What Unites People of Faith across Religions, and Divides Them from Others

In his stirring essay “The Message from Jerusalem,” Eric Cohen seems to intend two audiences: a Jewish audience and a Christian audience. The better to appreciate how the essay speaks to each audience, let me first try to identify the kind of Jews most likely to agree with Cohen and, conversely, the kind most likely to disagree, and similarly the kind of Christians most likely to agree and to disagree.

On theological-political issues—i.e., issues of faith and, especially, the place of faith in the public square—Jews likely to agree with Cohen have more in common with likeminded Christians than they do with unlikeminded fellow Jews; and the same is true on the Christian side, where, on these same issues, likeminded Christians have more in common with likeminded Jews than with unlikeminded fellow Christians.

This is emphatically not to say that such cross-religious agreement among the likeminded is apt to result in a giant leap into a syncretistic interfaith merger—for, as Cohen well puts it, “ultimate theological differences between Jews and Christians will never be resolved” (to which I’m tempted to add, “at least not in this world”). But I hope this little anatomy of Cohen’s intended readers will enable both friend and foe to recognize themselves more readily.