Interview with a Pharisee and a Christian

15 Responses to "Interview with a Pharisee and a Christian"

• Comment by: Rachel

  1 10/18/07 7:28 AM | Comment Link |

  It’s interesting that you mention this article, Helen! I subscribe to Christianity Today and I read that article a few weeks ago and was rather upset by it. I was amazed that the article referred to Kendall and Rosen’s interactions as a warm and respectful friendship. I thought that Pastor Kendall was repeatedly insulting and degrading toward Rabbi Rosen and I was amazed at how the Rabbi continued to be kind and tolerant in response. I would not be able to STAND to be friends with someone who spoke to me in the arrogant and patronizing manner of Pastor Kendall!

  Personally I thought it was a horrible example of an interfaith friendship and it seemed pathetic to me that CT was holding it up as something unique and wonderful. I think that VERY few people would be willing to put up with the kind of treatment Rabbi Rosen was receiving. He is a much more gracious and accommodating person than I!

• Comment by: Helen

  2 10/18/07 8:15 AM | Comment Link |

  Thanks Rachel. I feel the same way regarding everything you said.

• Comment by: Jim Henderson

  3 10/18/07 8:21 AM | Comment Link |

  Rachel
  I felt exactly the same way when I read this supposed dialog- it was diatribe dressed up in relgious robes.

  I would love to do a back story interview with Rosen and see how he really felt and ask some of his friends what they thought was really going on in the interview.

  Helen- see if you can get Rosen to do a follow up interview

• Comment by: Karen

  4 10/18/07 9:40 AM | Comment Link |

  Yeeesh, that’s brutal! I’m amazed that the rabbi has sustained a friendship and even co-authorship with someone who insults him willy-nilly. I don’t think Hemant and Jim, or Jim and Casper’s, relationships would have survived that level of disrespect.

  I don’t get CT, but I’m curious if you know Rachel: Has there been any feedback in the letters to the editor? The comments posted after the article include one or two that are critical of Kendall, but others who seem to agree with him.

• Comment by: Rachel

  5 10/18/07 10:24 AM | Comment Link |

  Karen, the article was in the October issue that just came out a few weeks ago, but I will check the Letters to the Editor in the November issue and report back. I’m very disappointed in CT. They had a couple of excellent articles recently about the importance of interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims and also several positive articles about the growth of the ecumenical movement (Chuck Colson, who is a regular CT contributor, is the founder of Evangelicals and Catholics Together.) I especially appreciated an extensive article several months back about what Protestants can learn from the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

  From its beginning, Christianity Today has been distinctively Evangelical and NOT Fundamentalist, which is supposed to mean combining a strong faith with respectful cultural engagement. Now this article seems like a major step back. The thing that bothers me the most is that people might read this article and actually think they should emulate Pastor Kendall’s mode of interaction. If they think the average person is going to respond favorably to that approach, they have another thing coming!

  Another thing that irritates me is that the article acts like an interfaith friendship is SOOO unusual and SOOO challenging and difficult and like something really amazing has been accomplished here. It’s not that hard at all. I have friends who are atheist, Wiccan, Muslim, and they know that I am a Christian and that my faith is important to me. If I was friends with Rabbi Rosen and he asked me if I wanted to convert him, I would say that yes, I would love to see him become a follower of Messiah Yeshua but that I respect him regardless and that I do not have an agenda for our friendship. I would be embarrassed to behave like Pastor Kendall!

• Comment by: Helen

  6 10/18/07 10:57 AM | Comment Link |

  Rachel, you could write to the editor. I’ve had a few letters to the editor published in CT. I guess I could write but I’m not a current subscriber and don’t have the knowledge you have of other recent articles. (I do still read their site regularly)

  If I’m remembering right about the timing, December is more likely to have letters in response to this issue than November. But maybe I’m not remembering right…

  I e-mailed David Neff (he posted the interview) and Rabbi David Rosen the link to this page so they could read the feedback here if they wanted to. I said I’d be interested in interviewing Rabbi Rosen if he has time.

• Comment by: Karen

  7 10/18/07 2:16 PM | Comment Link |

  From its beginning, Christianity Today has been distinctively Evangelical and NOT Fundamentalist, which is supposed to mean combining a strong faith with respectful cultural engagement.

  Interesting. I’ve never heard that distinction before.

  Now this article seems like a major step back. The thing that bothers me the most is that people might read this article and actually think they should emulate Pastor Kendall’s mode of interaction. If they think the average person is going to respond favorably to that approach, they have another thing coming!

