Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Dr. Marvin Wilson Interview

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Well, I recently had the privilege of interviewing one of the pioneers in Evangelical Jewish

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Relations, Dr. Marvin Wilson.

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I interviewed him for a course that I was teaching at a local Bible college, but I wanted

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to share his interview with you today because if you are interested in this field of Jews

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and Christians working together, then you must know Dr. Wilson.

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And secondly, you must also get his book, which we used as the textbook for the class,

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Our Father Abraham, the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith.

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So we'll link to that in today's show notes, and I hope you enjoy the interview.

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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.

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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural

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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the

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Bible to life in your everyday world.

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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

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Well, welcome to today's lecture and interactive session here with a dear friend of mine and

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a real pioneer in the field of Jewish Christian relations, which is our subject matter.

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Dr. Marvin Wilson has just been a beloved biblical scholar, teacher, and a much sought-after

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speaker.

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And I just consider him one of the main pioneers in the field of evangelical Jewish relations.

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Dr. Wilson has a PhD from Brandeis University, and he taught at Gordon College for over

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50 years, where he was the Harold J. O'Kanga Professor of biblical and theological studies.

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He was a translator for the new international version of the Bible.

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And I remember first learning of Dr. Wilson many years ago through his series of three

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books that he wrote on evangelical Jewish relations and co-authored with rabbis and

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Jewish scholars.

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And then, of course, his book that we are using, and many others do, as a textbook, but we're

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using in our course called Introduction to Israel.

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And that book is entitled Our Father Abraham, Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith.

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And that book has been used in many schools and has really helped to shape Jewish Christian

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relations for decades now.

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So Dr. Wilson, just a very, very warm welcome, and thank you so much for giving of your time

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today.

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I think it's a real privilege for those listening and for the students of the course to be able

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to meet you in person here by video and to learn firsthand from you.

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So thank you so much.

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Well, thank you, Susan.

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It certainly is a delight to be with you today and to give this lecture on Christian Jewish

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relations today.

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There's so much in this area.

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It's such a rich topic.

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So where would you like to begin?

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Yes, well, it is.

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It goes back 2,000 years, but we're not going to try to cover that today.

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We're really looking at more of the modern relationship and from the Holocaust forward.

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I think the Holocaust was a real momentous occasion that really woke up Jewish Christian

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relations.

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So what are some of the developments that you've seen specifically tied to the Holocaust

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and its impact on different segments of the church?

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Well, you're exactly right, the Holocaust has had a tremendous impact on Christian Jewish

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relations and to try to hit some of the high points on what has gone on.

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First, the Holocaust shook the very credibility of Christianity.

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It called into accountability whether Christianity was being displayed in this horrendous period

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of time of 1933 to 45, which God was typically referred to as the Holocaust years.

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Now, while most Jews sort of look at the New Testament and feel, while most have not read

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it, the New Testament is anti-Semitic because actually Christians were acting not as Christians.

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So the assumption was maybe you can't get from the New Testament directly to Auschwitz,

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but nevertheless the long history of contempt and anti-Judaism, which has been there for

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many, many years, provided the seed in that soil, which in Europe eventually led to the

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Holocaust.

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The Holocaust in short did not happen in a vacuum.

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The Jewish perception has been, well, if Christians allow those horrible things of hatred and

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violence to happen in so-called Christian Europe, then Christianity must be anti-Semitic,

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if so, facto.

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Maybe it's just built right into Christianity, whereas when Rabbi put it very painfully to

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me a number of years ago, he said, Wilson, if loving Jesus caused those European Christians

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to do all those horrible things to us Jews, then thank you very much.

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We Jews can do without your Jesus.

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That was a horrible indictment to hear, but what the rabbi was reflecting on was really

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the silence of the church, which is the second important lesson we learned from the Holocaust.

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This alarming indifference to evil, the apathy, the inaction of Christians, whereas when survivor

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likes to put it to me, the bystanders are the people I really have the problem with

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when it comes to the Holocaust, because most Christians very frankly did not love their

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neighbors as themselves and intervene in ways they could intervene.

