie in pursuit of a triumphalist agenda. I submit to you that if that isn’t anti-Semitic, nothing is. (It’s also a violation of the commandment not to bear false witness, as it happens; funny that the authors would violate the ten commandments to promote their understanding of Christianity. Evidently Jews don’t count as human.)
PS. Contrary to your assertion, the Jews didn’t crucify Jesus. That was the Romans. Stigmatizing the Jews as deicidal is another well-worn anti-Semitic trope.
Discard the canards Kevin, and you’ll understand God a bit better. Just a suggestion.
The nations of the world do in fact ignore you: you just ignore that. The idea that people on Earth are jealous of Nobel winning shiny Jews that are mom’s favorite is a ludicrous ethnocentrism taken to an extreme. If Jewish folks would have a moratorium on talking about Jewish folks in this manner for 1 year the scene would suddenly go very quiet.
Given that, I’m not surprised some Jews think the world has it in for them. The clue is that the worst manifestation of murder against Jews had no religious dimension to it. My dad used to say you’d be surprised at how little people think about you. In terms of time and space the Holocaust was humanity’s worst crime but dragging as many people into that us vs. them scenario as possible is not praiseworthy, especially when no Jews liberated camps but non-Jews and their actions speak loud if you’ll let them without parsing them out with excuses and how they didn’t really mean it and how they could’ve been faster.
Black Americans are obsessed with black Americans generally speaking and project that onto oblivious white folks who don’t care squat about the idea one way or the other. Gay folks think gay marriage is a burning civil rights issue although it only affects 3% of the populace. Comic book collectors would like the Library of Congress to digitize every comic and major league baseball players want Babe Ruth on Mount Rushmore.
“The nations of the world do in fact ignore you…”
You’re joking, right? The United Nations has issued more condemnations of Israel, a modern, Western-style democracy, than of any other nation, including North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Iran and on and on. Thousands of rockets have fallen on the Jewish state. Muslims around the world vow her destruction. Jewish academics and scientists are disinvited from European universities. Even in America, Jews are attacked all over the world. In Chile, “Rotem Singer [was] [h]ustled into a Punta Arenas courtroom last month on charges of igniting the fire that would consume 28,300 hectares (69,900 acres) of pristine Chilean forestland… the Israeli backpacker was accosted by spectators who decried him as a ‘stinking Jew,’ unleashing a pandemic of anti- Semitism in this otherwise civilized society. Local newspapers, blogs and social networks are abuzz with the most outrageous conspiracy theories accusing Jews in general and Israelis in particular of a plot to establish a second Jewish state in southern Chile.”
And of course, both Christianity and Islam, not content like other faiths, such as Hinduism and Shintoism and indeed any religion except Christianity and Islam, not only don’t ignore the Jews, were not content just to promulgate the tenets of their faith, but expended a great deal of effort in vilifying and delegitimizing the Jews. That is, with the one great, exception for which all Jews are thankful: America.
And perhaps you’ve heard of the Inquisition, the expulsion of all Jews from Spain, the Holocaust?
If that’s what you call ignoring us Jews, I would hate to imagine what would happen when the world starts paying attention!
As for the Nobel Prizes, as the great American Christian philosopher Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”
Kevin,
You might like to read D.W. Layman’s comment below (you’ll have to scroll down a bit):
“I do not ask that you learn from me or my faith. A Torah-true Jew is not required to affirm anything about Christianity or its claims. The Father I can only know through the mediation of the Jewish Jesus, you know directly and immediately because of the “carnal election” of you and your people.
“In contrast, my Christian faith does require me to believe that Jews are eternally elect by God. You can ignore me, but I cannot ignore you.”
Though I respect your views, Kevin, you do not have a monopoly in Christian exegesis. Yours is far from the universal view, at least in America, though I am confident that in Europe, you would be in the majority.
Anyway, if you still have a problem with Jewish “chosen-nes,” I suggest that you take it up with your fellow Christian, Mr. Layman, by replying to his comment, below. Indeed, I would be very interested in reading what you two have to say to each other, and I mean that it all earnestness. Obviously, we have two competing Christian views and, as an “outsider,” I would be very interested in seeing comments from both of you.
“though shall not enter unless chosen”.
Predestination? Reprobation?
Uhh, I think it says in scripture “turn the other cheek”. But being Jewish, you would know more about Christianity than I would.
I will have to tell my parish priest that the Eucharistic prayer, where Jesus, at the last supper, says take this cup and drink my blood, the blood of a new and everlasting covenant, it shall be shed for you and all mankind for the forgiveness of sins.” Is not in conformance with mainstream Christianity, according to Goldmanism. I digress.
Being Jewish, I know that Jesus (who was also Jewish) was paraphrasing Lamentations 3:30 when he spoke of turning the other cheek, and the context of citation suggests that it has nothing to do with putting eyes out. Read the Bible the way Jesus did, and you’ll understand how I read Jesus.
“Read the Bible the way Jesus did, and you’ll understand how I read Jesus.”
Thanks for schooling me David. The gospel of John says “In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh” So I guess, according to Goldmanism, Jesus had to refresh himself on the word, by reading the word.
Wait a minute….. Holy Moses, I just discovered my bible has an old testament attached to it!
You do know that the author of John was anti-Semitic? He also never met Jesus. None of the Gospel authors was. As for how Jesus read the Old Testament, you might have a point there because the real, historical Jesus that Seminary students study in addition to their studies of the Biblical Jesus, was almost certainly illiterate and thus incapable of reading the Torah even if he wanted to.
And I do mean Torah. The “Old Testament,” which reorders chapters of the Torah and alters the text, was written – in Greek, which Jesus didn’t speak (his native tongue was Aramaic) – after his death. Jesus read the Torah. So however much you might disagree on how one should read, or how Jesus read, the “Old Testament,” can we at least agree that, however one reads it, one should read the scripture – the Torah, not the postmortem “Old Testament” – that Jesus actually read? (Or should I say, had third parties read to him, since, again, the historical Jesus was almost certainly illiterate.)
Matthew was (by scholarly consensus) a Jew; John was not (despite 4:22), and the Synoptic Gospels have a particularly Jewish foundation (see Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth”). But there is a widespread misinterpretation that ought to be addressed, namely that the Mitzvot (commandments) are works-justification that can be replaced by faith. The Mitzvot, on the contrary, are a grace given to the Jews so that they may be holy and approach God, and the study of the Mitzvot (Talmud Torah) is an encounter with the mind of God. That is why Jewish families who went underground after 1492 in Spain continued to perform a few of the Mitzvot. Ultimately the practice of the Mitzvot aligns our will to the Divine Will (what the classical texts call “cleaving” to God — not mystical union, but conscious enlistment in his service).
