Christianity and Judaism - Inter-relationship

Inter-relationship

In addition to each having varied views on the other as a religion, there has also been a long and often painful history of conflict, persecution and at times, reconciliation, between the two religions, which have influenced their mutual views of their relationship over time.

Persecution, forcible conversion, and forcible displacement of Jews (i.e. hate crimes) occurred for many centuries, with occasional gestures to reconciliation from time to time. Pogroms were common throughout Christian Europe, including organized violence, restrictive land ownership and professional lives, forcible relocation and ghettoization, mandatory dress codes, and at times humiliating actions and torture. All had major effects on Jewish cultures. There have also been non-coercive outreach and missionary efforts such as the Church of England's Ministry Among Jewish People, founded in 1809.

What is clear is that formally, there is mostly peaceful living side by side, with strong inter-dialogue at many levels to reconcile past differences between the two groups, and many Christians emphasize common historical heritage and religious continuity with the ancient spiritual lineage of the Jews. Christians and Jews attempt to coexist ultimately by recognizing the fact that they both worship the same Almighty God, that they both recognize several of the same prophets, and that both religions attempt to make the world a better place. Christians view the Jews as keepers of the Old Covenant. Jews view Christians as gentiles who worship the one God, but otherwise have their own distinct religion. What is also likely is that for a long time to come, some within each will continue to consider the other with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility.

For Martin Buber, Judaism and Christianity were variations on the same theme of messianism. Buber made this theme the basis of a famous definition of the tension between Judaism and Christianity:

Pre-messianically, our destinies are divided. Now to the Christian, the Jew is the incomprehensibly obdurate man who declines to see what has happened; and to the Jew, the Christian is the incomprehensibly daring man who affirms in an unredeemed world that its redemption has been accomplished. This is a gulf which no human power can bridge.

Following the Holocaust, attempts have been made to construct a new Jewish-Christian relationship of mutual respect for differences, through the inauguration of the interfaith body the Council of Christians and Jews in 1942 and International Council of Christians and Jews. The Seelisberg Conference in 1947 established 10 points relating to the sources of Christian antisemitism. The ICCJ's "Twelve points of Berlin" sixty years later aim to reflect a recommitment to interreligious dialogue between the two communities.