The religions that are most liable for the current political crisis are Judaism and Christianity. Some may find fault with this statement. They will say religions are irrelevant; today politics are part of a secular world. This is in spite of the fact that the religions of Judaism and Christianity prop up the far Right’s nationalist aspirations. Alternatively, the religious will say that their particular religion is on the side of righteousness. In this view, everyone who disagrees with them, meaning the secular world, is evil. To add to the confusion, elements of the secular world support Zionism, which is the Jewish form of nationalism. Unfortunately, those who object to the nationalist agenda, whether on the basis of religion or international law, are ignored. Therefore, it is not controversial to conclude that religion can’t guide the political moment. However, I will argue that religion is the only force that can tame the chaos. In other words, religion must guide the political moment. What is needed is a cure for the impotence that has overcome it.
Understanding the Problem
For this argument, I depend on Morris Jastrow’s1 brief history of Judaism. In a book published in 1919, he describes the difficulties the Jewish people experienced that were due both to historical events and the influence of the Prophets. It seems that the changes that were required of them were literally more than they could manage. I have laid out the details of this history in another place. But it’s important to state here that this is not a story of failure. I found Jastrow’s approach encouraging for several reasons.
Reasons for Optimism
The first reason for optimism is that this history highlights the wisdom of Jesus, who Jastrow says was a successor to the Hebrew Prophets. It also provides a possible reason why The Emperor Constantine chose Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity was at the cutting edge of religion, whether or not he understood why.
Rome’s Challenge to Jesus and the Prophets
One thing he clearly did not understand was the continuing importance of the Jewish people. Over time, and with Rome’s help, the official role given to Christianity led it to error in the direction of nationalism, similar to the error of the ancient Hebrews. Furthermore, Constantine’s version introduced Christian anti-Semitism. This had detrimental effects on Christianity itself, not to mention the Jewish people.
Again, the reason the importance of Judaism should have been recognized by Constantine is that Christianity and Judaism shared the same mission. This is not surprising when you remember that Christianity originated among Jewish people. The Jews had been given this mission in the 9th century B.C., during the rise of the Prophets. Christianity inherited this mission through Jesus. But apparently, it was a very demanding mission.
The New Vision of the Prophets and the Practical Effects on the People
“The religion of the Prophets is the swan song of ancient Hebraism. The example of a people flourishing without a national background had to be furnished to the world in order to bring the new conception of religion to frution, which divorced religion from nationality and made it solely the expression of the individual’s aspiration for the higher life and for commuion with the source of all being” (p 38).
The word ‘individual‘ is full of meaning. This new direction put pressure on people who had previously seen themselves as part of the group.
“The ancient Hebrews disappeared. It was the Jews, as we should call the people after the Babyonian Exile, who survived, and they survived despite the fact that they never recovered their national independence in the full sense of the word” (p 38).
The Meaning of Cyrus and the Intervention of Prophet-Priests
It may have seemed that the nation was being reconstituted under Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, but the political life of the Jews was strictly controlled by the Persian governor of Palestine. The Jews were nominally recognized as a political unit, but this was merely the policy of Cyrus. He granted as much autonomy as possible without threatening the recognition of Persian supremacy.
Some of the Jews were aware that the nationalism they had longed for in Babylon had become secondary to the permission to appear before Yahweh in his rebuilt temple. It’s not clear whether they understood that the religion had changed the people from a political to a religious unit. For the masses the process of wrenching the political from the religious was very painful. For Jastrow this explains the phenomenon of Prophet who began acting as priests. This was a remarkable development because the two functions were inherently different. However it served the purpose of comforting the people by establishing a new set of codes. Now the Jewish religion included early traditions and tribal experiences. This now served as a basis for religious life. Importantly, it recognized the solidarity of the jews as a political unit.
Second Isaiah Calls out the Prophet-Priests’ Return to Early Traditions
For Second Isaiah and other writing Prophets of the post-exilic period, this was regrettable. It reconstituted the Jews as a political unit (though without complete independence). And it re-attached the religion to what remained of the national life. Finally, it allowed the Jews to imagine that they would eventually regain compete independence. As a result, their preoccupation with national expectations overshadowed the post-exilic vision of the Prophets. By contrast, the Prophets had looked forward to a time when ‘the supreme Author of all being would become, through the example set by the jews, the sole object of worship of mankind…’
Christianity in the Jewish Context
The lasting effect of this intervention was that the tribal Yahweh as the special protector of his chosen people competed with the universal Jehovah. And eventually there was a crisis. The crisis took place in the days of Jesus.