David – The New Testament seems to focus very much on either resurrection (t’chiyath ha-maythim) or the world to come (olam ha-ba). From an historical viewpoint, there must have been some importance to that in Judaism of the first century. They seem, though, to be a central theme of Christianity (as in, if you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re not going to heavan). From a longer viewpoint, in Judaism, neither of those are very important. What is important, and which Paul shucked off for gentiles, is observance of the commandments. (Indeed there is a notion that God can be abandoned, but not his commandments; othi ta’azovi, v’eth mitzvothai tishmoru.) There is no promise in the Hebrew Bible about any rewards in a future life for observing the commandments, although there are explicit execration texts near the end of Leviticus and Deuteronomy for what happens if the commandments are not observed. Again, Neither mentions anything about the next life.
Two other points: The notion of Chosen in the Hebrew Bible is that Israel is chosen to observe God’s commandments. Paul attempted, actually quite successfully, to extend the idea of choseness to Gentiles through belief in Jesus.
The notion of grace: Jewish rabbis in the second century (probably in response to Christianity’s proclamation of grace through a belief in Jesus) came up with the formula that all Jews have grace (except for a handful). See ch. 10 of M. Sanhedrin or ch. 11 of b. Sanhedrin. (Kol Yisrael yesh la’hem cheleck … ).
Levenson and Madigan seem the state of the art on the topic: see
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JE28Aa01.html
Thanks. I will read as soon as I finish Isaacson’s Einstein. Let me recommend to you again, E.P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism. It made quite an impression on me. While E.P. is not Jewish, there seems to be a Yiddshe N’shama lurking around there somewhere.
David – I just ordered the book from Amazon. I’ll get it on Tuesday, and will probably start reading on Shabbath.
“Thus Christians rescued themselves from the maelstrom of death that took hold of the late Roman Empire.” This seems to be the most relevant point of Levenson and Madigan’s essay for both Jews and Gentiles, since the Jewish/Christian discussion will literally go on until Christ Returns (based on my own, not necessarily David’s reading of Romans 11, the Apostle Paul is saying the Jews will exist into Eternity).
Solzhenitsyn’s own very Orthodox Christian view was that entry into the New Covenant does not dissolve the nationhood of the Christian believer, only to elevate them, in much the same way the body is not destroyed and replaced with a spirit but resurrected. The Orthodox put even more emphasis on the Resurrection and the ‘trampling down death by death’ and Christ as the Conqueror of Hell then even the Catholics do. Solzhenitysn called the nations the divinely created personalities of Mankind. Thus it was probably not conjecture to suggest that he viewed the European Union and other exercises in post-national utopias as modern-day Towers of Babel.
The Orthodox Christian view of Scriptures affirm that when we stand and seek ‘a good defense before the Dread Judgement Seat of Christ’ we will stand as individuals but also as families and nations. This is also one of the reasons why the Orthodox sing tropari to the icons of the dead saints and pray for the living as well as the dead — a custom that seems bizarre to Protestants and only makes some sense to Catholics and Mormons (the Orthodox point to the Scripture where Jesus refutes the Sadducees, saying that Abraham is still living and the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ verse in the Book of Hebrews as well).
So the question becomes what sort of polity and Church will survive the hollowing out and collapse of the modern day Rome — for Rome is indeed burning, and the ‘barbarians’ are already within the gates. Spengler at the religious level knows this, but the Masonic faith in fiat currency and technocratic management’s ability to make all men brothers irrespective of their religions dies hard.
Why do Masons deserve this from someone who pretends to be defending the cause of nations? There are different varieties of Freemasonry, to be sure, but at its core, or at its origin, it is a product of the world mentioned in Spengler’s nod to Eric Nelson’s book. It was a product of 17thC Britain and the great interest of scholars in the “Hebrew Republic” or the national constitutionalism of Biblical Israel. Freemasonry is self-consciously syncretic, but arguably the religion on which it draws most is Judaism. While it draws also on Christian ideals of a universal brotherhood (and while, say, French Freemasonry is somewhat different than anglophone Masonry), it is organized into national (or state/provincial) lodges, not one global lodge, and its universalism, to my mind, developed as an attempt to allow for modern national and commercial identities that need not founder on the rock of resenting that religion/nation which has priority in articulating the discovery of Western monotheism, or those who, as all moderns do, come to acquire “Jewish”, i.e. market-mediated, identities.
In his recent writing, Spengler talks about American exceptionalism as largely a product of Christianity. I’d be curious to hear what he makes of the fact that many of the nation’s founding fathers in both its constitutional life and more broadly in the articulation of its civil society were Freemasons.
As for fiat currency, it still pales in size to the amount of money created by banks creating consumer debt. The fiat creation might be seen as an attempt to paper over the burst bubbles and the debt deflationary hole the American consumers have dug by borrowing en masse. And I don’t see what’s Masonic about that. The central Hiramic myth of Freemasonry seems to be about the need to defer desires and gratification.
One last thing: anglophone Freemasonry, most fundamentally, is a religion of tradesemen, and only secondarily a religion of bureaucrats, let alone technocrats.
Thanks for the intellectual, theological and philosophical stimulation. Don’t always agree with Spengler but appreciate the courage and openness you/he bring to Judeo-Christian conversations. “Wanting what Jews have” seems not quite accurate an assessment. To me it’s more like sharing the viewpoint of the prodigal son. Wanting what the faithful son had had, but possessing the certain knowledge from here on we are equals. Different, yes, but equal.
Perhaps unlimited money printing to paper off bad debts consumers took on is not exactly Masonic. But I was listening to a national Catholic radio channel today and they were laying into Freemasonry, emphasizing again Cardinal Josef Ratzinger — yes that same Ratzinger who is indeed followed in John Paul II’s philo-Semitic foot steps and inspired Spengler as to music — Ratzinger made the Church’s position clear in the 1980s that practicing Masons could not participate in communion with the priest’s knowledge. That is a very strong injuction indeed considering all the griping about ‘cafeteria, pro-abortion Catholics’.
