Anything which has even a semblance of idolatry, the slightest suspicion of Polytheism, must be obnoxious to the Jew; for he has been smitten by hail, drought and pestilence, and has been led into captivity because his unregenerate nature delighted in the worship of Baalim, and because he forsook Jehovah who dwelt between the Cherubim and the Seraphim.
Then, too, the methods used to win the Jew to Christianity have aroused his opposition. In the Old World, until comparatively recently, he was forced once a year to attend church and listen to a sermon preached with the avowed object of his conversion. Needless to say, it rarely, if ever, converted him.
The modern method as it manifests itself in Jewish Missions is no less repellent to him; although he is not forced to listen to the missionaries’ sermons. Naturally, the converted Jew, who is an official converter, is usually under suspicion, although that suspicion is not always justified.
With this question of race consciousness and habits, the Jew alone can deal, and he, unfortunately, is not always in the frame of mind required to adjust himself to the feelings of the Gentiles. He will therefore have to bear the consequences which lie in the social realm and may soon reach into the economic.
The task of historic Christianity in its relation to the Jew is not an easy one. It cannot unmake itself or readily adjust itself to his likes and dislikes in theology; nor can it recede from its endeavour to make propaganda for the faith which it believes should be universal.
I have the conviction that when Christ comes fully to His own in the church, He will also come to His own in the synagogue; certainly no sooner, and perhaps not much later.
When He emerges from the tangle of Greek philosophy, Roman legalism and Byzantine traditionalism—when “in deed and in truth” He becomes the Gentile’s Messiah, He will also become the Messiah of the Jew.
As a working basis for the right relation between Jew and Gentile, I wish to quote Rabbi Sonnenschein, formerly of Des Moines, Iowa, in words spoken by him to a colleague in the Christian ministry.
“I want to live so, that when you see me, you will say: ‘There goes Rabbi Sonnenschein, who is a Jew; yet he is a better Christian than I am.’ And I want you to live so, that when I see you, I will say: ‘That man is a Christian; but he is a better Jew than I am.’”