March 4, 2010

As Bruce Marshall laid it out so simply in his presentation last night, the theological problem that Christianity has with Judaism comes from two premises that appear to be contradictory. The first: God wills that the saving mission of Christ is universal. The second: God wills that Israel, God’s chosen and covenanted people, be made up of (practicing) Jews. The question then becomes how can God will to opposite things? How can God will that all be united to Christ and that Jews do not become Christians? One answer, often proposed by inclusivists, is that Jews are Rahner’s famous anonymous Christians, and that one day, they will realize their error and see Christ as the Messiah. However, this eschatological view simply pushes the problem further down the road. It does not address how God can incorporate two seemingly opposing viewpoints. What is at stake, even more generalized than Marshall’s question, is that of how God can be both universal and particular. These two appear to be contradictory.
It would appear that there are three paths to achieving an answer. The first is to say that one of these premises is wrong. But as Marshall makes clear, the one that is likely to be proven wrong is not the one that promises God’s covenant with Israel is eternal. As van Buren demonstrates in his work, it is also clear that declaring the first premise wrong, ie. That Christ’s mission is not universal (because he is not really the Christ) leads to such a low Christology as to make one question whether or not it is even Christian. (It can’t be recognized by the Catholic Church, so as lovely as it might seem, it rejects ecumenism in favour of the Jews, and pits the one Church against the eternal Covenant with Israel, thus recreating the problem of universality versus particularity.) The second path is to say that this is all a mystery. This is a cop-out.
The third path, which Marshall did not raise, is to develop a theology of difference that accounts for how God can hold more than one reality at the same time. A theology of difference would address the issue that God holds both/and, not either/or, the universal together with the particular. But where can one find such a theology? Current theologies of hybridity, although relating to identity formation (and distracting for that reason), might offer some insight, as they seek to cross the boundary between one identity and another, sometimes contradictory one. It is this hybridity or trans- or interstitial theological inquiry that can help us to understand how God incorporates difference and opposites.
Identity formation, and its accompanying theology of the Other, is thus a sub-path of the larger theology of difference. It does not answer the problem of a Christian theology of Judaism, because it is a sociological, psychological, and historical problem, not a theological one. However, it does offer some hints as to how a theology of difference, insofar as people or groups are comprised of several identities, might work. Thus, relationality is also an important element here, although not the only element, nor the core one. If one considers the problem as the constellation of Ursa Major, it is one of the important stars, but not the Pole Star. It is important not to get distracted in walking down the path of identity formation.
Examining the history of Christian theologies of the election of Israel are important, not because they demonstrate how Christian identity was formed (which they do, as Boyarin shows us in Border Lines), but because they demonstrate how Christians have historically considered the issue of universal Christology versus the particular election of the chosen people of Israel. It may be just as easy to review a history of Christology, but that so often leaves out the question of Israel’s place (or treats them negatively). The history of the theology of Israel implicitly speaks to Christology and its universal application, and so is the better piece.