And yes you were correct that my main issue was the syncretizing elements within Masonry — which interestingly enough, one of the strongest Jewish objections to Jews for Jesus and ‘Messianic’ congregations is that they ‘dupe’ unsuspecting young Jews with their syncretism, shabbat services praising Jesus etc. I prefer the term Hebrew Christian for this reason as no one would mistake the two faiths in that term. I don’t doubt that the vast majority of Masons are well-meaning people and not particularly connected — I had a great uncle who was a somewhat senior member of a lodge in the South. It just gets very creepy to me at the highest levels.
The Masons are accused by the Roman Catholic Church (and vigorously defended most famously or notoriously in the novels of Dan Brown) of duping Christians into joining an organization that says all monotheistic religions are the same — something neither David nor I agree with, even if there are disputes about whether Islam at core is truly monotheistic by certain scholars.
And for what it’s worth, the former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov while being a big time patron of the Russian Orthodox churches that arose from the ashes of the 1990s in his city also was also rumored to be a big time Mason. But I cannot confirm that.
Of course consumer and corporate debt accounted for most of the credit creation, rather than the Federal Reserve. But the Fed is a key enabler to all these bubbles. And it cannot paper over the collapse of consumer credit due to a lack of creditworthy consumers anymore than Weimar’s central bank could print enough money to paper over the worthlessness of Germany’s World War One debts. Given the horrors that followed Weimar, I’d expect Jewish folks who know their history to be every bit as hawkish against hyperinflation as the Germans who keep prefer wiping out southern EU bondholders to destroying the euro’s value so that the pain will be spread equally among Italians and Greeks. Well those ‘lazy’ Greeks according to the Telegraph are now abandoning their hungry children on the streets of Athens. The issue was never that Greeks all wanted to party while Germans worked hard, the issue was corruption and a bad monetary policy that enabled it.
David is too smart to believe that the rich can always find enough hard assets to escape the worst stings of inflation while the poor have no such escape.
David is too smart [sic] not to know that the rich can always find enough hard assets to escape the worst stings of inflation while the poor have no such escape. History has shown that the deck chairs in interwar Germany and Argentina were rearranged in very, very bad ways. Mexico escaped the worst of devaluation but that’s because it had another country to send 1/7th of its population to instead of exploding in revolution. Russia didn’t have a revolution for the main reason that Russians kept their apartments that they had from Soviet times, though the possibility of a soft Russian military coup was put paid in the 1990s when Gen. Lebed’s plane crashed.
End of thread for me. My thanks to Spengler for the level of discourse here, even where Spengler gets disagreed with frequently on monetary policy. The PJM Spengler forum remains much smarter than other PJM forums where certain commenters become pets and others who criticize the host get banned.
Thanks for your reply, X. I think the Catholic Church has proscribed Freemasonry since the 18th Century. Quite rightly, i think, they see it as another religion (while only some Masons and observers understand their “craft” to be a religion – see Alexander Piatigorsky’s fascinating book if you want to dig into this…). That’s also been a sore spot with large numbers of Protestants – the fact that many of their number, including many Ministers, have joined this universal priesthood and engage in eucharistic rituals outside the church (and its women). I’m not sure Masons generally think all monotheist faiths are the same, but they do clearly believe in some universal element, a “prisca theologica” in all religions, and style their craft as the religion in which all men agree. While I think one might doubt whether they have developed the best way of identifying the minimal (cognitive, ethical) basis of all monotheism, I would defend the idea that it is anthropologically valuable to assume there is such a minimal basis and to ask what it must entail.
I doubt there is anything too creepy in the higher reaches of Freemasonry; I imagine that any Mason looking for some hidden secret there will be disappointed when he reaches the end of the road. If you look at how the Shriners behave – when they perform in public, like on their mini motorcycles – they tend to indulge the notion that lodge life is ultimately something unserious, and to become a Shriner you have to reach the highest degrees.
On the economic question, I doubt we are going to see much inflation for some time. The US world reserve currency is not in the same position as that of Weimar Germany which had to pay its debts in foreign currency. And in the US the debt deleveraging that is going to go on for some time is likely to outpace any monetary stimulus. If I can be so presumptuous as to throw Spengler another idea for a column, I’d like to see him comment on the ideas of the Australian economist Steve Keen who, among other things, is calling for a modern variant of the debt jubilee: give everyone money on the condition that if you have debt you have to use the cash to pay it down. For Keen, economic growth has to be measured in terms of both GDP and the change in the rate of growth of debt.
Mr. Goldman: You’re so gracious in answering your commenters, I thought I might I ask you to elaborate a little bit on the statement below.
“Sacrifices on the scale that Lincoln demanded during the Civil War, for example, overwhelm human reason, and the efforts of Strauss’ students to portray Lincoln as a sort of 19th-century Socrates strike me as hopelessly obtuse.”
As a student of some of the students of Strauss (and one who’s always been at least half-dubious about the Jaffa claim of Lincoln’s Socratic rationalism), I will be grateful for any elaboration you might take a quick moment to write.
How do you persuade half a million Northerners to march into massed rifle fire to free the slaves? For that matter, why should property-owning, prosperous men in no danger of extreme oppression start a revolution in 1776? It’s not as if Lord North was Himmler; Charles Fox and the Rockingham Whigs held banquets in order of George Washington throughout the war in London. One doesn’t put one’s life on the line for a “low but broad” political reform, but out of religious passion. Lincoln’s language and thought are explicitly biblical; there is no orator in American history who sounds so much like the KJV.
I’ve written a bit about this, for example here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FB10Aa03.html
Lincoln didn’t need a war to preserve the union; he could have bought off the South by giving them Cuba and (ultimately) a great deal else in Latin America to expand slavery. He knew perfectly well that a civil war would be devastating, and yet ye pursued it. One has to believe that “as was said three thousand years ago, the judgments of the Almighty are just and righteous altogether” to kill 800,000 people. Fr. Schall, as noted, thought that I opposed the war! On the contrary, I think it was the noblest act of statesmanship in recorded history. The popular imagery of Isaiah 63 in the “Battle Hymn” corresponds precisely to Lincoln’s stance: enthusiastic, God-intoxicated, nearly apocalyptic. Leo Strauss didn’t like enthusiasm. He saw the enthusiasm for totalitarian movements and hoped that an elite schooled in classical rationalism could avoid such horrors. Another way to think about the problem is that human beings will seek the Transcendent one way or another, and if they do not worship the Absolute Other in the biblical God, they will find a way to worship themselves. My anthropology is biblical: God has made us for himself and we are restless until we come to him. Philosophy, as Franz Rosenzweig said, is just a child stuffing his fingers in his ears and shouting “I can’t hear you!” in face of the prospect of death.
