The Catholic Church has offended Jews and Judaism (again). This time it seems that interfaith dialogue is seen as a means to convert Jews to the Catholic faith.

The Jewish leaders said they “pose no objection” to Christians sharing their faith, but said dialogue with Jews becomes “untenable” if the goal is to persuade Jews to accept Christ as their savior.

Oy. Granted, it’s not another Inquisition, but still…enough already Church. We Jews aren’t going anywhere. Stop it.

And in other delightful news, “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has nominated former Quds Force commander Ahmad Vahidi to be his defense minister. Vahidi is wanted in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, and, his nomination has caused a reasonably fury from Argentina and from Jewish groups.

The Quds Force is involved in operations abroad, including working with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is accused to carrying out the Buenos Aires attack.

Stay classy Iranian Regime. Stay classy. In good news, the people of Iran have screwed their courage to the sticking place and continue to protest the government’s usurpation of power and brutal crackdown on dissent. Even the Ayatollah’s are calling out the regime’s offenses.

…Graham tells Nixon how Jews befriend him but adds, “They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”

Read the whole article about Billy Graham’s taped 1973 conversation with Nixon here, filled with fervent “I’m not an anti-Semite” statements and references to “Jews going after the Church.” Anti-Semitism, as usual, makes no sense. Who was doing the plotting here, the Jewish left protesting and organizing openly for peace and civil rights in the streets in 1973, or the two old white men meeting behind closed doors in a paranoid White House?

The Anti-Defamation League responds:

The newly released tapes of remarks made by President Richard M. Nixon reinforce an emerging portrait of a man who was “so deeply infected with anti-Semitism that he was unable to see it, even in himself.

Professor Ronald Levy, head of Stanford’s Oncology Department became the first Jewish person to win Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, which included a trip for Levy, and his Israeli wife and children to Saudi Arabia.

In spite of their fears before the trip, Levy said his family was treated to royal hospitality during their entire stay in Saudi Arabia. He said that even when people were aware of his religion and his family’s background, he was treated no different than anyone else. Also, Levy said Saudis were fascinated with hearing what he and other visitors think of their country, and if their expectations were proved wrong or not. [read more]

I wonder if Saudi scholars would visit Israel under similar circumstances?

Other prizes awarded at the King’s ceremony: Service to Islam, awarded to Principal Shari’ah Society
for Quran and Sunnah Scholars; Islamic Studies awarded to Professor Abdessalam M. Cheddadi of Morocco; Arabic Language and Literature awarded to Professor Abd Al-Aziz Nasir Al-Manie; and Science awarded to the UK’s Sir Richard Henry Friend and Russia’s Professor Rashid Alievich Sunyaev.

Today there are around 600 million Pentecostals worldwide, the vast majority of them in developing nations, and Africa is a hotbed. Pentecostalism is not so much an organized religion — it has no central authority — as a set of beliefs and practices that can be adapted by local entrepreneurs. It is perfectly suited to harness the modern forces of global crosspollination.

The article explores the global ambition of movements like the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God which seek to break all national, racial, and ethnic boundaries to ensure that “the church will one day claim an adherent in every family on earth.”

Compare this with the also rapid growth of the indigenous Jewish community in Africa, emanating from Uganda, but growing in Nigeria and South Africa (not to be confused with the African-American Jewish community, which is also growing). The largest number of converts to Judaism, Rabbi Bradley Artson of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies notes, come from the 7th Day Adventists. While the Christian iteration of rapid religious growth in Africa has growth as its goal, the Jewish version has no stated goal, like Judaism everywhere, does not seek converts, and seeks only the resources to sustain itself. If the passionate, conservative, and wealthy Christian movement in Africa reflects the future of global Christianity, then perhaps the evolving, and growing, Judaism of the Abayudaya of Uganda reflects the most sustainable form of Judaism, being deeply committed to interfaith cooperation and mutual respect for all faiths. This model of Jewish living, non-nationalistic, committed to Torah, but by no means dogmatic, might just provide the tools for an awakening among disenfranchised Jews in America, if its lessons can be harvested.

Lastly, for another NY Times piece about the tiny Jewish community in Manama, Bahrain, and how the King has taken unprecendented steps for an Arab ruler to reach out to Jews and to try to bring back expatriates.

“This seems to be very much to us a country that stands against extremism and against the threat of a nuclear and terrorist-sponsoring Iran,” said Mr. Isaacson, of the American Jewish Committee.

There are many such small and beloved Jewish communities around the world, though few so deeply embraced by their country’s leaders. The question this raises of course, is one of power. Is it easier for gentile nations to treat their Jewish communities well when they have no power? Is it when Jews weild power that anti-Semitism rears its head? Are we loved only when we are weak?