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And while the issues of the Holocaust are complex, the apathy and indifference, as Heshel

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once said, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself.

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That is a difficult thing that came out of the Holocaust.

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Third, I think the Holocaust raised the question for Jews, can we Jews really trust Christians?

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And this is one of the carryovers today when we deal with Christian Jewish relations.

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Because there's still that nagging doubt in the deep psyche of the Jewish community.

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Can you really trust Christians?

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Because few Christians today, the Jewish community refers to those who did reach out and try

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to help Jews, righteous Gentiles, but there were very few.

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And the Holocaust showed that the Church's long teaching of triumphalism, supercessionism,

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or replacement theology had taken its toll.

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When Jews are told by Christians, you have no more sacred vocation.

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God is done with you.

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The Church is the second stage of the salvation rocket.

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You have fizzled out, you have no more integrity with God, and we have replaced you in the

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plan of God.

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Christian triumphalism, therefore, made Jews fear.

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If Christians have replaced us, and we have no more voice, and indeed as they force us

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into the ghettos of Europe, visit Vienna someday, visit other places in Italy, Christians

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had controlled them, and Jews had feared Christians.

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A fifth and important lesson that emerged from the Holocaust is it revealed, we have

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been really ignorant one of the other.

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Christians and Jews have passed like ships in the night.

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We really don't know until we've deeply taken time to look into each other's communities,

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meet with each other, share with each other, do serious reading, and education of the other.

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And so, unfortunately, the Church and the synagogue had accepted misunderstandings and stereotypes

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and misperceptions.

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Jews, for example, equated Christian missions with violence.

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Now, all of us know good Christian missions does not involve violence.

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But Jews largely had witnessed an aberrant Christianity.

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They begged, if you will, will the true and the real Christianity please stand up?

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The Holocaust, you see, exposed the need for genuine Christianity to be practiced.

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I think a sixth thing, the Holocaust showed millions of Christians had believed a lie.

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What lie did these Christians believe?

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Well, Hitler and his minions said, we've got to purify the human race.

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Jews are only licensed and referred to be exterminated.

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They are utter mention.

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That is, they are subhuman.

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And instead of seeing the Jewish people as those into whom the Church has been engrafted,

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this idea of the Arians being the master race required some very, very deep Christian introspection.

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Christian repentance following the Holocaust years, the Church had believed a lie.

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And one of two final things about the Holocaust and how it's impacted Christian Jewish relation.

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It also exposed the need for Christians to understand and appreciate the fact that Christianity

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is Jewish because Christians did not affirm their roots in the Jewish people and the Jewish

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roots of the Christian faith were not affirmed.

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Therefore, Christians had little regard for these people, the Jewish people, instead of

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a spirit of appreciation, indebtedness, thankfulness.

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Thank you because everything that's changed our lives, our Bible, our Lord, our doctrine,

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our understanding of ethics, morality, spirituality, all of these are among the gifts of the Jews

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that have impacted every Christian today.

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And the thing is, today certain Christians are historical revisionists or distortionists

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as a Jewish friend likes to put it to me, who minimize or like to deny the facts of

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the Holocaust, oh the ovens were just for baking bread and other myths that are ridiculous.

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These kinds of things call the sincerity of Christians into question.

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If Christians are seeing these kinds of things today, Jews again wonder, can we really trust

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Christians?

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How honest are they even about the facts of history and trying to deny the Holocaust?

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Nice, the years following the Holocaust showed many Christians can self-correct and change.

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And that's one of the pluses in the decades following the Holocaust.

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One Orthodox rabbi from New York said to me recently, he said, we see today many Christians

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who are willing to face history and to look at this horrendous period of time and to make

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adjustments, to make changes in their thinking and their perceptions of the Jewish people.

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And that's a good thing to know as we move forward.

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There are Christians today that said the church blew it during the Holocaust.

