Jews and Christians Together. A. Christian van Gorder

      JEWS AND CHRISTIANS TOGETHER

      An Invitation to Mutual Respect

      Copyright © 2020 A. Christian van Gorder and Gordon Fuller. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-9007-5

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-9008-2

      ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-9009-9

      Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      Names: van Gorder, A. Christian, author. | Fuller, Gordon, author. | Levin, Jeff, foreword.

      Title: Jews and Christians together : an invitation to mutual respect / A. Christian van Gorder and Gordon Fuller.

      Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020 | Includes bibliographical references.

      Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-9007-5 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-9008-2 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-9009-9 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Judaism—Relations—Christianity | Christianity and other religions—Judaism

      Classification: BM535 V35 2020 (print) | BM535 (ebook)

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. August 7, 2020

      You might ask, how I can form a friendship with a Jewish person? It shouldn’t be any harder than making friends with a Gentile. Show him by your conversation and actions that you are interested in him as a person. Seek out common interests, such as hobbies, employment, or neighborhood activities as a basis for conversation. Encourage your Jewish friend to talk and you should try to be a good listener. Even if you are only able to do ten percent of the talking it is not how much you say but what you are saying during the allotted time that counts. A good gesture of friendship is to remember to send greeting cards to your Jewish friends at Jewish holiday times like Passover, the Jewish New Year, and Hanukkah. They will greatly appreciate the fact that you respect their religion.

      —Moishe and Ceil Rosen, Share the New Life with a Jew, 41

      Since Messiah has come and offered his culminating sacrifice, there is, as we see it, no temple, no priesthood, no altar, no atonement, no forgiveness, no salvation, and no eternal hope in Judaism as a religion.

      —Vernon C. Grounds, “The Problem of Proselytization,” in Tanenbaum et al., Evangelicals and Jews, pp. 207–8

      It (the Holy Spirit) hates them a lot and I do too. / And God hates them and I hate them / and the whole world must hate them / because they do not wish to desist from their errors.

      —The Tale of the Bishop of Toledo, in Gautier de Coinci, Les Miracles de Notre Dame, II lines 209–12 p.13

      If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also altogether out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in the world in all the ages- and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, and no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

      —Mark Twain, “Concerning the Jews,” in the Complete Essays of Mark Twain (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1963), 249

      O that man might know; the end of this day’s business ‘ere it come; But it sufficed that the day will end; and then the end is known.

      —Brutus to Cassius in Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene I,

      William Shakespeare

      Acknowledgments

      You cannot put “Thank you” in your pocket.

      —Yiddish Proverb

      I (van Gorder) would like to thank Donna Oberstein Allen and Dr. Howard Kenig for their assistance in classes we taught together at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Before he passed away, Howard’s stoic embrace of life’s unfair assaults was a great source of inspiration. This book could not have been possible without Dr. Kenig. In Waco, I have also been grateful for the able assistance of Cantor Monica O’Desky, Rabbi Moti Rotem, and Rabbi Laura Harari from Temple Rodef Shalom.

      I (Fuller) would like to thank those teachers who have been committed agents of change in my life and in their communities. Thanks particularly to Congregation Agudath Jacob during my tenure there for the ability to work in the community, and to my teachers, Rabbi Judith Abrams (of blessed memory), Rabbi Yitz Cohen, Danny Siegel, and Rabbi Yosef Leibowitz. I’m also appreciative of my regular colleagues at the monthly multifaith ministers’ lunch—Jimmie Johnson, Charlie Packard, Charley Garrison, Rick Koskela, Nathan Stone, and Margo Ford. Rabbi Kerry Olizky of the Jewish Outreach International and Diane Tobin of Bechol Lashon have been crucial in helping me understand “Big Tent Judaism.” Special thanks to our mutual friend Dr. Stanley Hersh (of blessed memory) whose wit and wisdom were constant companions to us both.

      Special thanks to Heather Carraher, Michael Thomson, and Robin Parry of Wipf and Stock for their tireless support and assistance in this project.

      Special thanks to our families especially Vivian Ndudi Ezeife Van Gorder and Sharon Beirne Fuller: We are blessed beyond compare to have known such support. We write in hopes that the Van Gorder children: Patrick, Brendan, Keegan, Michael, Tatijiana, Gretchen, Andrew, Erik, Tristan, Clare, and Grace; and the Fuller children and grandchildren: Evan and Jessica (Maya and Naomi), and Eliana and Gemma (Gabriel and Miriam), will find this book of benefit in their own journeys in interfaith engagements.

      Foreword

      Chris van Gorder is a faculty colleague at Baylor and Gordy Fuller served as my rabbi—and I have heard about their writing project for some time. When I first picked up this book, I expected it to be something of a folksy first-person account of the travails of teaching about Judaism to innocent, young, sheltered Baptists, replete with a litany of semi-foolish quotes that would be lightly cringe-worthy while inducing forgiving chuckles, and that would close with an earnest call for more education, tolerance of diversity, and all manner of positive interfaith goodness. “After all, we all worship the same God, kumbayah, etc., good night and drive safely.” This is what I was expecting.

      What I found when I began reading the manuscript, transfixed almost from the first page, was something entirely different. I am not prone to hyperbole, but here it is: This book is one of the