“My anthropology is biblical: God has made us for himself and we are restless until we come to him.”
That reminds me of George Herbert’s tremendous poem,The Pulley.
When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can:
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure
Rest in the bottome lay.
For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse:
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.
Christians as a group and as individuals see themselves as bearers of the Shekinah glory. It is not exclusively found in the person of Jesus. Paul in II Corinthians 4 says because of faith in Christ God has made His light shine in the hearts of the believers. Matthew says believers are “The Light of the World” and are to show their good deeds before men and bring glory to the Father. This theme of the Shekinah glory in Christians is repeated all through the New Testament. Jews fell short of the Old Covenant and were not the light they were meant to be to the gentiles. Christians likewise fell short of the New Covenant (humble faith in Christ alone, thereby yielding fullness of the Spirit) and haven’t been the light they were meant to be. Hypocrisy is innate to human nature. Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus all fail their respective religions, even atheists may pray under pressure!
Last August, for example, he suggested that Islam may collapse as suddenly
as communism once Muslims begin to question the authenticity of the Koran.
Fr. Schall is not the only person to think this, nor is this idea original to him. That Islam calls for the murder of apostates is, in and of itself, an indicator of the fragility of Islam. A self-confident meme would not require such a policy.
I grew up during the tail end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was seen as an implacable foe during the 1970′s and many thought that a communist global victory was inevitable. The cracks in the U.S.S.R. became apparent starting in the early 80′s and the cold war was essentially over by the end of 1987.
Many of the things that were said about the “commies” during the 1970′s (i.e. they are not afraid to die, they are not afraid to sacrifice their people, they are totally committed whereas we in the West are soft, etc. etc. etc.) are things said about the Muslim world today. Like the Soviet Union, it too shall pass. When it does collapse, like the Soviet Union, its collapse will occur very quickly and as total surprise to the “experts” in the state department and the CIA, just like the Soviet collapse was totally unexpected by all of those “Kremlinologist” we used to have.
I think Islam, as a religion or ideology, will collapse before 2030. Of course, I predicted in 1983 that the Soviet Union would collapse by 2010. Perhaps the collapse will come much sooner than 2030.
The real question is what will succeed Islam in the middle-east? Will they convert to Christianity, or join some other religion/ideology? Or maybe the region will simply degenerate into some kind of post-ideological “gangster nation”, much like Russia today. The latter is my prediction.
There was a time when Christianity called for the murder of apostates, and also (although extremely remote) when the death penalty applied in ancient Israel for certain religious infractions.
True. But that was during the Medieval period in Europe, which was a rather barbaric time. The Christian religion was used as a power tool by the various political entities of the time to keep people in line.
Abelard, you underestimate Orthodoxy in Russia. It is not yet influencing government at the highest levels, but the Church did call for honest elections recently. I have a cross-post from over at the Belmont Club that I hope Spengler will not mind. It may be a Russo-centric view but it is a provocative one that I hope Spengler will consider — where will all the jobless Iranians go once their country is totally wrecked? It’s already falling apart as is. Since the EU is not likely to let them all in with anti-immigrant attitudes already hardening and nor is East Asia a likely destination, that leaves…Russia.
This seems very confused to me. Russia already has 12 million Muslim foreign workers (almost all Turks or Turkic peoples from the former Soviet Union). They do most of the construction work in Russia and compensate for Russia’s labor shortage. Russia does not like the collapse of Syria — why should it? — and will like the economic decline of Turkey even less when it kicks in this year. There won’t be any desperate Persians swarming into Russia because Russia won’t let them in. No-one is going to bomb Iran into the Stone Age. It will get to the Stone Age on its own steam. As for Afghanistan: the Russians loused that one up years ago, and if it comes back to bite them, it’s their own damned fault.
“Since the EU is not likely to let them all in with anti-immigrant attitudes already hardening and nor is East Asia a likely destination, that leaves…Russia.” Ok perhaps there’s also Brazil, they can build a little Teheran on the beach in Rio. But that’s for the lucky educated Persians who can afford international air fare, some of whom have already gone to L.A.
And last comment on this thread:
http://blog.atimes.net/?p=2009
This sounds like the Zerohedgers saying that the reason Bernankster Ben’s fiat money hurricane hasn’t petered out yet is that the Almighty Status Quo keeps pulling another trick out of its hat to sustain the unsustainable. Sorry, couldn’t resist the symmetry.
Not a monetary issue, just the usual suspects buying across the board. Turkey still underperformed the EM universe on a beta-adjusted basis (I made multiples of the Turkish loss on Brazilian miners).
While this fascinating exchange has the flavor of a medieval disputation, to call it such is something of an exaggeration. This was in some respects an unfair fight. The remarkable Father James Schall, 84, has spent a lifetime studying church doctrine and the relation of philosophy to church doctrine. For my money David Goldman is one of the best geo-political and economic analysts writing today, and whatever he writes on any subject is interesting. But, as he admits, he came to Judaism “very late,” i.e. in his late thirties. Judaism, of course, welcomes those who return to the fold. The nature of Jewish learning makes it extremely difficult for a latecomer to master “Jewish thought”, which has fundamental texts but no canon. “Jewish thought” is embedded in and simmers up from texts and practices with which one must have long experience, often from childhood.
This is not to say that no outsider can come to understand Judaism; Just one example: the “targoom” or (loose) “translation” of the pentateuch into Aramaic, done by “Onkelos the Stranger” (a convert) in the 2nd century CE, which was a crucial achievement in the development of post-exile Judaism. But an Onkelos does not come around every day, and Goldman (as he freely admits) is a student of Judaism rather than a teacher. Reading his response, I was reminded of the philosopher character in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari, who, summoned to give an apologia for philosophy in front of a King with a hungry soul, can utter nothing but second rate Aristotelian platitudes before being hustled off the stage.
All of that said, this exchange brings up a few interesting and indeed one crucial issue which I’ll comment upon (I hasten to add that I am a student a not a teacher of Judaism myself). As far as I understand him, Father Schall’s position is that Israel was crucial historically because it introduced and transmitted the doctrine of eternity, and theologically as proof that God does not reneg on his promises. But the “mission” of Israel is finally incoherent because there can be no eternal nation. Eternity is only offered to the individual qua individual at the level of the individual soul:
“Only the person achieves eternal life, not just immortality. Through such persons, the direct relation to God, and each other, is possible…Christianity is universal because of its own teaching about eternal life. This teaching of resurrection through Christ is something the Jews, for their own reasons, do not accept.”
