Wilfred McClay on the Historic Jewish-Christian Rapprochement

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2020

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After centuries of antagonism and persecution, the twentieth century introduced profound changes to the relationship between Jews and Christians. In the shadow of the Holocaust, post-War America witnessed a flowering of interfaith dialogue, often spearheaded by the more liberal wings of both groups. This flowering of interreligious cooperation was made possible by identifying the lowest common denominators between Judaism and Christianity—a shared attachment to the Hebrew Bible, similar ethical commitments—and eliding the more serious theological differences between them.

But today, we are witnessing a different kind of rapprochement, not between the most progressive and weakly affiliated Jews and Christians, but between some of the most traditional and committed members of both faiths. This historic new cooperation is the topic of Professor Wilfred McClay’s July 2020 essay in Mosaic, “What Christians See in Jews and Israel in 2020 of the Common Era.” And in this podcast, he joins Mosaic’s editor to explore his piece in greater depth. He discusses the events that have led to this new and historic era, the role America’s unique history has played in reaching this point, and the role of religion in securing the precious blessings of ordered liberty.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	After centuries of bitter antagonism and persecution, the 20th century introduced profound changes to the relationship between Jews and Christians.
0:17.0	These changes began to take place, especially in the second half of the last century, in the
0:21.9	shadow of the Shoah post-war America in particular, witnessed a flowering of interfaith dialogue.
0:28.3	Now, that dialogue was often spearheaded by the more progressive wings of both groups,
0:34.3	and the interreligious cooperation that dialogue fostered, was really made possible only
0:39.1	by identifying the lowest common denominators between Jews and Christians. Similar ethical
0:45.1	commitments and religious teachings so abstracted in order to find consensus that they no longer
0:51.1	meant all that much. This phase of 20th century religious dialogue tended to elide more serious theological differences
0:59.0	between Jews and Christians.
1:01.4	But today, we're witnessing a different kind of rapprochement, not between the most progressive
1:06.3	and weekly affiliated Jews and Christians, but between some of the most traditional and committed
1:11.6	members of both faiths. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. My guest today is
1:18.4	the historian Wilfred McLeigh, and our topic is his mosaic essay published in July,
1:24.1	What Christians See in Jews and Israel in 2020 of the Common Era. If you enjoyed this conversation,
1:30.3	you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you
1:36.3	leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this
1:42.6	or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at
1:46.2	tikfafund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit
1:52.2	our website, tikfafunds.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here now is my conversation
1:58.4	with Wilfred McLeigh. Bill McLean, welcome back to the Tikva podcast.
2:03.0	Great to be here, John, and always good to talk to you.
2:06.2	So I think the main thrust of the essay describes what you regard as a world historical
	...

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