Catholic/Jewish Conversion

[Gauracandra 1]

CATHOLIC-JEWISH Aug-26-2002

New Catholic-Jewish statement on conversion draws controversy

 

By Jerry Filteau

Catholic News Service

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- An Aug. 12 Catholic-Jewish statement repudiating "campaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity" has drawn controversy, including sharp criticisms in some Catholic quarters and a charge of Catholic anti-Semitism by a top Southern Baptist official.

 

The statement, "Reflections on Covenant and Mission," was issued by Catholic and Jewish participants in a national dialogue co-sponsored by the National Council of Synagogues and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

 

Jim Sibley, coordinator of Jewish ministries for the Southern Baptist Convention, interpreted the document's rejection of "campaigns that target Jews for conversion" as having effectively "targeted the Jews for exclusion from Gospel proclamation."

 

"There can be no more extreme form of anti-Semitism" than that, he said.

 

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Sibley's comments "completely absurd."

 

 

"At a time when other faiths are striving for unity and interfaith civility, the leadership of the Southern Baptist ministry has once again shown arrogance and contempt for other religions," Foxman said. "Coming from a ministry with a track record of denigrating other religions and engaging in aggressive campaigns aimed at converting Jews, this (Sibley) statement is the height of hypocrisy."

 

On the Catholic Exchange Web site, Crisis magazine publisher and editor Deal W. Hudson questioned the assertion of the Catholic consultation participants that "while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also acknowledges that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God."

 

"If we're saved only through Jesus," Hudson asked, "how can we say that God's covenant with the Jews is 'a saving covenant'? It might be binding, but Jesus came to fulfill that covenant; even though it wasn't broken, it was completed. Without him, no salvation would have been possible."

 

Father John Echert, a theological expert who responds to questions about faith on the Web site of EWTN, a Catholic cable television network, said Aug. 17 that parts of the statement "strike me as contrary to divine revelation."

 

Father Echert, who teaches Scripture at St. Thomas University and St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., said the document "is an embarrassment, lacks any teaching authority and serves to reveal the thinking of some people who hold powerful positions in the national (bishops') conference. If a document such as this gains approval, as it currently stands, I will seriously consider the prospect that we are moving into one of the signs of the end times, namely, apostasy."

 

In answer to another question Aug. 25 Father Echert said that "precisely because Jews share an expectation of the coming of the Messiah, they should be targeted and the primary focus of our efforts for converts to Christ."

 

The controversy also made it to national television on MSNBC's "Donohue," where Catholic host Phil Donohue and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach debated the issue with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Michael Brown, a Jewish convert to Christianity.

 

Mohler stressed the Baptist belief that "all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved whether Jew or gentile," while Donohue asked whether that means a good Jew who does not come to believe in Jesus "is not going to heaven."

 

Co-chairmen of the consultation are Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore, the U.S. bishops' moderator for Jewish relations, Rabbi Joel Zaiman of the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism and Rabbi Michael Signer of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

 

The statement consisted of a brief joint preface, summing up the thrust of the document, followed by separate Catholic and Jewish reflections.

 

The consultation's Catholic participants affirmed the continuing validity of the covenant of God with the Jewish people, citing St. Paul's statement in his Letter to the Romans that "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" -- the passage cited by the Second Vatican Council when it described the Jewish people as "very dear to God, for the sake of the patriarchs, since God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made."

 

They affirmed the church's mission of evangelization but called evangelization "a complex reality that is sometimes misunderstood by reducing it only to the seeking of new candidates for baptism."

 

"The Catholic Church must always evangelize and will always witness to its faith in the presence of God's kingdom in Jesus Christ to Jews and to all other people," they wrote. "In so doing, the Catholic Church respects fully the principles of religious freedom and freedom of conscience, so that sincere individual converts from any tradition or people, including the Jewish people, will be welcomed and accepted."

 

They said, however, that Catholics have a "unique spiritual linkage with Jews" that makes the Catholic-Jewish relationship different from Catholic relations with other non-Christians.

 

They quoted the statement by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, at an international Catholic-Jewish consultation in May 2001: "The term mission, in its proper sense, refers to conversion from false gods and idols to the true and one God, who revealed himself in the salvation history with his elected people. Thus mission, in this strict sense, cannot be used with regard to Jews, who believe in the true and one God. Therefore, and this is characteristic, there exists dialogue, but there does not exist any Catholic missionary organization for Jews. ... The church believes that Judaism, i.e. the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises."

 

Differences between Catholic and Baptist views on evangelization and the Jews are not new.

 

In 1996 the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution on Jewish evangelism which criticized those who "deny that Jewish people need to come to their Messiah, Jesus, to be saved" and resolved to "direct our energies and resources toward the proclamation of the Gospel to the Jewish people."

 

Two weeks later the Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran bishops of New York, addressing "the question of whether Jews should be singled out specifically for evangelization programs," said: "We see no conflict between a dialogue based on mutual respect for the sacredness of the other and the Christian mission to preach the Gospel. An aggressive direct effort to convert the Jewish people would break the bond of trust built up for over 30 years and recreate enmity between our 'elder brothers and sisters' and ourselves."