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And today we want to make reparations.

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And one of the first things we can do is in Christian Jewish relations and to not look

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at Jews from a distance, but care enough to come to know Jews.

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How can you say we love our neighbor as ourselves if we've never taken the time to understand

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and meet and know our neighbors as ourselves?

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Those are some of the highlights of what I think the Holocaust has shown for Christian

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Jewish relations today.

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Well, thank you.

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There are really many lessons that we can learn from the Holocaust and you've listed

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them very well.

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Whereas most of our audience and our students are probably of the Protestant or evangelical

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tradition, I think it's important for them to know the specific impact that this had

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on the Catholic Church.

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And I think that there are some lessons there for all of us.

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Well, the Catholic Church has undergone some tremendous rethinking and made changes in

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light of the Holocaust.

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Liturgy in the Catholic Church that referred, for instance, on Good Friday, of the perfidious

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Jews.

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And so Catholics have had to go back and to look at their history and their liturgy and

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these experiences.

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And they did a mea culpa.

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They had a confession of wrong.

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This all came to the head under the leadership of Pope John XXIII.

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Pope John XXIII called what we call today the Second Vatican Council, or simply Vatican

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II.

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In that council, he issued, and the scholars who worked with him and the hierarchs in the

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Catholic Church, they issued a document called Nostra et Tate.

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In that document, we have a statement given for non-Christian religions, but particularly

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focused on the Jewish people.

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It was a landmark call to re-example, to reform, to reverse a 2000-year history.

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What were some of the features in that Nostra et Tate document?

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Well, the first thing was very important.

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God's covenant with Israel continues.

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Many Christians had written that covenant off.

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Secondly, it called for a productive dialogue between Catholics and Jews.

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Thirdly, there was a new appreciation of the Jewish scriptures, emphasis on teaching and

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preaching from the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament.

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And finally, there was a call for the re-examination of what the Catholic Church came to call the

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teaching of contempt.

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The church, for instance, of Deoside, putting God to death literally, but Deoside, that

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Jews had been blamed for centuries for killing Christ.

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And does that charge then remain with the Jewish people?

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And this teaching of contempt had to be faced honestly and dealt with.

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Well, we know Nostra et Tate did provide a very positive, transformative frame of reference,

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or framework to move forward.

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Today we see the Conference of Catholic Bishops being useful in helping to further the effects

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of Nostra et Tate.

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There are a number of local parish priests who have taken it among themselves to reach

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out to the Jewish community.

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One of my favorites was Father Ed Flannery, who wrote the well-known book, The Anguish

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of the Jews, which was an utter revelation to him as he began to study this history of

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Catholic Jewish relations.

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The other final thing I'd say about the Catholics, they are working through some of their Catholic

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schools, which have Jewish and Catholic study centers that provide programs and special lectures.

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Boston College has a fine center where this is being done.

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Merrimack College in Massachusetts is another college.

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Sit down in Florida, St. Leo University on the west coast of Florida also has a program

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to instruct people and to keep Vatican II before people as hopefully these changes will continue.

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But some good things have happened.

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There's a lot more work to do, as they say, for both Catholics as well as Protestants.

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But I think it's astounding that the Catholic Church did such an introspection even to the

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point of changing their liturgy.

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And I know that the Conference of Catholic Bishops published a little booklet and it

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had statements of repentance by the various bishops across Europe.

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And those statements were really moving for me.

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I thought they were some of the most beautiful verbiage I'd ever read of repenting towards

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the Jewish people.

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And so I think it's been quite astounding.

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Now the largest Protestant church there under the nose of the Holocaust, of course, were

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the Lutherans.

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And what have you seen taking place there within the Lutheran community after the Holocaust?

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Yeah, of course, the Lutherans were a dominant Protestant church in Germany and in other

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parts of Europe.

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Several decades after the Holocaust, the Lutheran church began to become very uncomfortable.

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And being uncomfortable, they said, what can we do?

