By Joseph P. Kamp

THE ‘JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN HERITAGE’ HOAX

A movement is today (being urged on by Rome) among even Bible believers to “merge” present-day Judaism and Christianity. Written by Joseph P. Kamp and appearing originally in the 1970 Winter Edition of American Mercury, it warns us of this trend being actively promoted by Rome and Protestants alike.

“CHRISTIANITY would be much stronger, if its Jewish heritage had not been neglected,” a New York theologian has said.

Quoted above is the first paragraph of a news story wired from Chicago, March 25, 1965, by the UPI, in reporting the remarks of Rev. William D. Davies of the Union Theological Seminary, who had discussed “Christianity’s dependence and growth from Judaism” at an inter-faith conference of theologians and teachers of religion “sponsored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith; the Roman Catholic Bellarmine School of Theology at Loyola University; and the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.”

The dispatch also quoted Rev. Davies as saying:

“Jesus was, in a sense, a rabbi no less than a prophet. Both the method and very largely the substance and form of his ethical teaching were rabbinical. Nourished in the synagogue, Jesus gave his followers much of the ethics of the synagogue.”

CONFUSED THINKING

This kind of confused thinking results from the propaganda promoted by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee to convince Christians that their religion is just another Jewish sect, the implication being that Christianity has gone astray from “the true religion”, Judaism. For the time being, however, the emphasis is placed on “our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

To give the idea wide currency, the Jewish propagandists are getting plenty of co-operation from within the Christian community. In the November, 1963, issue of the ADL Bulletin, there is a feature story with the headline and subhead reading: “To Know Their Jewish Heritage… A Catholic teaches Catholics that their faith rests on a solid foundation of ancient Judaism.”

The article is about “Leon Paul, a Catholic writer, lecturer, and teacher,” who is conducting adult education classes on “The Church and Judaism” under the auspices of the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. The article quotes Paul as saying:

“Catholics are very interested in what I call ‘their Jewish heritage.’ What is more, they are interested in Jews themselves—their customs, their beliefs, even their houses of worship.”

That Mr. Paul did not say “our Jewish heritage” was a subconscious slip of the tongue, for what the ADL did not tell its readers was that Leon Paul is a Jewish convert to Catholicism.

The article then tells how Paul takes his students on field trips to a synagogue, about which he says: “If a Catholic doesn’t feel at home in a synagogue, he doesn’t understand the origin of his own beliefs.”

It is also disclosed in this ADL feature that Paul writes a column to “introduce Catholics to their roots in Jewish tradition” which is syndicated to diocesan newspapers from coast to coast, and that:

“For his information on Jews, Jewish life, and Judaism, Paul consults with Jewish authorities and organisations—the Anti-Defamation League is often used in his ‘Mosaic’ column as a reference source, and for stories on specific activities.”

HYPOCRISY OF TEXTBOOKS

Also in line with this “Judeo-Christian heritage” fiction is the LIFE and WORSHIP series of Catholic textbooks for grade-school children, first announced at a national convention of Jewish Rabbis in April 1965, and given full page coverage in the New York Times and New York Journal-American, which said: “The texts strive to point out the common religious ties which have bound those of the Catholic faith to those of the Jewish faith through the centuries.”

This hypocrisy about “our Judeo-Christian heritage” has become such a fad, and is making such a powerful impression, that on May 10, 1969, the New York Times was able to report from Hillsdale, N.J., that:

“A $1 million Roman Catholic Church designed to reflect the Judaic heritage of Christianity was blessed and dedicated here today by Archbishop Thomas A. Boland of the Newark Archdiocese . . . An Old Testament wing representing Judaism and a New Testament wing representing Christianity flank two sides of the sanctuary.”

“HERITAGE” A NEW INVENTION

One can search Christian literature through the centuries and nowhere has the phrase “Judeo-Christian heritage” ever been used until just a few years ago, when the ADL and the AJC and their associated groups, stooges and sycophants began popularising this malicious myth. The result has been that today this unholy refrain is being repeated parrot-like by Catholic priests and prelates and by Protestant bishops and clergymen of every denomination, who have been encouraged to regard the expression as a mark of sophisticated liberalism, and as evidence that they are completely free of the so-called sin of “Christian anti-Semitism”.

Needless to say, most Christian leaders, both lay and clerical, who are injecting this noxious notion into their writings, discussions and sermons, are largely unaware of its true meaning; they misunderstand its importance; they are completely unconscious of the subversive purpose they are serving. They are using the phrase mechanically, thoughtlessly, simply because it has become a popular catch-phrase.

This brainwashing scheme has been so successful that the devilish distortion was even foisted on the Vatican Council and put into the mouths of 2,400 bishops, archbishops and cardinals, who know better, but who should have read the Declaration on the Jews with more critical scrutiny before adopting it.

The Declaration that the Vatican Council Fathers approved embodies a glaring misconception of this popular fallacy when it says that there is a “great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews”—referring to the Jews of today.

