Religious Book Week Critics' Choices
Pawlikowski, John T.
Religious Book Week: CRITICS' CHOICES John T. Pawlikowski SEVERAL SIGNIFICANT new contributions have been added to the ongoing Christian-Jewish dialogue in the past year. The difficult subject of...
...Included in his survey are such names as Barth, Pan-nenberg, Ruether, Soelle, Rahner, Gus-tafson, and H.R...
...Niebuhr...
...A new volume edited by Eugene J. Fisher and Daniel F. Polish, The Foundations of Social Policy in the Catholic and Jewish Traditions is a further contribution (University of Notre Dame Press, $8.95, 194 pp...
...Eugene Borowitz's new volume consists of an evaluation of how a representative number of modern Christologies treat the question of Judaism...
...Brandys is a former member of the Polish Communist Party now living in France.in France...
...Both the present situation in Poland as well as the work of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council on creating a national museum-memorial in Washington have intensified this concern...
...He may be a bit overgenerous in this regard...
...The volume focuses on the Jewish context of the teaching of Jesus and the theology of early Christianity...
...The removal of this stereotype is urged by the 1975 Vatican guidelines on Catholic-Jewish relations...
...It also alludes to the problem of Polish anti-Semitism that has sometimes been part of the people's self-expression and captures well the emptiness of the current Polish state apparatus...
...is a good introduction to the sufferings of the Slavs (especially Poles) and other groups that were also part of the Nazi Master Plan...
...Bohdan Wyt-wycky's The Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell (The Novak Report, Washington, $5.95, 95 pp...
...Joseph Gremillion has done some pioneer work in this line...
...His personal sensitivity provides us with an excellent model for "outside'' evaluation of religious perspectives...
...Kazimierz Brandys's new novel, a metaphysical monologue with strong ethical challenges carrying the title A Question of Reality: A Novel of Poland (Charles Scribner's Sons, $8.95, 180 pp...
...The difficult subject of Christian theology and Judaism has been advanced in a particular way by the appearance of two works from Paulist Press: Clemens Thoma's A Christian Theology of Judaism (Paulist Press, $7.95, 232 pp...
...Both represent serious, contructive efforts at improving Christian Jewish understanding...
...A Christian Theology of Judaism is his first contribution in English...
...On this central point he is optimistic, though the possibility exists and there is no doubt of continuing distortions of Judaism in these Christologies that are serious...
...An area of the dialogue that is emerging in importance is the attempt to relate particular religious perspectives to common social policy questions in an inter-religious setting...
...These papers come from a series of dialogues held at Notre Dame under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Synagogue Council of America...
...With respect to the actual settings of Jesus's ministry Thoma adds new scholarly support to the growing realization that this ministry shows close links with the progressive Pharisaic movement in Second Temple Judaism, and that early Christianity "attempted to bring the Christ Event and Pharisaic-rabbinic spirituality and life-style into harmony...
...Two new volumes will aid in this area...
...is a powerful introduction to the spirit of Poland...
...Wytwycky's study is welcome for it tells their story while carefully preserving the special nature of Jewish victimhood under the Nazis...
...He ends with some consideration of whether the inherent dynamics of Christological statement lead to anti-Semitism...
...A number of Jewish and Christian leaders, including J. Bryan Hehir, George Higgins, Balfour Brick-ner, Seymour Siegel and Bishop Francis Stafford, present perspectives on family and economic policy, international human rights and methodology in social policy development...
...The establishment of this positive link is crucial for removing one of the continuing distortions of Judaism in the contemporary church-the Pharisees as archenemies of Jesus...
...The only story not included here, one that needs to be told, is that of the gay community, though the play Bent has brought some attention to their suffering...
...Another topic of increasing interest is Polish-Jewish relations...
...Thoma is a well known European scholar from Lucerne specializing in biblical and Judaic studies...
...He also considers the Jewish roots of later Christological development, including the hypostatic titles assigned to Christ...
...and Eugene B. Borowitz's Contemporary Chris-tologies: A Jewish Response (Paulist Press, $7.95, 203 pp...
Vol. 108 • February 1981 • No. 4