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So they decided to issue a statement, a statement which disassociated themselves with these

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horrendous teachings of Martin Luther, saying, these are not the Luther we want to be remembered

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for as being Lutherans.

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So there was a disassociation of themselves with those remarks.

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That began to catch on also with many other mainline Protestant groups, the Episcopalians,

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the United Church of Christ, the United Methodists, the United Presbyterians.

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And these other churches began to issue statements also about the Jewish people and Judaism.

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These documents mainly renounced anti-Semitism.

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These documents mainly spoke out against supercessionism and called for a stronger emphasis

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on the preaching of the Old Testament and on Jewish roots of the Christian faith.

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They tried also to emphasize more things like the Jewish context for the life and teachings

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of Jesus and a call for an improvement of Christian Jewish relations.

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So even before evangelical Jewish relations began, a lot of the mainline churches were

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moving in this direction within a decade or so after the Holocaust years, and then many

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of these denominations eventually issuing statements.

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How would we summarize then the Lutherans and mainline Protestants?

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Well, Jews look at all of this and they would say, well, we're very pleased that none of

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these statements by mainline denominations call for the conversion of the Jewish people.

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And they do not have programs for the conversion of the Jewish people.

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But Jews look at those documents and they feel uncomfortable and with great concern

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and dismay because those documents do not strongly support the state of Israel.

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And certainly for large numbers of people in the Jewish community, when you talk about

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what's dear to the heart of a Jew in liturgy and daily prayer, in how they invest their

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money and support and so forth, Israel cannot be separated from the Jewish psyche.

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But instead, many of these mainline denominations ended up having almost singular focus on the

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rights of the Palestinian peoples.

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Yes, they do have their rights, but the statements, some of them went as far as saying we have

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to issue sanctions, we have to issue boycotts, we have to issue divestment instructions for

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investments.

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And these are the things that have disturbed the Jewish community.

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So mainstream denominations create a somewhat of a paradox for the Jewish people.

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They are not the people most Jews in America look to today as the natural people who love

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the Word of God and out of the Word of God, they learn to love the people of the book

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and who are the people of the book.

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They are the Israelites, they are the Hebrews, they are the Jewish people as we come into

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the New Testament.

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And so the evangelical movement being a Bible centered movement, the Jewish people have,

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I think, more naturally come into focus for evangelicals.

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And maybe that leads us to another point we could talk about, Susan, what's been happening

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in the last half century among evangelicals and Jews.

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Does that sound like a good topic for a few minutes here?

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Yes, absolutely.

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I think you've really given us a broad array of the impact that the Holocaust had on these

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segments of Christianity.

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So now we do want to look forward and the blossoming relationship of Jews and evangelicals over

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the last 50 years.

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So please continue.

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Well, I think one of the reasons the relationship has blossomed, Israel has been a key to that.

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In 1967 there was an event that happened that really caught the evangelical community's

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attention.

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Not every church, but many, many Christians who read Scripture and realized that God made

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an eternal covenant with Abraham.

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And something seemed to be happening prophetically, perhaps, or maybe God guiding history providentially

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and bringing these people home, redeeming them from the four corners of the earth where

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they could have self-determination and assert their own rights to the nations of the earth

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did not usually become a good host for them where they were discriminated against.

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And so evangelical Christians saw the Jewish people after June of 67 now moving into West

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Jerusalem, seeing the Western Wall, the Holy spot on earth in the city of Jerusalem where

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Jews come to pray.

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This is now in the hands of Israel.

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And so this led to a lot of thinking and speculation.

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What might God be doing in Israel today?

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And while we have no consensus among all Christians today what God is doing in Israel today, I

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think you have to be pretty stone cold and callous not to recognize some very powerful

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and wonderful things are happening in that land.

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In what way might they fulfill specific prophecies while Christians have considerable differences

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of opinion just like the Jewish community does?

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Well, one thing that's why evangelical Jewish relations began to grow because evangelicals

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saw the wonderful things, stories of these things happening, they were reading about

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them.

