Seeing Anti-Semitism When It Isn't There

There's a difference between respect and acceptance, and the head of the Anti-Defamation League seems to have missed that distinction in a complaint he's issued against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week.


Abe Foxman, the ADL director, has a hair trigger for anything that has the faintest whiff of anti-Semitism. Given the long and unspeakable history of that persistent hatred, we can be thankful for his vigilance.

But a hair trigger can go off when there is no cause. And this week, Foxman has fired at the wrong target.

Start with some relatively recent history:

Back in 2002, a group of Jewish and Catholic scholars came up with a statement titled "Reflections on Covenant and Mission." In it, the Catholics agreed to what was then considered a pretty radical position:

"[The Catholic Church] now recognizes that Jews are also called by God to prepare the world for God's kingdom. Their witness to the kingdom, which did not originate with the Church's experience of Christ crucified and raised, must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity. The distinctive Jewish witness must be sustained if Catholics and Jews are truly to be, as Pope John Paul II has envisioned, 'a blessing to one another.'"

A few days ago, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued what it called, with a civilized sense of precision, "A Note on Ambiguities Contained in 'Reflections on Covenant and Mission.'" Here's a money quote from that document:

"'Reflections on Covenant and Mission,' however, renders even the possibility of individual conversion doubtful by a further statement that implies it is generally not good for Jews to convert, nor for Catholics to do anything that might lead Jews to conversion because it threatens to eliminate 'the distinctive Jewish witness: Their [the Jewish people's] witness to the kingdom, which did not originate with the Church's experience of Christ crucified and raised, must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity.' Some caution should be introduced here, since this line of reasoning could lead some to conclude mistakenly that Jews have an obligation not to become Christian and that the Church has a corresponding obligation not to baptize Jews."

To which Foxman and the ADL responded :

"This document, if taken at face value, reintroduces the notion that Catholics can use interfaith dialogue as a means to invite Jews to Christian baptism ... If so, then it is unacceptable, for such a statement would foster mistrust between Jews and Catholics and undermine years of work building a positive relationship based on mutual trust and respect of our differences in faith."

To which I say: Not so much.

A secular-media religion reporter in the United States inevitably spends most of his time covering and talking to Christians; it's simply a matter of numbers. If that reporter is Jewish, he's going to get some extra attention, shall we say, from some of those Christians. I've been prayed for a lot, and prayed at a few times.

Early on, I decided that taking offense was counterproductive. While I never allowed anyone to engage in serious proselytizing for more than a few moments, neither did I feel I should be angry. Even when the Southern Baptist Convention created a separate ministry aimed at converting Jews, I mostly shrugged.

It seems too obvious to require saying, but: Many Christians believe that anybody who doesn't accept their idea of religion is condemned to eternal torture. Bluntly, they think that I'm fated for Hell. And that they have a moral obligation – not to mention a divine commandment – to offer me what they believe to be a lifeline.

That's even sorta nice, kinda, if it's offered in the right way.

But I also understand Foxman's reaction. For the first 1,950 or so years of Christian history there were vanishingly few examples of non-coercive conversation between Christian authorities and Jews. The list of Jewish martyrs is long. In Jewish history, the year 1492 of the Common Era is not about Spain paying for some Italian sailor to head west, but about the Christian rulers of Spain expelling what was then the center of Jewish culture. The "offer" from Ferdinand and Isabella: Convert, depart, or be killed. The Spanish monarchy's command was only one in a long series of similar Christian rulers' edicts marching through the centuries.

We have more recent reminders that there are still Christians whose interest in converting Jews is predatory: The bait-and-switch of "Jews for Jesus," and the Christians-in-Jewish-clothing duplicitous approach employed by some (but not all) congregations of people who call themselves "Messianic Jews." I've also been the subject of occasional anti-Semitism from those who claimed they would take me joyfully into their church if I were only to accept Jesus.

But that's hardly what this new American Catholic document is about. It says that Catholics believe they have the only perfect and exclusive franchise on God's plan for forever. No kidding? So do the Southern Baptists. And the Mormons. And various kinds of Muslims. And so on.

(And so, by the way, do the Jews. It's just that those on the Jewish side of the religious argument generally don't claim that others need to believe it to get whatever benefits -- or punishments -- come your way on the other side of the Big Perhaps. Orthodox Jewish tradition teaches that righteous gentiles will have their portion of the World to Come, whatever that turns out to be.)

Weiss's Law of Religious Relativism says: All religions are crazy, by definition, to a nonbeliever. But that doesn't mean that people of differing faiths can't find aspects to respect about those who hold other beliefs. Or that they should be offended when the other side says they're wrong about theology, as long as the disagreement doesn't affect the way we treat each other on this side of eternity.

So some Christians think they have an obligation to try to baptize Jews? I can live with that. As long as they're honest about it when they try it. And as long as they can live with my telling them I ain't buyin' any.