This one is the most disturbing of all.

I have heard this sermon a few times now. It goes something like this:

Jesus loves and welcomes everyone. He even loves and welcomes even those people that the Jews did not love and welcome (instances of these excluded persons are sometimes provided at this point). God’s mercy in Jesus is enormous. It’s much bigger than the Old Testament’s vision of Israel’s privileged place in God’s plan. Israel had to be broken open in order to include everyone just the way Jesus wanted to include them all. We Christians must include everyone too. We must not shut anyone out or we risk being like the Pharisees that Jesus criticized. We do not follow Deuteronomic or Levitical exclusions anymore: everyone is in.

Do you see it? It’s subtle. It’s insidious. And it has happened before: it’s pretty much the history of the nineteenth century. In the name of toleration and progress, a supercessionist attitude towards the Old Testament is adopted, and a Marcionite preference for the New emerges. The Jews as a race are included and tolerated—but the Jews’ religion is not.

It would be heavy-handed to push this point much further. All I will say is this: does anyone remember what followed the progressive toleration of the nineteenth century, vis-à-vis Israel?