Is There Such a Thing as Judeo-Christianity?

Author: Dr. Timothy Padgett

A common phrase in Christian circles is “Judeo-Christianity,” the idea that there is a meaningful connection between Jewish and Christian thought, culture, and history. It’s the idea that beyond the differences, there are genuine shared ideals. But, perhaps influenced by Israel’s response in Gaza to the October 7 attacks, some Christians have been questioning the relationship between the two more than ever, to the point of deconstructing what they’d been raised to believe. 

To engage all this fairly, Christians must acknowledge the legacy of antisemitism in the history of the Church. From the Church Fathers to Martin Luther to the disturbingly recent past, followers of the King of the Jews have at times failed miserably to recognize their neighbors among His ethnic kin. Sadly, believers have often been at the forefront of those calling Jews and Judaism “uniquely pernicious.” Over the centuries, Jews have been repeatedly and consistently persecuted by people claiming Christ. 

But a healthy Judeo-Christianity can’t be syncretistic. Peter preached to the Sanhedrin that it’s only in the name of Jesus that anyone may be saved. As much as our New Testament faith is built on the foundation of Old Testament Scripture, contemporary Judaism has evolved in ways that are distinct from, and even hostile to, Christianity. Finally, anyone who claims that being a faithful believer means that one can’t criticize Jewish people, or Israeli policy, needs to read the Prophets more, who spent a lot of time calling out Jews and the Jerusalem government. 

But Christians, and everyone else for that matter, have a lot to learn from our Jewish neighbors. As contributors to culture, the Jewish people have always boxed above their weight as a portion of the population. The number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners is mind-boggling. This isn’t because the system is rigged (sorry, conspiracy theorists), but it’s because, as a culture, Jews have valued learning. From Maimonides 900 years ago to Hannah Arendt in the twentieth century to Jonathan Sacks in recent days, Jewish moral philosophers have blessed the world with their insights. To borrow from the subtitle of a Thomas Cahill book, the Jews “changed the way everyone thinks and feels.” 

The most meaningful element of Judeo-Christianity is a matter of influence—the influence of God’s revelation upon their culture and their culture’s influence on the world. The paganism of my ancestors in Europe could never have cultivated the idea of human rights, universal morality, or even science itself. This came, and only came, through the words of Scripture, a testimony originally brought through largely Jewish Prophets and Apostles. While they have, like the rest of us, misunderstood and even misconstrued its message, Jewish culture and philosophy was drenched in Scripture from the very beginning. This means that in some very real ways, the undergirding philosophy of Jewish culture is closer to the truth of Christianity than other rival faiths. 

This is key. When we speak of Judeo-Christianity, we’re not talking about salvation. We are talking about philosophy, even worldview. A Christian worldview must be just that: Christian. A faithful Jew apart from Christ is no more saved than a devout Muslim or an honest atheist, and any philosophy that leaves out the Incarnation will lack its ultimate hope. 

It’s here that the work of Os Guinness is helpful. In books like The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom, often drawing on the ideas of Rabbi Sacks, Guinness reminds us of the debt we owe our Jewish neighbors of the past and what we can still learn from our shared understanding of humanity’s place in the cosmos, even as we’re clear about the very significant differences.