294 - Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting

Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting

By A. Roy Eckardt

Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1986. 177 Pp. $19.95.

In this short book, Roy Eckardt has sought to depict and assess the contemporary encounter of Jews and Christians in a brief and simplified manner which he hopes will let the encounter itself show through. I judge that he has succeeded. He makes use of a plurality of methods or voices (sociological, ethical, and religious), because, he says, the subject is plural. At a later point, however, he notes that any event can be interpreted in an opposite way (religiously or non-religiously), and, as it is not always clear which he prefers, the reader is sometimes left to wonder where the real Eckardt is. The book is nonetheless lively and readable.

It is made up of four parts. The first is a brief sketch of the largely unhappy history of the relationship and is not intended to replace more extended treatments of the matter. Part II opens up the central features of today's encounter: the background of the Holocaust, a nicely balanced and appreciative presentation by a liberal Christian of new currents in modern (liberal) Judaism, and the stirrings of some elements in the church who are seeking a new approach to Jews and Judaism. The third part centers on important public issues around which the encounter often takes place, and the new fact of the women's movement. In the concluding part, the author gives his critique of the work of many who have tried to write constructively on the encounter and offers some tentative thoughts on possible ways ahead.

The reader will have to judge whether the author's brevity and simplification will excuse such summary assertions as his definition of a Christian as "a believer in certain affirmations," and his claims that Paul created Christianity, that John 14:6 is a "proposition [which] is either true or false," and that "a positive Christian theologizing of Jews cannot escape imperialism." On the other hand, his short account of the crippling of the "Guidelines for Jewish-Christian Dialogue" produced in 1981 by the WCC's Consultation on the Church and the Jewish People is brilliant. His chapter on the women's movement and his suggestion that it may prove to be more significant in the long run for Jewish Christian relations than even the Holocaust and the refounding of the State of Israel is particularly noteworthy. And for those familiar with Eckardt's work, it will be of interest to see him granting on the last page that "a non-eschatological, non-triumphalist teaching of the resurrection" may yet be a possibility.

Roy Eckardt has been engaged in the work of improving the relationship between Christians and Jews for some forty-two years now, so, with James Parkes and Reinhold Niebuhr gone, their student now holds the place of the father of all those concerned with the cause. This summary

295 - Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting

sketch of where we are today, while distinctively his own, especially in his insistent effort to keep all concerned honest, is a reliable account of where we have come from, where we are, and where we are not yet. It is also Eckardt's relentless criticism of the rest of us-and of himself-reminding us how little has been accomplished, how questionable the best of it is, and how serious is the question whether it could ever be possible for there to be a Christianity reformed and rid of its imperialism. For refusing to let us forget that last question, Roy Eckardt keeps us continually in his debt.

PAUL M. VAN BUREN

Boston, Massachusetts