In its reference to the Jews of today the Declaration says in the very same sentence that “it is the wish of this sacred Council to foster and recommend a mutual knowledge and esteem…”

The reason for the inclusion of the word “mutual” is explained in a footnote in the official American publication of The Documents of Vatican II. It declares that this word “tactfully expresses the request of Cardinal Ruffini, Archbishop of Palermo, that Christians should love Jews, and Jews should declare that they will not hate Christians (and he asked that certain passages in the Talmud be corrected).”

ANTI-CHRISTIAN PASSAGES

Of course, there has been no declaration by any Jewish authority that Jews should stop hating Christians, nor have any anti-Christian passages in the Talmud been corrected. And it can be said with certainty that the Jewish religious community, unlike the Christian community, will never permit the teachings of the Talmud to be corrected.

It is because of such misconceptions as promulgated by the Vatican Council that the Judeo-Christian heritage myth persists. In the ADL’s monthly magazine, Christian Friends, which is sent free to Christian clergymen across the country, Dr. Joseph L. Lichten, the ADL agent who attended Vatican Council sessions disguised as a correspondent for two leading Catholic magazines, Ave Maria and Jubilee, falsely writes that the above Council statement “affirms the Judeo-Christian heritage”.

The phrase “Judeo-Christian heritage” implies that present-day Judaism and Christianity emanated from the same spiritual source and share similar characteristics and traditions.

This suggestion is unfortunately misleading—it is fatuous nonsense.

More important, it is a brazen, sacrilegious affront to Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity.

DENOUNCED TIME AND AGAIN

Christianity has its roots in God—a God which the Jews of today deny, when they deny His Son.

Christianity is based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ. It has no kinship with the religion practised by the Jews of Jesus’ time, the religion of the Pharisees that Christ denounced and condemned, time and time again—the religion that the Jews of our time claim as their heritage.

There is no truth in the presumption that Jews and Christians can be hyphenated, that Christianity and Judaism share common foundations in a common culture, that they are two forms of the same belief.

NO SUCH CONNECTION

The “Judeo-Christian heritage” slogan suggests that there is some connection—a close religious bond—between true Christians and a collection of modern Jews of various beliefs, unbelief and non-belief, who call their religion Judaism.

There is no such connection; there can be no such bond.

The ADL’s Rabbi Arthur Gilbert, in his book, A Jew In Christian America, writes:

“Paul was convinced that the disbelief of the Jews in Jesus was a sign that God intended to provide an occasion for the conversion of the Gentiles. Paul did not seek converts, however, for a sect within Judaism; instead he offered a new religion based on belief in the crucified and resurrected Christ.”

If Christianity was “a new religion”, how could there be a Jewish heritage? That Christians have a spiritual relationship to the Hebrews of the Old Testament is a reality in the sense that the heritage of the ancient Hebrews and Christians stems from the same God—the God of Abraham.

But, the Jews of today who believe in Judaism do not believe in the religion of Moses, as ordained by the God of Abraham—they believe in the perverted beliefs of the Pharisees.

NOT MENTIONED IN BIBLE

Judaism is not mentioned in the Bible; neither in the New Testament, nor in the Old Testament; it has evolved since Christ’s time.

Judaism is a spiritual outlook and practice which arose among the Jews after the Babylonian exile, from which it retains many pagan influences, such as “Sex initiation, Mooncult, Tattooing, Mutilation, and other Primitive Rituals”. The quoted phrase is from the subtitle of the book, Pagan Rites in Judaism, by Dr. Theodor Reik, the noted Jewish author and president of the National Association of Psychoanalytic Psychology.

While Judaism retains some vestiges of Old Testament piety and belief, it has in the course of time gone through constant change. Today it lives in three branches—Orthodox, Conservative and Reform—each of which has several subdivisions and many facets. All beliefs in Judaism are not only completely different from Christianity; they encourage opposition to, and inspire hate of Christianity.

It might be concluded from this that Judaism has a Christian heritage, in part, but Christianity certainly has adopted nothing from what today is called Judaism.

DEFINITION OF JUDAISM

The Jewish Encyclopedia says that, “a clear and concise definition of Judaism is difficult to give, for the reason that it is not a religion pure and simple based upon accepted creeds, like Christianity or Buddhism… Judaism is a theocracy, a religious legislation for the people, but not a religion.”

If Judaism is not a religion, how can it have a religious heritage, along with Christianity, or otherwise?

The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion tells us that “the character of latter-day Judaism was determined by… the emergence of a strong mystic trend (Kabbalah, Zohar).” This same encyclopedia describes Zohar “as a mixture of theosophic theology, mystical psychology, anthropology, myth and poetry.” Mystic pertains to the occult, which Webster’s Dictionary says is “designating alchemy, magic, astrology and other arts and practices involving use of divination, incantation, magical formulae, etc.”

How could any conscientious Christian even suggest that Christianity has anything of this nature in its heritage? Christians, including the Vatican Council Fathers, could better understand the preposterous nature of the phrase “our Judeo-Christian heritage” if it were given its true meaning by being stated as “our Pharisee-Christian heritage.”

UNDILUTED PHARISEEISM

Of course, many brainwashed Christian leaders would quickly respond that such a statement is incongruous; it would be denied as a falsehood, and denounced as mendacious.