Now this is where the story becomes very important for Christianity. Jesus, as a successor of the Hebrew prophets, drew logical conclusions from their teachings. For example, he spoke of the Kingdom of God as a replacement for the national ideal. When Jesus admonished the people to ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’, he broke with nationalistic aims.
Unfortunately, the Jews had not completely abandoned these aims, even under Roman control. And they continued to anticipate the nationalistic ideal long after Jesus’s earthly ministry ended. This anticipation survived even after the trappings of nationalism were taken from them. The last vestiges of Jewish independence disappeared around 135 A.D. and the Jews scattered in all directions. And they took the longing for Zion with them.
The Nature of the Prophets’ Vision and Its Betrayal by Both Judaism and Christianity
Jastrow calls the process that began with the Prophets an evolution in human society. But this type of evolution never completely substitutes the new for the old. It carries part of the old era into the new epoch. In the case of Israel, Judaism represented a new conception of religion which made religion an affair of the individual and a bond uniting the individual to the rest of mankind. Zionism, in the other hand, rests upon an older conception which attached religion to the national life. Today, Judaism maintains two contradictory beliefs. It declares that we all have one Father and it looks forward to the time when the Temple of Jehovah will be for all people. At the same time, it clings to faith in the restoration of the national life of a little group within a restricted area.
“Judaism and Zionism are thus mutually exclusive, but for all that passed down the ages linked to one another as inseparable partners” (p 43).
With the help of Jastow’s narrataive, we can talk about the part Christianity played in the economic and social isolation of the Jews with the understanding that they are still joined in a fundamental way. Therefore, it should not be surprising that Christianity’s error is similar to the error of Judaism.
It can be argued that the source of error is the human difficulty of actually living the religion as the Prophets and Jesus envisioned. It’s true that there were historical obstacles for both of religions. For Christianity the difficulty first centered around the influence of the Roman Empire. However, the main difficulty may be on the individual level. Nationalism seems to provide a sense of security regardless of one’s religion, especially in chaotic times.
The Emperor Constantine
Constantine was the source of Christianity’s long entanglement with anti-Semitism. He insisted that Christianity and Judaism were two different religions, and that the Jews were to blame for the execution of Jesus. And somewhere along the way Christianity succumbed to its own version of the Zionistic temptation.
There was little awareness that this was what they were doing at first because as the official religion of Rome, Christianity saw itself as international. But the union with Rome led to the idea that the Church Universal was a complement to the ambition of the Roman Empire. The goal had become universal sovereignty. This preoccupation overshadowed the individualism of the Christian scheme of salvation. In practice, the Church took on the mantle of the old Roman paganism. Religion again focused on the solidarity of the group even though it aimed at universal jurisdiction.
The Union of Church and State Survived the Fall of Rome in the European States
When the Empire broke up into the states that eventually became European nationalities, the union of Church and State survived. The old assumption remained that only one who accepted the official religion could be a member of the State. This differed somewhat from antiquity. It used to be that only a Greek could worship Greek gods. A citizen was either born Greek or married a Greek. Under the new order, membership in the Church was the condition of citizenship. However, the underlying principle was the same.
At this point, Christianity and Judaism both had this double aspect, although under different circumstances and for different reasons. But the Jews were excluded from the political life around them. And as a people without a country the Jewish nationalistic hope became a substitute for a country (pp. 45-47)
We all know the effect this had on Jewish life in the old world. Jastrow terms the results of their conditions as moral degradation. At this point, the only thing left to them was their Zionistic hope.
The Argument for Optimism
You might be wondering how I could call this a hopeful narrative. The main reason is the evidence it provides of the lasting kinship between Judaism and Christianity. True, the evidence is their shared surrender to the nationalistic temptation. But if this is a human response to the Prophetic vision, understanding what happened is half the battle.
It is safe to say that the ‘battle’ is not political. And it’s certainly not military. It seems to me that the core reality share by Judaism and Christianity is a religious expectation. This is far more fundamental than our current political differences. Judaism and Christianity share the responsibility of realizing God’s expectations for his people as foreseen by the Prophets and then by Jesus.
Resisting the nationalistic temptation would be the first step toward fulfilling this expectation.
- Zionism and the Future of Palestine: The Fallacies and Dangers of Political Zionism, MacMillon, 1919 ↩︎