For Father Schall, the “resurrection through Christ” is the means by which the individual, a man “in time,” can hitch himself to eternity:
As Benedict said in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, what scripture said of Christ is in fact true. He is the Son of Man. He did exist in this world; he was resurrected on the “third day.” This presence in the world of time makes everything different.
The mission of Israel is ultimately incoherent unless it loosens the bond between its worldly “national” existence and the “eternal” promise which is addressed to every individual soul potentially, and was, at a historical moment, introduced practically by the resurrection of Christ.
There are a few things to be said here. On the most basic and indeed crass level, one can say that this interpretation of Jesus’ life depends essentially on the meaning given to it by Church doctrine and, in general, Christians. In other words, the issue seems merely begged because it depends on accepting that Jesus was who Christians say he was — that he was the son of man who was indeed resurrected on the “third day.” And it is this fact, notwithstanding many shared things, which is precisely at issue between Christians and Jews, and, I imagine, always will be.
Also, Father Schall overdoes the extent to which “eternal nation” would obscure or deny the ability of the individual soul to enter into relation with God. Father Schall quotes the fascinating lines of Benedict that “what scripture said of Christ is in fact true. He is the Son of Man. He did exist in this world; he was resurrected on the “third day.” But every Jew is commanded to view himself as if he were himself at Mount Sinai. The “as if” qualifier is important, but for the Jews, “the presence of God in time” happens at Mount Sinai.
The far more significant question, which I can only touch upon here, is the real status of “eternity” for the Jews. Goldman makes much of eternity (his most ambitious Jewish essay is called “Hannukah, the temple, and Eternal Life), but he does so following the lead of certain 19th and 20th century Jewish writers who came to Judaism, I think it’s paradoxical and fair to say, by way of Christianity. Goldman cites Franz Rosenzweig’s notion that the Jews long for eternity, but he somehow misses the efforts of, among others, Maimonides, to downplay the role of ‘eternity’ within Judaism–minimising, for instance, the third prayer of the Jewish daily prayer, “He who resurrects the dead, may he resurrect the dead.” In his Guide Maimonides does indeed prove the Eternity of the World. But he proves it simply to show that it is a dialectical rather than demonstrative proof. The issue over the creation or the eternity of the world is one at which “the intellect stops.” The question is replaced by the thought that the world is created in time.
A very, (very) convinced Aristotelian might then have to dismiss Judaism. But any proper confrontation with Judaism at the level of metaphysics begins not with “eternity” but with the foundations, the “creation of the world in time.” As someone smart once said, it makes the most sense to begin at the beginning.
Mr. Ibn Ezra,
Your comments are not entirely ingenuous.
I am only a student, to be sure, and not a particularly adept one, but I am nonetheless a student of excellent teachers, for example, Michael Wyschogrod, whose discussion of Maimonides’ You Aristotelianism (in the essay collection “Abraham’s Promise”) is the state of the art, and Jon Levenson, whose treatment (with Kevin Madigan) of the corporate character of Jewish hopes for eternal life (the identity of national and individual resurrection) I reviewed here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JE28Aa01.html
The cited essay on Hanukkah is a summary of the position of R. Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, hardly “following the lead of certain 19th and 20th century Jewish writers who came to Judaism.” It was also vetted with competent Orthodox Jewish authorities before publication.
In short, I identify (and have done so publicly for years) with a major current of Modern Orthodox thinking that rejects Maimonides’ attempt to reconcile Judaism and Aristotle (though not of course the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah). You imply that I am “miss the efforts” of Maimonides on these matters; on the contrary, I know very well what Maimonides thought, but don’t think that is is either right or relevant. You object not to my ignorance, but rather to my representation of well-established, mainstream Orthodox Jewish views. Despite his lofty stature as a codifier of Jewish law and Torah commentator, the Rambam never persuaded the majority of Jews to embrace Aristotle, fortunately.
Once again David tries to rationalize Judaism in spite of Christianity. The Jews were “chosen’ to deliver the Messiah to the nation. That purpose has been accomplished. All “chosen” possibly mean now is “special.”
It is the Church that are now the “chosen people,” the Church is Israel now, heir to the promises. The Jews remain beloved of God for the sake of the fathers, nothing more. The purpose for which they were chosen has been accomplished.
You are surely entitled to believe this, just as I am entitled to believe that God’s Shekinah (Indwelling) remains in the flesh-and-blood Jewish people. But if you think this is just “rationalizing” I recommend Prof. Eric Nelson’s 2010 book “The Hebrew Republic.” As I wrote: for Christianity to succeed, it must Judaize, and nowhere did Christians Judaize more explicitly than in the founding of the United States of America. Remember, I’m rooting for you. But I believe that our active role in history is far from finished.
“Remember, I’m rooting for you.” Good to know, for we are surely up against it.
“I recommend Prof. Eric Nelson’s 2010 book “The Hebrew Republic.” As I wrote: for Christianity to succeed, it must Judaize…” Are you referring here to your book, “It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You”? Or did you contribute a specific chapter to Nelson’s “The Hebrew Republic” that details your thoughts on the founding of America? I would like to follow up on that.
Eric Nelson’s book reports how closely the Pilgrim Fathers read medieval rabbinic commentary as well as the Bible itself, in the context of the idea of “Hebrew Republic,” that is, the polity of ancient Israel as a model. My book “Not the End of the World…” is an essay collection touching on many subjects. The earlier book, “How Civilizations Die,” discusses Nelson.
I must read this book. Too often schools omit the religious roots of our democracy – especially the Puritan’s innovation, popular sovereignty.
Thank you. Looking forward to reading all three.
Mr. Goldman,
Your comment reminded me of a passage I read in a book about the rise of “Southern Christianity” and how Christendom’s center is moving from Europe and the West, to Africa and Latin America. Apparently – and I think many of the comments on this thread provide evidence – many “Western” Christians are quite dismayed at the rapid spread of “Southern” Christianity which is quite different – and yes, much more “Judaic” than the “Western” strain. Which, again, many of your Christian site-visitors have difficulty dealing with.
