I cannot tell from what year this booklet produced by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) was published, but it must have been after the establishment of Israel as it is mentioned within. "Religion and Politics: Three Perspectives" carries a long passage by Rabbi A . James Rudin, then director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, promoting the Noahide Laws among Christians. Rabbi Rudin states that more modern Rabbis consider Christianity to not be idolatry, but this was not the opinion of Maimonides (here) and Rabbi Schneerson who is proclaimed in public law twice to the be the leader of world Jewry (here & here) also believed Christianity was idolatry (here). Why should non-Jews even allow this to be a question or a debate whether they live or die?
https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/c__c/RELIGION%20AND%20POLITICS.pdf
"Religion and Politics: Three Perspectives"
Passage by Rabbi A. James Rudin
A Jewish theology of pluralism can be successfully developed, it seems to me, by drawing
upon the traditional rabbinical concept of the
seven Laws of Noah as first articulated in the
second century of the Common Era. Because of
its source, in Tosefta, and because of its age, this
Noahide concept cannot be simply dismissed as
a modern invention cynically designed to meet
the peculiar needs of our modern age.
On the contrary, the Noahide laws represent
an early, earnest, and effective religious interpretation of the spiritual diversity that is a permanent feature of God's universe.
The children of Noah—that is, non-Jews—
were required to obey seven specific laws: (1) the
establishment of courts of justice, (2) the prohibition of idolatry, (3) the prohibition of blasphemy, (4) the prohibition of bloodshed, (5) the
prohibition of sexual immorality, (6) a ban on
robbery, and (7) the prohibition of eating meat
that was ripped from a live animal.
The rabbis carefully linked these seven laws
to a time in history that predated the revelation
at Mt. Sinai. By so doing, they were able to
anchor the Noahide laws in a distant time
frame, and not in their own generation. While
Jews, following Sinai, are commanded to
observe and carry out 613 divine commandments, people who are not Jews are obliged to
fulfill only seven.
One of the best known rabbinic sayings, "The
righteous of the world have a place or a share in
the world to come," indicates that there is "salvation outside the synagogue." For Gentiles,
ha-goyim , to be saved, it is not necessary to
assume the yoke of the Torah that Jews have
historically accepted. The biblical verses from
both Isaiah and Micah buttress this belief: "My
house is a house of prayer for all peoples" and
"Let all the peoples walk each one in the name
of God, but we will walk in the name of the
Lord our God forever."
With its extraordinary emphasis on the prohibition of idolatry, the Noahide formula is a
brilliant attempt to balance the universal with
the particular as experienced by the rabbis 1800
years ago. Following the development of the
Noahide laws, intense debate within Judaism
still raged over the status of Christianity. Was
Christianity a valid expression of religious truth?
Or was it a form of religious idolatry, with its emphasis upon a man-God? Did the Incarnation and the Trinity enhance the possibility of
Christians becoming Noahides, or did these
theological beliefs diminish that chance?
Do Christians merit the Noahide title? Is Christianity still intimately linked to the God of Israel, even though it takes a form different from Judaism? Should Jews engage in commerce and other forms of contact with Christians? Should the oaths and vows of Christians who invoke the name of God be accepted as truthful?
Since Jews are "already with the Father, the God of Israel," what is the position and status of Christians? Moses Maimonides, who had much greater contact with Islam, expressed doubts about whether Christianity had fully removed itself from idolatry. But other rabbis of the medieval period had more positive views of Christianity.
By the twelfth century, fully a thousand years after the rabbinic definition of Noahides, many rabbis had denned Christianity as a Noahide faith because of its reverence for the Hebrew Bible and its active attempts to bring the knowledge of the God of Israel to the world. While Jews and Christians clearly differed on biblical interpretations and on the precise knowledge of God, nonetheless, by the twelfth century, many Jewish religious leaders had granted Christianity a special status.
Despite my admiration for the authors of Tosefta, I am well aware that the seven Noahide laws carry us only so far in a quest for a theology of religious pluralism, and with it an understanding of Christianity. As many scholars have correctly noted, the twentieth-century German Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig reached roughly the same conclusions as the medieval rabbis, but he did so without employing the Noahide laws.
For Rosenzweig, who utilized modern philosophy, Christianity was the Gentile, non-Jewish way to reach God, but just as Gentiles can achieve spiritual salvation outside of Judaism, the reverse is equally true. Jews, "already with God" and rejoicing in the life of Torah, need no intermediary nor a change of religious identity to be saved, to be with the One God at the End of Days.
That being said, the early Jewish concept of a Noahide who obeys the seven prescribed laws represents an ancient theological legitimization of what today we call religious pluralism. Going one step further, the Noahide laws give legitimacy to pluralism because they firmly place pluralism within the will of God; they are a God-given doctrine of faith with all its caveats and limitations. If this is so, and I believe it is, it means that 1800 years ago rabbis were theologically affirming the value of non-Jewish religions.
A nd those same rabbis early recognized what is so apparent today: there will always be a wide spectrum of religious expressions, beliefs, and thoughts in God's world. Sadly, we have through the centuries tried many terrible ways to eliminate that God-ordained diversity. For some groups, it meant simply praying for the conversion of the "other." In other cases, it meant more than pious prayers. It meant forced conversions, coercion, manipulation, expulsion, and worse.
And as every Jew keenly knows, throughout the past two centuries some Christians have trained their full arsenal of temporal and spiritual weapons upon the Jews. This assault upon Jews and Judaism on the part of Christians has frequently included the odious "teaching of contempt" by which the Jewish people and their religion were abased and attacked.
But to no avail. Religious diversity has endured; indeed, it has grown in scope and richness.
It is, after all these years, at last time to come to terms with religious diversity, and to cease all attempts to move Jews away from their traditional faith. Well publicized denominational resolutions, academic courses of instruction aimed at "evangelizing" Jews, and active campaigns of conversion that target Jews or any other group fly in the face of a God-ordained diversity that exists among God's children.
In this paper I have offered a starting place for developing a coherent Jewish theology of pluralism. I urge my Jewish sisters and brothers to move further in this quest. The concepts of the universal and the particular combined with the Noahide principles offer starting points, and are certainly not the end of the discussion, I also urge my Christian colleagues to go and do likewise.
We have tried everything but religious pluralism in the past, and in so doing we have inflicted terrible suffering upon those who do not share our faith. Because of this wretched record, just perhaps, we can finally understand that religious pluralism might be the will of the God whom we all worship. •
Rabbi A . James Rudin is director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee
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