The Jaycees
A term I hear a lot from conservatives is "Judeo-Christian." I honestly don't know what it means.
First, I've never met a Judeo-Christian. (Okay, maybe Jews For Jesus.)
Second, it's usually part of the phrase "Judeo-Christian values." What are these? The Ten Commandments? Pretty much everyone's against murder and stealing and perjury, etc.
Is it the moral beliefs that Jews and Christians have in common? Jews don't even agree with other Jews, and Christians don't agree with other Christians.
It seems to be used as a shorthand for modern conservative values, but if that's what it really is, why not just say so?
posted by LAGuy @ 1:07 AM
12 Comments:
Richard Neuhaus actually has a four-page essay on "Judeo-Christian" in the current issue of First Things. But their website only includes past issues, so I can't link to it yet.
In general, it's a term that anyone uses when they want to stress significant things that Judaism and Christianity have in common -- usually, but not always, to contrast J'm and Ch'y with other alternatives.
The alternatives depend on context, of course. Two generations ago in the West, the alternatives were secular ideologies and materialism. Today there are a lot more religious alternatives in the West.
I am 70% certain that the term originated in interreligious dialogue between Jews and liberal Protestants, a century ago or so.
One key question about any person's belief system is "what do you believe?". But another very important question is "which of these beliefs are especially important to you?" It's easy to find two people in a religion who essentially share identical beliefs, but who differ in which beliefs they take as most central in their lives.
I would suggest, then, that those people who use the term "Judeo-Christian" a lot are Jews or Christians whose most important beliefs are shared by both of these faiths.
Dennis Prager comes to mind. Naturally, he doesn't agree with Christians on those points where Christianity and Judaism disagree. But if you listen to his radio show (which I am not recommending, btw), the things he cares to stress about his religion are almost always things that conservative Jews hold in common with conservative Christians.
It seems to be used as a shorthand for modern conservative values, but if that's what it really is, why not just say so?
If by "modern conservative values" you mean "American Jewish or Christian conservative values," then you are right, of course.
But there are a lot of secular conservatives. Ayn Rand was an atheist; Barry Goldwater was probably agnostic (or at most deist); Heinlein was a classical agnostic. A sizeable fraction of famous conservative politicians seem to have no real interest in religion except occasionally as part of their campaign rhetoric.
When conservatives like Prager identify their kind of conservatism with "Judeo-Christian values", they are (often deliberately) excommunicating the secular conservatives out of the conservative movement.
I think "Judeo-Christian" is currently being used as a catchphrase for "Western" values, particularly when the discussion is about Islamic extremism. I agree it's not being used correctly, but I think it's becoming a broad generalization to highlight the "us v. them" concept that the war on terror hinges upon.
I have no research on which to base my conception of the term, but without googling, I always thought it referred to the Christian and Jewish belief that God calls on His created people to do good things. As far as I can tell, the God worshiped in Islam does not demand anything other than obedience of people. Budhism focuses on inner growth, with little reference to leaving the world a better place than you found it (again, to my knowledge). I know virtually nothing about Hinduism, native American religions or Shintoism, but I'm not aware of great humanitarian efforts stemming from these faiths.
But this is just my uninformed impression.
I'm still not sure if I get it. People who use the term "Judeo-Christian values" often say our country was founded on them. I think this claim would have confused our Founding Fathers. (Of course, everyone wants to lay claim to our Founders.) In any case, the phrase may have been in use a century ago, but I think it's taken on a stronger political connotation in the last generation or so.
Are J-C values Jewish values that don't deal with Kosher laws, Christian values that don't deal directly with praying to Jesus?
LA Guy's last definition seems most apt. What I really think is the origin of the term is that many people (not just right-wingers) probably used to refer to "Christian values," meaning kindness and compassion, good manners and a work ethic. As Christianity was the dominant religion, ethics just seemed to many to flow from it. Then, at some point, this seemed anti-semitic to people who didn't want to be anti-semitic. After all, they reasoned, Jews are good people with many of these values too -- we don't want to be insulting them by suggesting their exclusion from this term. Plus, since the Old Testament is part of the Christian bible, many of these values reach way back. So instead of saying "Christian" values, we'll say "Judeo-Christian values." I think the origin of this phrase was liberal, not conservative -- whatever it has come to mean.
Are J-C values Jewish values that don't deal with Kosher laws, Christian values that don't deal directly with praying to Jesus?
I guess you could say that. But I don't know whether an Orthodox Jew who keeps kosher would say that this is one of his values. "Values" is a pretty vague term. I think the Orthodox hold "obedience to God" as a value. And in addition, they believe as a matter of fact that God forbade the eating of scallops. If all the Orthodox somehow became convinced that there was a copyist error in the Torah, and shellfish were actually permitted while regular fish were forbidden, then (in this unbelievable scenario) they would all change their diets. But I don't think they would be changing their values.
