Keep praying

Christian Century, July 13, 2004

KEEP PRAYING: Franz Rosenzweig, who grew up in a largely secular Jewish home, nearly converted to Christianity in his youth. Instead, while exploring Judaism in preparation for his baptism, he was drawn to it as a living faith. Eventually he wrote one of the most important Jewish books of the 20th century, Star of Redemption.

It was penned while he was serving in the German army on the Balkan front near the end of World War I. Many sections were written on postcards he sent home to his family. The work is often cited as an early articulation of the two-covenant theory--the view that God established one covenant with the Jews and another with gentiles--although he didn't use those terms. Rosenzweig is also often invoked as an ally in Jewish-Christian dialogue, though he believed that the enmity between synagogue and church was intended by God for all time, and that God's work of redemption depends upon an ongoing tension between the two. What the synagogue and the church have in common is that they are liturgical communities which in their separate ways keep praying that "God's kingdom would come." The prayer is not about the end of time, but for eternity to be drawn into time (Jeremy Worthen in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Summer-Fall, 2002).