Anyway, the author of this particular book (unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of the several I read, but probably The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins or another of Jenkins’s books) provides an amusing description of the 19th Century Christian missionaries’ experiences in converting the natives. Like many (all?) of your critics on this thread, the missionaries would taught that the Old Testament was obsolete; however, try at the missionaries might, their African converts showed relatively little interest in the New Testament and Jesus, but intense interest in the Old Testament and the Jewish Patriarchs, with whose desert environment and nomadic existence (and multiple wives!) the Africans strongly identified. One African protested to a frustrated missionary (I’m paraphrasing): “If the Bible is true and the Old Testament is in the Bible, then it must be true and we must study the entire Bible and not just the parts you think we should.”
Some might find this description (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States) of the designing of the Great Seal of the United States informative – and convincing: “The first committee consisted of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. While they were three of the five primary authors of the Declaration of Independence, they had little experience in heraldry and sought the help of Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, an artist living in Philadelphia who would later also design the state seals of Delaware and New Jersey and start a museum of the Revolutionary War. Each of these men proposed a design for the seal.
Franklin chose an allegorical scene from Exodus, described in his notes as “Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity.” Motto, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Jefferson suggested a depiction of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night for the front of the seal…”
More important, in researching my own book, “The Christian State” (available in both print and Kindle editions on Amazon.com, by the way), I found numerous quotes with Biblical references. Every single quote, even those by Christian preachers, was to the Old Testament, such as comparing King George to Pharaoh and George Washington to Judah Maccabee. Conversely, I could not find a single quote rooted in the New Testament. That’s not to say that one might not exist, but if it does, it is a rarity.
This, of course, is understandable. The New Testament emphasizes forgiveness to the point of Jesus telling slaves to love (and obey!) their masters! The concept of the right of people to be free and most of all, not to love their masters, but to fight them – the call to revolution, of which the ancient Jews fomented several, is Jewish. And what’s that quote on the Liberty Bell? Ah, yes: “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Leviticus 25:10.
I hope I don’t sound too harsh with this; really, I’m just tweaking my supersessionist Christian friends on this thread (’cause at the end of the day, we’re all Americans, righht?). But David Goldman makes a good and important point: Much of Europe is failing because they are Christian countries (and Arabia failing worse because it eschews both Christianity and Judaism). America is succeeding because it is a Judeo-Christian country. And I would happily admit that one reason Israel is succeeding is because, though it is officially a “Jewish state,” it really is a “Judeo-Christian” state. To make an obvious observation, Benjamin Netanyahu clearly is a great admirer of America, strongly steeped in American values.
I love my Christian fellow Americans and heartily embrace the “Christian” in “Judeo-Christian.” Indeed, Israel might never have been restored if not for American Christians. It therefore saddens me that so many Christian Americans seem to have a problem acknowledging the “Judeo” part without which history shows without a doubt, there would never have been a United States.
“I recommend Prof. Eric Nelson’s 2010 book “The Hebrew Republic.” As I wrote: for Christianity to succeed, it must Judaize…”
for the sake of us all I hope it does, but I see signs where Christian belief is instead Islamicising. Arguments for a wholly omnipotent and infallible G_d to whom at least a few must submit to without question worry me…….
I will look up the Soloveitchick (do you have an exact reference?) I agree with you that the tendency of some to cite ‘Maimonides’ to the exclusion of the ‘Rambam’ is regrettable, but I worry about the reverse, as well. In any case, many thanks for the reference as well as the response!
The relevant quote from R. Soloveitchik is from Hararei Kedem Vol. 1: p. 173
What a rich piece, and a rich thread of comments! I cannot follow the discussion when it reaches into the theological stratosphere, but there is one thing that resonates with my own ruminations: The plausibility of Islam’s brittleness. The historic conquests of Islam are impressive, starting with converting Persia less than 50 years into its impRead erialist trajectory, but it is quite possible that the modern times challenge Islam in unprecedented ways.
The cultivation of fanaticism may no longer be the trump card it once was when the images of western life are carried by electromagnetic waves flying over the oceans (and the mosques) to reach the satellite dishes on the rooftops.
15 years ago, modems were illegal in Syria, but could the regime possibly deny itself the benefits of Internet access? Once it did obtain it, for how much longer could it prevent others from accessing it? Maybe modems are still illegal in Syria, yet people somehow can use cellular phones and the youth use twitter! When illiteracy prevails to the degree it does in Egypt, for instance, who is going to dissuade a sincere Muslim from believing that the Koran is the book in which westerners found the instructions about how to make helicopters? Can the people of Egypt resist what the rise of islamism is going to do to them, starting with their food supply? How will the arguments of Sayyid Qtub and Hassan Al-Bannah come to their rescue?
The only people besides the Jews who retain some semblance of national identity and original language since 800 BC are the Indians and the Chinese who had the advantage of immense populations and remaining in their homelands. Armenian, Ethiopian, Japanese cultures which originate from before 1000 AD also still have their homelands. The Jews maintained their identity without their own soil for nearly two thousand years, to my mind a sign of God’s unique personal providence for them and on the order of a miracle. It is the New Testament expectation that in the end they will turn to faith in Christ as a people.
On another subject – sermons were preached during the American Revolution comparing the 13 colonies to Israel’s 13 tribes – 13 with the inclusion of the Levites as the 13th. It can be argued that Israel was originally had a representative decentralized tribal governmenst with a trans tribal clergy (the Levites) tending to the spiritual needs of the people, a situation comparable to the American colonies.
Seventy years ago Christian Europe went on a tribal bloodbath in an attempt to murder every Jew they could get their hands on. Christian nations the world over were willing accomplices. Do not regale me with stories of exceptional Christians who risked their lives to save Jews. They were the smallest of minorities. For the most part Christianity failed to translate itself into simple human dignity. Christians who think they have something to offer the Jew theologically are practicing a denial that is pathological.
While human beings have the right to pick and choose how, and even if, they worship The Almighty, each of us is free to consider another’s religion pure poppycock. For me that is what Christianity and Islam both are. Why together? Because they share the same disease of arrogance. Insistent that only they have The Truth and to be ” saved ” one must embrace one or the other. Neither one rises to the lowest level of human understanding- one must be free to approach G-d as the soul dictates not based upon coercion by another.
Why is the world obsessed with Jews? Why do Christians continue to dialogue as if The Shoah never happened? Why do Muslims seek to dislodge us from our homeland as if Abraham , Isaac and Jacob never existed? It is because they realize in their deepest souls that the era of power history is ending and the period of Divine Revelation is once again at hand. All eyes are on us because all the promises of The Torah have come true and they have no way to deal with it other than denial.
