LETTERS

Christian Century, Feb 2, 2000

Israel's covenant

CARL E. BRAATEN makes the offensive and supersessionist statement: "There is no way to the Father's heart except through the son" ("Last things," Dec. 1). Do all the statements in the Jewish scriptures about a permanent covenantal relationship between Yahweh and his people Israel, all the promises of Yahweh's eternal faithfulness to Israel--no matter what--eventually depend upon Israel's acceptance of Jesus as Messiah?

Does not Romans 11 state very clearly that Israel's rejection of Jesus as Messiah was preordained by God in order for the gentile world to enter into a covenantal relationship with God and Israel? Yes, the gentile world entered through faith in Jesus as the Christ, but Israel did not have to enter into something that had already been established between God and Israel at Sinai. John 14:6 is addressed to the gentiles and does not exclude those who were already with the Father.

To me, supersessionism is the epitomy of hypocrisy, and blasphemous to boot. The late A. Roy Eckardt's observation that "Jewish nonacceptance of Jesus remains the most sublime and heroic instance of Israel's faithfulness to the covenant with God" should remind us that the Father's heart is greater than what Braaten suggests.

Martin H. Siebert

Big Timber, Mont.

Carl E. Braaten replies ...

To satisfy Martin H. Siebert, I should have written a different article than the one I was asked to write on "last things." He raises several questions so complex that one would need a full-length article to answer them properly. My mini-essay did not broach the subject of the relation between the two covenants--an important and controversial subject. The apostle Paul states categorically that in the end "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:25). St. John the Evangelist says clearly enough, quoting Jesus, "No one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Siebert seems to think that both statements cannot be affirmed at once. I believe that a Christian theology about Jesus, Israel and the church will accept both assertions as true, while framing a "mystery." It is not necessary to lower the bar of Christology--a widespread tendency in contemporary theology--to avoid the pitfall of supersessionism.

There are various ways to define supersessionism as well as to conceive an adequate alternative. However, the assertion that Siebert attributes to Roy Eckardt expresses an attitude that I cannot find in the New Testament, and therefore from my point of view could just as well be left unsaid.

Climate change ...

BILL MCKIBBEN says the only acts of God left are earthquakes and volcanoes ("Climate change and the unraveling of creation," Dec. 8). But even earthquakes are not exempt from human folly.

In the late 1960s, an earthquake in Denver was probably triggered by human action. The Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a storage place for vast amounts of killer materials, including nerve gas, routinely got rid of its toxic waste by pumping it into deep wells below the water table. The hypothesis was that this liquid injection lubricated the geological plates below the city, causing them to move.

This is my personal symbol for how far we humans have pushed the "decreation" of God's creation.

Dave Steffenson

United Methodist Church,

Columbus, Wis.

A buried message ...

KARL STEVENS is wrong to conclude that there is no power or beauty in the message of Dogma (Dec. 15). The film has an unusually powerful, beautiful and heartening message. The filmmaking failure stems from heaping attention on the two fallen angels (perhaps because they are played by the actors with most star power and appeal, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). These characters are neither the protagonists nor the antagonists of the story. The protagonist is Bethany (played by Linda Fiorentino, not even mentioned in Stevens's review), a young Roman Catholic divorced woman who works in an abortion clinic yet refuses to give up on the church. An angel calls her to leave her nets, take up her cross and journey across the country.

Bethany's journey is filled with shocks, insults, danger and doubt. Her fellow travelers are, as Stevens rightly points out, terribly crude and sophomoric. Yet the journey paints a good-humored, bracing picture of discipleship. At the crisis point of the story, there is a magnificent metaphor in what Bethany does in order that God might be God, and the world preserved. The message of Dogma is that God and the world need folk authentically related to Christ to save us from the calamity that results from cheap-grace church marketing. Director Kevin Smith let the message get buried beneath his star angels, and Stevens failed to uncover it.

Rex McDaniel

Bowie, Md.

Ecumenical forms ...

THE CENTURY is to be congratulated on initiating a debate regarding the ecumenical future in the United States (November 10). The responses thus far have been interesting, especially those in the December 8 issue. As one who has served on the NCC, I wish to add some coments.

I believe that it is time to separate the consultative and programmatic functions of the ecumenical structures. Everyone recognizes that the NCC does not represent the total Christian community in the U.S. What is needed is the formation of a strong consultative structure which will include the whole range of Christian constituencies that wish to participate--Roman Catholic and evangelical as well as mainline Protestant. Such a structure can provide a forum in which major issues can be addressed together and common strategies developed. It can also serve as the avenue for advocacy regarding the critical problems faced by our nation, and can seek to change attitudes and policies of our own government and of the American public at large.