I believe that both history and theology offer warrants for respecting the belief and practice of Jews rather than seeking their conversion to Christianity. Yes, I know in John\u2019s Gospel Jesus says, \u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life\u201d\u009d (xiv, 6). I know that in Matthew\u2019s Gospel Jesus mandates, \u201cGo therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . .\u201d\u009d (xxviii, 19). But we should not read these texts without attentiveness to how we have used them against Jews (and others as well). In the nearly 2,000 years since the evangelists wrote these texts, Christians have vilified Judaism and persecuted Jews as \u201cChrist killers\u201d\u009d. Ours is a shameful history: denigration of a people, compulsory baptisms, the crusades and Inquisition, confining Jews in ghettos and attacking them in pogroms. Particularly after the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered in the most barbaric ways, we must not use our sacred texts in ways that would mean the end of Judaism. Yet to seek conversion of Jews to Christianity is ultimately to seek Judaism\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n
It is fundamental to Christianity that God entered into covenant with the Jewish people \u201d\u201d a covenant that, as Pope John Paul II said many times, was \u201cnever revoked\u201d\u009d. God is faithful to covenants, and, therefore, the way of Judaism is salvific for Jews. Torah is a path to holiness.<\/p>\n