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Now we've got to take our Bibles and come over and see the land.

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So they would come to the land and tourism began to grow as they visited the land.

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And of course the evangelical church has invested more tourism dollars than any other religious

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group in the world in coming to see this miracle astride the Mediterranean, the land of Israel.

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And so evangelical Christian Zionist organizations began to develop in the land of Israel.

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When you work for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, certainly one of the

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strongest and most vibrant of these, you work with others in the land like Bridges for Peace

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and Christian Friends of Israel and there are others.

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These Christian Zionist organizations provided a means by which even though Christians live

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around the world, they can take part in these events in Israel because Christian organizations

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like IEC, ICEJ, they are the boots on the ground in Israel, ministering to Israel in

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very positive ways and social justice and in helping with the poor of the community and

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assisting in a whole list of things and that's your area.

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But these Christians, Zionist organizations became ways in which people living in the

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states can connect with Israel, get news from Israel and build a bonding with Israel.

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So this helped evangelical Christians in wanting to build relations with Jewish people.

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They were envious of people like your group, Susan, who could live in Israel and every day

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build relationships with these people through whom God was doing something new.

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And that was exciting to many evangelicals who did not see God being dead but very much

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alive and doing this new thing, albeit a very difficult thing sometimes to fully put your

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hands on it.

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In my last chapter of Our Father Abraham, I talk about what I have learned from over

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450 field trips with my students into the Jewish community.

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We live within on campus 8 to 10 synagogues within a 12 mile radius, which took me 20

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years to open these synagogues to our students.

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I usually would bring them but they're open to our students to visit now, to come anytime

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they want on their own or come with a class.

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And we learn together, we become educated together.

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We attend Jewish holidays, Shabbat meetings.

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We go to Jewish community centers.

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We visit Jewish funeral homes.

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We go to Holocaust centers where we meet survivors and so many opportunities.

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The Jewish community has just opened up to us.

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And if you're patient and if you come with the right motives to engage the Jewish community

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and you're there primarily to learn and to do a lot of listening, I think this is where

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Jews come to have a changing perception of evangelicals, where they realize that evangelicals

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indeed can be friends they can count on because they are people who are there to learn and

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they have a Jewish heart and they are here to, as in Israel we say, Na'chimu, Na'chimu

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Ami, come for Ii, come for Ii my people.

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We have many rabbis that come to our college and speak.

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They in turn have invited me, Hasidic, Orthodox, Reform, Conservative.

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I've spoken in many, many synagogues in New England and outside of New England.

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And I think this openness to invite each other into each other's house of worship, when I

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started doing this dialogue over 50 years ago, most Jews would not want to enter a church.

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It was just too painful after the Holocaust.

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But today there are more and more Jews that are coming in their friendships with Christians,

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even to appreciate things going on.

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Well, Dr. Wilson, I will say that very few Christian leaders have had the amount of interaction

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with the Jewish community that you have had or have built that solid reciprocal relationship

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of mutual respect and open doors.

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And I'm very aware that it also took many years, decades, to develop that relationship.

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So I want to emphasize for those listening to this that it is a relationship.

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It doesn't happen overnight.

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And it's something that you build and it takes time.

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And so, you know, a lot of the ones listening to you will be visiting a synagogue or would

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love to visit a synagogue, would love to initiate a relationship where there is none.

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So what would be your advice and guidance to them how to begin a relationship with their

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Jewish community?

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Right.

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I think when we deal with each other, we want to be honest.

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We want to be straightforward about why we want to come to visit.

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And I think the primary point for Christians wanting to meet and be friend Jews is we need

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the education which many of them can provide for us in giving us a much deeper appreciation

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of the Hebrew Bible and prayer, love for Israel, how to perform social justice acts in the

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community to make a difference.

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And while theologically Christians and Jews differ the most, even those areas, if we talk

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about them with respectful conversation, that can be done.

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In fact, that's a change I've noticed in 50 years.