  His tone was tactless, and unnecessarily rude, but the sentiment behind it would be very acceptable to the people in churches I attended. Then again, they didn’t go for inter-faith or even ecumenical efforts much. ;-)

• Comment by: Rachel

  8 10/18/07 3:13 PM | Comment Link |

  Karen, Christianity Today came out of the Neo-Evangelical movement, which emerged in the 1940s as a “middle way” between fundamentalism and liberalism. The Neo-evangelicals wanted to retain Protestant theological distinctives, or “fundamentals,” while rejecting the separatist and anti-intellectual stance of fundamentalism. And they wanted to embrace the ecumenism and social engagement of mainline Protestantism, without accommodating to theological liberalism and higher criticism.

  Billy Graham was the most famous neo-evangelical leader (and founder of CT magazine). The National Association of Evangelicals, with its motto of “Cooperation Without Compromise,” was founded in the 1940s as part of this movement.

• Comment by: Randy

  9 10/18/07 3:39 PM | Comment Link |

  Wow…

  Some people say Christians have theology but Jews have halakhah, or religious practice. Is that true?

  Rosen: It’s wrong to say there’s no doctrine and no theology in Judaism. However, the essence is the conviction that there’s one God who brought the universe into being and who guides the universe, that his Word is revealed, and that we can therefore know God’s Word through the Torah. Accordingly, the most important thing is for us to understand and to do what God wants us to do.

  Kendall: Christianity is basically about a person, Jesus of Nazareth - who was, we believe, the God-man. And it isn’t as much what he taught about loving one another and all of the things people say they admire about Jesus. The heart of Christianity is the person of Jesus, who he was and what he did more than what he said, although we accept what he said as true.

  (italics mine)

  I’m beginning to see the problem here, I think. Jews want to know what God says and then do it. Christians want to be certain they believe the right things about Jesus…and then sort of, well, you know…notice stuff he said to do and then maybe (if it’s not too inconvenient) do those things, you know, like loving one another and all that stuff.

  Holy crap.

• Comment by: Rachel

  10 10/18/07 3:44 PM | Comment Link |

  Randy, it’s a perfect example of the “beliefism” Jim always talks about, isn’t it?

• Comment by: Helen

  11 10/18/07 3:52 PM | Comment Link |

  Rachel and Randy - yes, I didn’t think Christianity came out so well compared to Judaism in that exchange.

  Also this part struck me as illustrative of how this fell short of dialog in which the participants listen to each other and learn from each other:

  [David Neff] I’d like to know what each of you may have learned from the other.

  Kendall: I’ve seen that David has no conviction of sin. He sees himself as basically righteous. The thought of being sinful before God, like Isaiah in chapter 6, is alien to him.

  Well, David, what about the concept of sin?

  Rosen: With regard to sin, I refer to the verse in Ecclesiastes, and I certainly see myself in that category - “For there is no man righteous in the world who does only good and sinneth not” (Ecc. 7:20). Of course, I’m a sinner like everybody else. But that doesn’t mean I’m inherently a sinner. It means that maybe every day I do something wrong, but that’s because in some manner, I have not managed to live up to the standards I am meant to live up to.

  In response to “what have you learned?” the one thing RT Kendall claims to have learned about David Rosen isn’t even right according to David Rosen (who should know).

• Comment by: Randy

  12 10/18/07 4:01 PM | Comment Link |

  You’d think so, wouldn’t you Helen? And Rachel…nice catch. Beliefism is worship of one’s beliefs, essentially. I think most evangelicals (including myself) have been guilty of this in recent decades.

  I’d point out that there is no report of Rosen answering the question in regards to what HE learned (almost as if the conversation moved on too quickly). Too bad. I bet he learned a LOT ;-)

  Wow, again…

• Comment by: Karen

  13 10/18/07 7:49 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks for the info, Rachel!

• Comment by: ken

  14 12/3/07 10:15 AM | Comment Link |

  I very much connect with and affirm what is said here about the Rosen / Kendall interview. I’ve seen (see) too much ‘Christian’ condescension and patronisation in the church and in Bible colleges where searching questions are re-defined as “signs of heresy and relativism.” I thank God for Rosen’s biblical and generous faith.

• Comment by: Helen

  15 12/3/07 10:43 AM | Comment Link |

  Thanks for your comment, Ken.