Christians and Jews: Competitive Siblings or the Israel of God?

Dabru Emet, the important statement by Jewish scholars on the religious significance of Christianity and the Jewish relation to the Church, stimulated an articulate debate among Jews: Jon Levenson fears that the anodyne character of Dabru Emet lacks a conceptually coherent pluralism and commits Jews to positions which alter the fundamental character of Judaism. Does dialogical engagement with another tradition substantially modify the features of a religion? The Christian theologian Paul van Buren outlines three stages in the relationship of the two faiths which seem to lead to radical revision, certainly of Christianity. Van Buren's approach raises the question of the weighting accorded to different 'moments' in the dynamic of revelation springing from Israel. If Christianity is 'reconfigured Judaism', and the relation to Judaism is at the heart of Christian identity, then the two traditions exercise a conjoined, single mission on behalf of the truth of God. Israel according to the flesh and the community of reconfigured Israel are two communities, focused upon different but inseparable moments in 'the design of the Lord of the covenant', which might be designated as 'the Israel of God'.