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Never from a pulpit would I have heard the word Jesus in a synagogue.

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Now I can point out several synagogues.

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If I have a group of Christian students visiting with me, rabbis sometimes make comments about

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Jesus.

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A parallel teaching he might have given to a point the rabbi is making in his sermon

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and other things.

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So I think when we come, we have a lot to learn because while most Christians might think

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they score fairly high in their knowledge of the first 2,000 years of Jewish history

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from Abraham to Jesus, sadly most Christians don't score very high from their knowledge

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of Judaism from Jesus.

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That is from 2nd Temple Judaism through rabbinic Judaism into its modern expressions.

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And therefore, many Christians make a mistake when they're visiting synagogues.

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They try to hear everything through the eyes of the Old Testament.

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Judaism today emerged from that religion.

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There is no more temple.

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There are no more priests.

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There are no more animal sacrifice.

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Judaism has reinterpreted many of these things and they have more modern counterparts where

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the spirit of some of these things continued to be carried up.

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But these are the things particularly that we can learn.

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I would say also another prerequisite is to have a humble spirit.

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Maybe the history of our relationship from the Christian point of view has often been

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one of triumphalism, arrogance, superiority, and pride.

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These have been great barriers to effective Christian Jewish relation.

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The Christians' posture when we begin Christian Jewish relations is that of being a servant,

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of being a listener, of being teachable.

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And that way we can learn as we go along rather than coming.

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We have all the answers for somebody else.

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No, this is the joy of learning with Jewish people.

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Jews have an awful lot to teach Christians and Christians need to acknowledge this.

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And we Christians have things that Jews can learn from.

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And I've pointed out one or two rabbis in my book who point out things.

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They see so positive about the Christian interaction.

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And they feel Jews can learn from this.

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But as we do this together, we're seeking to build a better world together in which

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God's love, God's justice, God's peace can be found in the world.

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If you want to be successful in dialogue, have time for personal study and education.

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Study is at the heart of Hebraic heritage.

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Build a personal library of books.

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Begin to do this, books on Judaism, books on the history of the Jewish people, books

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on the roots of Christianity that run very, very deep into Jewish soil.

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How do you build good relationships?

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Well, point number one, and I think that's close to your heart, Susan, I would tell people,

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go to Israel as soon as you can, as soon as possible.

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You'll be glad you did.

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The Bible will come to life.

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The trip will change your life.

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Not only will you read the Bible differently, but it will give you a new perspective on the

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Holocaust, on modern Israel and the church living in Israel.

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Speak out against anti-Semitism in your community.

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Few people are doing that this day.

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Anti-Semitism is on the increase.

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Be aware of what's happening in the world today.

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If you could be one voice that speaks out against hatred of another people, you are an instrument

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of God, and Jews are going to find out who this person is, who's not one of our community,

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who's writing the letter of protest, who's painting over the graffiti that was put on

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a synagogue.

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It lets Jews know they are not alone.

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Whereas the former editor of Christianity today once put it to attack Jews, to attack

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Christians, and we evangelicals ought to be feeling that pain and standing beside Jewish

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people.

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Finally, I would say we learn to love unconditionally when we engage in interfaith relations.

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There are no preconditions and no prerequisites to evangelical Jewish friendships.

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We simply come together and want to be used by the Spirit of God and be led of the Spirit

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of God.

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We are called to love with no strings attached.

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The Lord bless all you students as you're out there growing in your knowledge and your

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love of Israel and your love for the Jewish people.

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It's worth it all, and you will be blessed by it in return.

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Well I hope you enjoyed that interview, and I want to remind you again we link to Dr.

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Marvin Wilson's book, Our Father Abraham in Today's Show Notes.

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Be sure and get a copy of this.

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This is the textbook on Jewish-Christian relations, and if this is something of interest to you,

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then you must have that book.

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So I will see you back here next week as we continue our series on Jews and Christians

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learning to relate.

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Until then, God bless.