This of course brings us back to my comment about secularism. Many of the folks who talk about "Judeo-Christian values" are including things like honesty, respect for other people, respect for life, seeing war and violence as the "last resort", compassion and justice for the downtrodden, etc.
They are correct that these values are held by both Judaism and Christianity. But these values are also held by a lot of other people too.
The thing that makes them Judeo Christian values is their source and that is the Ten Commandments. Both Christians and Jews hold these ten teachings as their standard. And the fact that other groups include some of them does not lessen a bit the singularity of the source of values for Jews and Christians. I do not think this applies to liberals or conservatives politically. Clearly both liberal and conservative individuals violate those rules (or suggestions as many have joked) regularly. I would not assume that someone who held the Ten in high esteem was conservative politically.
As several people have noted, "Judeo-Christian values" seems to refer to a set of values and ethical beliefs that Judaism and Christianity share. As Larry noted, this would include "honesty, respect for other people, respect for life, seeing war and violence as the "last resort", compassion and justice for the downtrodden, etc."
I would add two things.
First, I think people who use "Judeo-Christian values" are also referring to a set of values whose origin is a monotheistic God. So this would exclude the values of others who derive their values from other sources. These are distinctively theistic values.
Second, I think the 10 Commandments are NOT the basis of these values. Certainly many key ethical values are contained there (e.g., honor parents; don't murder, steal, or commit adultery). But it also includes things like observing the sabbath. This is quite important for the more conservative end of Judaism, but not as important for much of Christianity. And many important values are NOT in the 10 Commandments: love your neighbor as yourself, help others especially the most weak and vulnerable, give charity, be honest in business and personal dealings, be holy, etc.
I think the term is used either cynically or with little understanding, since few of the values that Jews and Christians share, that don't deal directly with religious rites and practices, aren't shared by others, whether they're monotheists, polytheists or atheists.
Also, it's used by conservatives to say that we should fight the war on terror, for example. Really? How is that relevant? Why is this something Jews and Christians (and not others) should believe in?
With all due respect, this post really comes across as uneducated. The term "Judeo-Christian" is used in rougly the same way that "Graeco-Roman" is used, to illustrate the historical continuity and similarities between two phenomena despite differences. One can easily imagine a Roman citizen criticizing the term "Graeco-Roman" by explaining numerous differences between their beliefs and customs, but that would appear trivial and provincial to a moderner who understood the context.
It is generally said that most of our Western tradition is derived from two traditions - Our Judeo-Christian heritage and our pagan or secular inheritance from Greece and Rome. (See, for instance, Russell Kirk's The Roots of American Order, although one could substitute almost any book on the topic since this is not a controversial position.)
In a recent article on the HBO series Rome, the writer Gerald J Russello illustrates how radical an impact Judeo-Christian values had on the West:
"The Romans did develop a legal culture that is the basis of the Western legal system, including notions of natural law and rights, but that system was harsh: Testimony from slaves in court, for example, was not admitted absent torture. It had not yet been enlightened through the principles of equity that would make their appearance with the Catholic Church’s canon law and admonitions of charity.
The brutality towards slaves evidenced in the show is echoed in its depiction of the family. Wives and children had almost as low a status as slaves, and again the show portrays harsh realities without exaggeration or superficiality. Husbands could, and did, beat their wives with impunity, their children were only extensions of the father’s will, and the wife was clearly not the equal partner. Marriage was a religious event, but not, as it would later become, a sacrament. Women without husbands would become destitute, be sold into slavery, or become prostitutes."
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmM0Y2FhNzFmODQxMTlkMjY4ODA3NDllOTU0NzlkOWU=
The blogger writes that everybody is opposed to murder and theft, implying that our Judeo-Christian inheritance is largely irrelevant. In fact, it was once acceptable to kill or steal from anybody not directly in your tribe. The poetry of Homer was once used as the moral edification of young Greeks the way Christians use the bible, and the acutal hero of The Odyssey (what we would today call an anti-hero)was a soldier-thief who bragged about ransacking towns and stealing whatever booty he could get away with. Nobody thought anything odd about that; It would not be until the triumph of Christianity that people began to internalize the belief that every human life had value because they were created in the image of God, and hence every human had natural rights - popularized in the Declaration of Independence. ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"). This belief led directly to the abolition of slavery, among a hundred other things.
Thanks for your comments, JGR, but I'm not sure if they directly respond to my point, which is that "Judeo-Christian values" is a vague phrase that seems to be used in under- and over-inclusive ways. For instance, it's regularly used to attack liberals in America, as well as the whole of Europe, even though many are religious, and certainly accept the concept of human rights which you believe comes from the "triumph of Christianity."
Instead, what you seem to be arguing is Athens versus Jerusalem, with a rather nasty twist against Athens. It'd be easy to attack Jerusalem the same way, I think, but that's not what this is about.
Since this post is getting old, I'll try to blog about this again in a day or two if you wish to repond.
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