Yet, this is exactly what the phrase “our Judeo-Christian heritage” proclaims. For all leading Jewish authorities agree that modern-day Judaism is undiluted Phariseeism.

This is clearly set forth in the most authoritative writings on the subject, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith. The author is the distinguished Jewish scholar and religious leader, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, Chancellor and Professor of Theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. In his Foreword, in tracing the background of “the unchanged faith in Rabbinic Judaism”, Dr. Finkelstein writes:

“Pharisaism became Talmudism: Talmudism became Medieval Rabbinism, which became Modern Rabbinism, but throughout these changes of name, inevitable adaptation of custom, and adjustment of Law, the spirit of the Ancient Pharisee survives unaltered.”

TODAY’S JUDAISM

The modern Judaism of the Talmud is very different from the religion described in the Old Testament. An outstanding Jewish scholar, the late Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, made this abundantly clear when he said:

“The return from Babylon, and the adoption of the Babylonian Talmud, marks the end of Hebrewism, and the beginning of Judaism.”

Every thoughtful Christian theologian and sincere student of the Holy Bible knows that Jesus Christ spent the years of His ministry on earth replacing the hateful religion of the Pharisees with a new religion of God’s love and mercy. They also are well aware that no one knew better “the spirit of the Ancient Pharisees” than did Jesus Christ. In the Holy Bible, Matthew 15:1-9, we read:

“Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? But He answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? Thus have ye made the Commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of ye saying, This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men.”

LIES ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

In the 23rd chapter of Matthew: in verses 13 to 29, seven different times, Jesus Christ begins His denunciation of them with the words, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” And then He concludes with a thunderous climax: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Jesus also said, Rev. 2:9, 3:9 that “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not but do lie and are of the synagogue of Satan.”

When the Pharisees branded Jesus an idolater (“we be not born of fornication”) He declared that they were worshippers of the devil, and liars and murderers. In John 8:44 it reads:

“Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it!”

These lies of the Pharisees are not forgotten; they live in the “holy” literature of Judaism. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia says under “Pharisees”:

“The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries from the Pharisees… The Talmud is the largest and most important single piece of (their) literature… and the study of it is essential for any real understanding of Pharisaism.”

To this very day the Talmud teaches that Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, was a whore and an adulteress who spawned Jesus by a Roman soldier, Pandera.

This is “our Judeo-Christian heritage?”

NO OPEN DISAGREEMENT

While many Christian leaders disagree with the Judeo-Christian concept, not a single voice of consequence has been heard in open disagreement or criticism. This is largely because Christians are well aware of, and are intimidated by the smear terror; they would rather not be branded as bigots or anti-Semites by the ADL, and the AJC and their ilk.

Many Jewish leaders also take issue with the whole idea of a Judeo-Christian religious relationship, and most of them do not mind saying so; it is a little more difficult to smear a Jew as anti-Jewish.

A most disparaging view of Christianity is expressed by the noted Jewish scholar, Dr. Albert M. Gessman, writing in the Winter 1969 number of the conservative Jewish journal, Issues. After contrasting critically almost nine pages of glaring differences between Judaism and Christianity to the disadvantage of the latter, and after reviewing the backgrounds of both religions, he concludes that: “A Judeo-Christian heritage or tradition in the proper sense of that hyphenated word does not exist; it has no foundation in historical fact.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Gessman concedes that “there is indeed agreement on many values between Judaism and a large number of Christians.” And he writes with unconcealed satisfaction, “this number will evidently be growing as churches (perhaps to some extent including the Roman Church) attempt to modernise themselves and de-emphasise the letter of doctrine in favour of a more pragmatic approach to human problems.”

ABSURDITY OF ‘HERITAGE’ FICTION

In hailing this development, Dr. Gessman prefers to regard it as a “practical Judeo-Christian consensus” because it “moves along the lines of the Judaic and not the Christian heritage” and our society rests “on Judaic principles, and the ethics we profess and attempt to practise are Judaic ethics.”

There is no need to belabour the absurdity and fallacy of the “Judeo-Christian heritage” fiction, which certainly is clear to all honest theologians. That “Jewish-Christian dialogue” in this context is also absurd was well stated in the authoritative religious journal, Judaism, Winter 1966, by Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, chairman of the department of Jewish Philosophy, Hebrew Theological College, who wrote:

“As to a dialogue in the purely theological sense, nothing could be more fruitless or pointless. Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism. What is usually referred to as the Jewish-Christian tradition exists only in Christian or secularist fantasy.”

This is true! And the fantasy exists in Christian and secularist minds only because it was implanted there by the persistent propaganda of the masters of intrigue of the ADL-AJC network.

GROTESQUE, FANTASTIC HOAX

Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that knowledgeable theologians, Jewish and Christian, who constantly allude to “our Judeo-Christian heritage” are, for their own specious purposes, perpetrating a grotesque and fantastic hoax.

For guidance, honest Christian religious leaders, lay and clerical, should turn to their Holy Bibles and read 2 Corinthians 6:14, 15, which says:

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”

And without casting aspersions, they should contemplate another passage in Deuteronomy 22:10: “Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.”