The premier speaker for the Interfaith Religious Literacy Center is Vanderbilt University New Testament Professor Amy-Jill Levine, who will be speaking at several venues in Kansas City about religious diversity and interfaith dialogue
The Interfaith Religious Literacy Center is a new project of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}The literacy center’s goal is to help people learn about other faith traditions and to know their own more deeply so people can get along together without fearing one another, according to Bill Tammeus, former Kansas City Star columnist who is on the literacy center’s planning committee.
The center’s message is that religious literacy is necessary to enable us to live in more religious harmony in order to avoid the kind of misunderstandings and ignorance that can lead to fear and even violence.
“Our first major public process is to bring in Amy-Jill Levine,” said Tammeus. “She will be addressing Christian clergy. Jill herself is Jewish although she teaches the New Testament, so within her there is this kind of interfaith stuff going on.”
Literacy center members don’t yet know whether this project will be an online presence only (which they have yet to create) or will turn into a physical presence where people can go to learn, check out material and attend seminars. But regardless, Tammeus said religious literacy is a requirement for interfaith dialogue.
“If Jews and Christians, Christians and Muslims, and Buddhists and Hindus are going to talk with one another and find common ground to work together on things and live together, they need to first of all understand their own tradition, be able to describe it and talk to others about why they are Hindus, why they are Jews, why they are Presbyterians,” he said.
“And it’s that literacy that allows interfaith dialogue to grow into something that’s meaningful. Otherwise you have interfaithless dialogue; you have people with a nominal commitment to some tradition who get together and agree on stuff they would have agreed upon anyway. Interfaith dialogue is hard and it takes time and to really get into it in a deep and serious way, you have to gain some religious literacy that allows that to happen.”
Visiting speaker Levine said she encourages interfaith dialogue in order to “understand our neighbors, and in the conversation, to understand more about ourselves.”
On the panel Oct. 22 there will be Christians, Jews and Muslims. How will Muslims feel about a speaker versed in the New Testament? According to Tammeus a little known fact is that Jesus is Islam’s second most important prophet and there are more references to Jesus’s mother Mary in the Quran than in the New Testament.
“There are certainly theological differences between Christianity and Islam, but there is a lot of common ground as well and I think it would behoove Muslims in this country, who live in a country that is predominately Christian, to better understand Christians, just as it behooves Christians and Jews who have lived here for a long time to better understand Muslims,” Tammeus said.
‘Understanding Jesus Means Understanding Judaism’
While it may seem unusual for a Jew to study the New Testament, Levine, who is an Orthodox Jew, has always been interested in Christianity. She grew up in a predominantly Portuguese Catholic neighborhood and admired the traditions: the Christmas story and carols, beautiful churches, accounts of saints, the Dominican sisters who lived down the street. Then, she said, a little girl accused her of having killed her Lord.
“I could not fathom how this lovely tradition was saying hateful things about Jews. So I started to ask questions,” she said.
One of Levine’s events is a workshop for clergy called “Understanding Jesus Means Understanding Judaism.” She believes it’s important to learn the New Testament because it is part of Jewish history. Its major figures are all Jews, so to study the Christian Bible is to learn about first century Judaism and to ignore that is to risk misunderstanding what the New Testament says.
“Jewish history has been substantially impacted by select and often negative Christian interpretation of the New Testament,” she said. “Studying these interpretations helps locate sources of anti-Jewish prejudice and can correct and even prevent it. There is much in the text that is profound and inspirational. One does not have to worship Jesus as lord and savior to appreciate much of his message.”
Alan Edelman, associate executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, said because Jesus was Jewish, his message was Jewish. It was Paul and the apostles who at a certain point took the teachings of Jesus in a different direction, which is what Levine focuses on. Christianity, he said, should never have been anti-Jewish — but it became more political than religious, for centuries perpetuating the idea that the Jews killed Jesus because the Jews didn’t accept Jesus.
“Whenever a religion talks about killing another because they don’t believe, that’s no longer the religion, that’s politics, because every religion says we should recognize that we’re created in the image of God and therefore should not kill each other,” Edelman said.
He goes on to say that many Jews have a difficult time with Christianity because of the politics and anti-Semitism over the centuries that was perpetuated by the Catholic Church, and there are still fundamentalist white Supremacists using Christianity to justify being anti-Jewish.
“I think today it’s much less true than it was centuries ago certainly,” Edelman said. “As more Christians, including the Catholic Church, reject [anti-Semitism] and don’t teach that concept anymore, by and large most Jews and Christians respect each other and you don’t have the anti-Jewish sentiment in the Catholic Church anymore, at least as far as formal teaching. Unfortunately you still have people who don’t want to let go of the old.”
Edelman said Levine is very much focused on interfaith work and understanding. “Her specialty is identifying those places in the New Testament that were clearly anti-Jewish, more for political reasons to perpetuate a new faith and distance themselves from Judaism.”
Levine presentation schedule
The Interfaith Religious Literacy Center has invited Vanderbilt New Testament Professor Amy-Jill Levine to speak in Kansas City this month. Levine’s visit is sponsored by Oppenstein Brothers UMKC Judaic Studies Outreach Program Fund. All events are open to the public.
• 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, Central branch of the Kansas City Public Library, 14 W. 10th St., based on her book “Short Stories by Jesus.” Go to http://www.kclibrary.org for more information and to RSVP.
• 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, dinner and program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Levine will discuss why interfaith dialogue and religious literacy are crucial in America’s religiously pluralistic society. People representing different faith traditions will respond to her remarks as part of a panel moderated by the Rev. Brian Ellison. Details about dinner reservations and costs are available at www.americanpublicsquare.org.
• 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, Shabbat service at Temple Israel. Levine will speak about her work as a Jewish scholar who teaches the New Testament. The synagogue meets at Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church, 9300 Nall Avenue, Overland Park.
•Noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, Second Presbyterian Church, 318 E. 55th Street, Kansas City, Mo. Levine will address Christian clergy and educators on the topic, “Understanding Jesus Means Understanding Judaism.” To reserve a space at a noon luncheon, noon to 12:30 p.m., call the church office at 816-363-1300. Luncheon space is limited.
• 11 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, Strangers No More will host Levine at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, 13720 Roe Avenue (http://www.cor.org) in Leawood. Call 913-897-0120 for more information.
Events are free, with the exception of a modest fee to cover a meal.
Strangers No More hosts professor Oct. 25
Strangers No More, a group composed of Jewish and Christian women, studied Professor Levine’s book, “The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus,” earlier this year. According to Judy Hellman, one of the groups co-conveners, Levine’s book provided a new understanding and a different way of looking at Jesus’ life as a Jew.
“Having been made aware of the Strangers No More project, Dr. Levine wanted to include in her busy schedule this stop at Resurrection, where The United Methodist Women of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection are co-sponsors of SNM, along with the Jewish Community Relations Bureau|American Jewish Committee,” Hellman said.
Strangers No More has been holding programs and informal coffee and conversation sessions since July of 2014. The goals of the group are to: construct paths to understanding, build bridges through developing relationships, develop new understandings of what it means to be citizens of a loving community created in the Image of God, and pursue the possibility of future events and ways to unite and work together to make a difference in our own lives and in our community. The group is open to Jewish and Christian women in our community who share these goals.
COR’s Wesley Chapel seats approximately 350, but since this program will be open to the public, it is suggested that you make plans early to attend this session. Since worship service will be going on at the same time, it is also suggested that more parking will be available on Roe, south of 135th east or south of the building.
You may read more about Strangers No More on Facebook by entering the name under “Groups.” For further information: contact Judy Hellman, or Nancy Brown, .{/mprestriction}