MBY Yerushalayim
Mr. Ben Yakov,
Without the United States of America, it is extremely unlikely that the State of Israel would have survived, especially given the commitment of the evil Soviet Empire to crush it in 1973. And the United States is a Christian nation. Without the support of American Christians who believe that they will be blessed by blessing the family of Abraham, Israel would be hard put to survive today. Germany is manufacturing nuclear-capable submarines for Israel which contribute mightily to Israel’s security, by the way.
Many Christians befriend us because they have read the Torah and Nevi’im and believe what they read. To reject such friendship seems to me boorish and self-defeating. We are supposed to be a blessing for all peoples. I am sure that you and I would agree that this flows from our loyalty to the Torah. But it also is the case that our friendly relations with Christians and our efforts to teach them Torah (specifically allowed by the Rambam) have had important consequences; as Eric Nelson showed, the Pilgrim Fathers’ knowledge of Torah (not just Tanakh but also rabbinical sources) was important for the founding of America.
FInally, there is Michael Wyschogrod’s argument: we learn a great deal about Judaism by learning about Christianity. That is controversial, but in my view powerful and true.
” Without the United States of America, it is extremely unlikely that the State of Israel would have survived, especially given the commitment of the evil Soviet Empire to crush it in 1973.”
For the record from 1948 until the end of the Six Day War in 1967 the United States maintained a military embargo of Israel. Israel’s two greatest victories came without any US aid whatsoever. Additionally before you wax poetic about American aid to Israel, it was Israel’s capture of an intact Soviet Mig aircraft and its subsequent release for examination to the US military that was the single largest military victory of the Cold War. The point being that while nations have worked with Israel to Israels benefit it has not been based upon morality, it has been based upon pragmatism. The benefits of working with Israel have been enormous.
Christians are free to learn whatever they choose from Judaism. However Christianity has nothing to offer the Jews. If Christians which to befriend Jews on an individual level of course that is well and good. But Christian theologians who wish to be friends must first admit the crimes perpetrated against the Jews. They can not simply extend a hand. Too much blood has been shed.
” FInally, there is Michael Wyschogrod’s argument: we learn a great deal about Judaism by learning about Christianity. That is controversial, but in my view powerful and true.”
What is there to learn? Christianity has lost all moral validity based upon its bloody history. Shall I study the murder of Jews for 1000 years? The accusation of the murder of G-d? The demand to convert or die? Christian theology is rife with Jew hatred. It is a poisoned well. Drink from it if you like. Most of us know better.
Mr. Ben Yakov:
You say: “Christian theologians who wish to be friends must first admit the crimes perpetrated against the Jews. They can not simply extend a hand. Too much blood has been shed.”
I have no formal standing within a Christian church as a scholarly interpreter of its teaching. But I have studied both Jewish thought and Christian theology. I have studied Rambam and Rosenzweig, among others, under the direction of a Jewish philosopher.
I tell my story here: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/spengler/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=180 , describing my excitement at learning that the Israeli army had recaptured Jerusalem. Why, I ask, was I so excited? Because, “in a small white Christian meetinghouse that he attended at least three times a week…, he had been taught that “salvation is of the Jews.” The Jews were God’s people, God’s plans for his people had not been annulled through long years of wandering, and God was yet at work in this fallen world.”
I do not ask that you learn from me or my faith. A Torah-true Jew is not required to affirm anything about Christianity or its claims. The Father I can only know through the mediation of the Jewish Jesus, you know directly and immediately because of the “carnal election” of you and your people.
In contrast, my Christian faith does require me to believe that Jews are eternally elect by God. You can ignore me, but I cannot ignore you.
What else exactly do you require before you will accept my friendship?
You must accept the fact that friendship is impossible between oppressor and oppressed.
I am under no moral obligation to respect your religious doctrines- I do have a moral obligation to respect your right to them. Would that Christians accepted that same humanistic approach.
Jews ask for neither love or reverence or friendship. We just want the same respect granted to others with ease. Jews have had 1500 years of ” Christian friendship ” burned into our history. Burning us alive in our synagogues to turning us into lampshades and soap has left its mark.
Let me leave you with a bit of Christian wisdom. It has been expunged from Catholic liturgy however it will stand forever as the prayer of a truly honest and G-d fearing man….
” We are conscious today that many centuries of blindness have cloaked our eyes so that we can no longer see the beauty of Thy chosen people, nor recognize in their faces the features of our privileged brethren. We realize that the mark of Cain stands on our foreheads. Across the centuries our Brother Abel has lain in blood which we drew or shed tears we caused forgetting Thy love. Forgive us for the curse we falsely attached to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did…”
Pope John XIII
To deny the past, to deny the truth, to turn a blind eye on wrongdoing, is to be complicit. For that their is no salvation.
Mr. Layman,
Sadly, there is nothing you can do that would satisfy someone like Mr. Ban Yakov. If Mr. Ben Yakov thinks that the Rev. William E. Blackstone harbored ulterior motives when he proposed reestablishing the Jewish state to President Benjamin Harrison four years before Herzl wrote The Jewish State, nothing you can say or do will convince him otherwise.
So the question, rather, is what can I do to assure you that Mr. Ben Yakov’s is very much the minority view among American (and Israeli!) Jews.
Given everything the Christians of America have done for the Jewish people, the only advice I can give you is to accept our thanks, forgive Mr. Ben Yakov, and move on.
Mr.Schwimmer, I have never denied that individuals of many faiths have been supporters of Jewish rights. However the overwhelming majority of Christians have a long bloody history of Jew hatred. That is part their theology. The fact that individuals were able to express human compassion and even more is not a result of Christian theology it is a result of their rising above the hatred ingrained in their religion.
As far as ” the majority ” opinion is concerned, the level of Truth and Holiness and Honesty of an opinion is not attained because an opinion is a ” majority opinion”. In fact that is part of the problem with Christianity. Jews have horns was the majority opinion for hundreds of years . That was Christian doctrine.
Learn from history.
Mr.Ben Yakov, Nixon’s airlift of material to Israel in 1973 probably saved the country at a moment when the Soviet Union was determined to destroy it. American support has been substantial since then. America’s alliance with Israel is all the more important given the deplorable opportunism of the Europeans and others.