Sarah Sayeed, a program associate at New York’s Interfaith Center, said there have been almost no interfaith statements on Gaza.
“The inability of interfaith leaders to speak in one voice on the situation … is deeply and morally troubling,” she said. “Religious leaders speaking together here could make a huge difference.”

I have seen, however, on listservs and blogs that there is a robust dialogue among Jews and Muslims, however it has not led to much in terms of broader public statements. Have the extremists on all sides managed to silence the middle? I fear they have, temorarily, but efforts like The Muslim Jewish Peace Walk will continue, and hopefully, these small scale events can create a groundswell of support, which will lead American religious institutions to come together. Strong constituencies trying to assert their own side’s unique vulnerability, however, do stand in the way. Until we can affirm the suffering of the other, and have that affirmation reciprocated, I do fear unity is far off. The amazing organization, Encounter, which puts Jewish leaders and thinkers in contact with Palestinians in a process of education and dialogue, is an essential step in the right direction. The Rabbis who founded it are truly an example of the best religious leaders have to offer in times of religous and sectarian violence.

The Saddleback Church, Warren’s magachurch in California, changed their FAQ page recently to remove much of the controversial material. Thanks to web archving, however, it is not lost.  The following is from a page captured on 12/24/2008, and it should send a chill up the spine of any person who believes in a pluralistic society.

5.  What does it mean to be a chosen people?
Question: Our small group met last night and we had a question we thought maybe you would help us clarify. If the Jews are God’s chosen people and they follow the laws as handed down to Moses, yet they do not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah, how then can they be saved and ensure their place in heaven?

Answer: When you think about how those who have a Jewish heritage come to salvation, the best answer is in looking at the first followers of Jesus. The first disciples were all Jewish men, but their salvation came through their relationship with Christ, not their Jewish background. The same is true of the Apostle Paul and every other Jew who came to Christ in the New Testament. The truth of the Bible is, we all come to salvation in the same way … through our faith in Christ.

When God calls the Jews his chosen people it does not mean that they are all automatically chosen for salvation. It means that they were chosen to be the nation that would follow him and teach others what it meant to follow him. That is why Jesus went to the Jewish people first when he came to this earth. Through the Jewish people (Jesus himself was a Jew), he brought the blessing of salvation to the world.

Of course, today there are not as great a number of Jewish believers in Jesus as we would expect. If they are God’s chosen people, why  aren’t more choosing faith in him? The Bible tells us in Romans 11 that there will be a day when this will change – a day when there will be a great revival of faith in God through Jesus among the Jewish people. Obviously, this is a day that we, as believers in Christ, want to pray for!

(emphasis added)

Yikes. I believe, as the mystic Rumi wrote, “Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall than it does on that wall. and a lot different on this other one, but it is still one light.”

There are many paths to holiness. Many of them aren’t even religious. Recognizing the shared blessings of the human imagination, recognizing that humanity has thousands of answers to those fundamental questions–what does it meant to be human? how do I live a moral life–is the most precious realization knowledge of each other can give us. We must not merely tolerate  other belief systems while we pray for their disappearance–be they Jewish, Christian, Inuit, Muslim, secular humanism, and so on…we must respect them. Respecting a cultural or a belief system does not include praying for that belief system or that culture to vanish in favor of yours. It means listening and learning; it means becoming a student of that system and finding the shared points. Warren does this in his public life, to some extent, but as many of his statements show, he still harbors a hope that all other ideas of the good and just life will vanish in favor of his own.

I believe strongly that God gave us the gift of imagination so that we could find our own paths to goodness, justice, peace, and love in our way, even without a belief in God. To claim a monopoly of righteousness is the hallmark of the fundamentalist, and a idea, I fear, that Pastor Warren embraces, even if he no longer likes to advertise it.

But there are alternatives to the extremism of fundamentalists, be they the militant cult of Hamas or the falsely benign strain of Evangelicals in America.

I’d love to present an alternate view, and call everyone’s attention to the work of Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, author of “You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right:Finding Faith Without Fanaticism,” a former West Bank settler, who works very hard to expand understanding among people. His interview on NPR about Gaza and Bernard Madoff is clear headed and inspiring. I especially like the point he makes about affirming the experiences of those with whom we disagree:

“So, I think the first thing to do is start listening, as much as we insist on talking in these conflicts, and the second is to realize there is always some part of even your most hated enemies’ experience that you can affirm, and when those two things are in place, you can, step by step, begin to return from sanity to a tragic situation.”

Important lessons for a dangerous time. I hope that Pastor Warren is having a change of heart, rather than just a chance of publicity. Time will tell.