What can we learn from Christians? Wyschogrod’s central thesis is that the dwelling-place of the Shekhinah is the flesh and blood of the people of Israel, a parallel, as it were, to a Christian concept we reject, namely Incarnation. Wyschogrod observes that this would not have been quite so clear to him without confronting the idea of Incarnation. I concede that this is a controversial view.
Less controversial is the fact that R. Joseph Dov Soloveitchik frequently quoted Christian theologians and philosophers, for example Kierkegaard and Barth. Many Orthodox authorities of impeccable credentials studied Christian culture and found value in it. Some examples are found in an essay on Jews and German culture I wrote last year for Tablet.
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/53221/faustian-bargains/
Nixon was motivated by American interest. He cared little for Jews or Israel.
And you misrepresent R. Soloveitchiks position-
http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/4_2_Kimelman.pdf
” The reluctance of Orthodox rabbis, even those rabbis who have a history of communication with the Christian community, to sign the declaration reflects a strict adherence to the admonitions of the revered Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, known by his students and followers as “the Rav,” who in the 1960s prohibited theological dialogue with the Catholic Church. With the 10th anniversary of the Rav’s passing being widely commemorated this Passover, reflection is warranted on the limits that the Rav’s prohibition still places on Orthodox Jews today — as well as on opportunities for dialogue yet to come.
The Rav’s opposition to communal, and organizational interfaith dialogue was partly predicated upon the prediction that in our search for common ground — a shared theological language — Jews and Christians might each sacrifice our insistence on the absolute and exclusive truth of our respective faiths, blurring the deep divide between our respective dogmas. In an essay titled “Confrontation,” Rabbi Soloveitchik argued that a community’s faith is an intimate, and often incommunicable affair. Furthermore, a faith by definition insists “that its system of dogmas, doctrines and values is best fitted for the attainment of the ultimate good.” In his essay, the Rav warned that sacrificing the exclusive nature of religious truth in the name of dialogue would help neither Jews nor Christians. Any “equalization of dogmatic certitudes, and waiving of eschatological claims, spell the end of the vibrant and great faith experiences of any religious community,” he wrote.”
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/8692/#ixzz1kPVErM51
http://www.forward.com/articles/8692/
You make the regrettable mistake of conflating the “Baptized pagans” of Europe with the true and good Christians of America. They are not the same as my father, who was a concentration camp survivor, and fled FROM “Christian Europe” to (Judeo-) Christian America could tell you were he still alive.
And where, precisely, was the pragmatism in Harry Truman overruling his entire State Department to be the first nation to recognize the reborn Israel only 11 minutes after she had declared here independence? And Clark Clifford, who was with Truman at the time, said that there were tears in his eyes when he did it.
There is a long history of popular support for an independent Jewish state in American history dating back to John Adams. And certainly the founding fathers had great respect for The Torah and much of American jurisprudence is based upon Jewish Law. Certainly there are many great souls and honorable people amongst a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. That does not change history or culpability. And it does not wipe away the stain of murder and libel in so many cultures and religions. Millions of Americans are wonderful folks who would never hurt a fly. Yet there are millions who would gladly wear a swastika if it meant a job and a home. That is reality. Not pleasant but reality none the less.
Perhaps I am simply confused, but the problem, it seems, comes down to your succinct formula: “To survive, Christianity must Judaize.” But Christianity –as Fr. Schall points out– is not concerned with intra-mundane “survival” –with polities– but with our destiny in Christ (and your view of Christianity is understandably bereft of Christology). To be sure, virtuous people will help sustain a virtuous society, but inevitably the demands of the kingdoms conflict with the demands of THE Kingdom. Given such inevitable conflicts, the Christian –following Christ– embraces his destiny in the Cross –or he loses his soul (“Blessed are you when they persecute you.”). And nothing is ever left of the kingdoms of this world but their dust. (Voegelin speaks of the metaxy, the tension, that one must live with.) And, anyway, how is your formula “Christianity must Judaize” any different from the earlier conflations of Christian and national identity your book so eloquently decries?
Mr. Walsh,
That is precisely the question. The conflation of Christianity with national identity always involved (as you imply) a perverse sort of “Judaizing,” starting with Isidore of Seville’s encomium to the Visigoths in Spain to think of themselves as a new Chosen People, and similar thinking in Carolingian France. The Russians and Germans, unlike the Spanish, French and British, had some difficulty identifying themselves with Israel, but the same principle was at work. The United States, by contrast, “Judaized” in creating a new non-ethnic nation founded on Christian principles but with no ethnic connotation. The American form of Judaizing succeeded where the European form failed. That was not what the great Christian thinkers had in mind; from Aquinas to Dante, the central concept was universal Christian empire that subordinated the fractious nationalities. This idea was forever destroyed in 1648 and (as my friend Russell Hittinger has shown) was replaced by “throne-and-altar” Catholicism, that is, the delegation of responsibility to national Christian dynasty. That had catastrophic consequences, with the result that Christianity is marginalized in its European cradle.
I wrote about the issue of Christian empire vs. nationalities in First Things some years ago here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/05/001-zionism-for-christians-1
In a nutshell, my argument to Catholics is that the Catholic Church should dissuade ach nationality from fancying itself the “Chosen People” by saying: “No, only the the Jews are the Chosen People by birth. If you want to be Chosen, you have to come to us.” In principle I am sympathetic to the idea of universal Christian empire, but I doubt the project ever had much chance of succeeding.
I always get the willies when I hear the phrase “Christian principles” –Christianity being not a set of principles, but a relationship with the living God. And –in light of the Gospel– a “universal Christian empire” is, I would say, as good a definition of the Antichrist as you can get. Anyone can and always could join the Church; but her claims upon the faithful always trump the ambitions of the state, whatever values it’s founding may derive from the faith. Jesus’ famous formula was ironic: in time, Caesar thinks everything belongs to him. And the state doesn’t even have to persecute you: European decline has as much to do with the fact that modern welfare bureaucracies (talk about trying to enshrine “Christian principles”) undermine tradition by supplanting the horizontal relationships that unite people into communities with vertical relationships that bind atomized individuals to the state. And why do people abandon faith? Soloveitchik’s short answer: because it’s hard, for in the modern era one cannot be traditional, only orthodox. To be chosen people, the people must choose, and that means not choosing –against the human grain– the many seductive alternatives. Is there anything new under the sun?
Od dawna szukałem artykułu na temat Spengler » A Dialogue with Fr. James V. Schall . Dzięki
in your point of view, what would you say is the defining factor of political action in the article “why is political philosophy different”?
thanx