# Judeo-Christianity **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966 "2012-02-06T11:37:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/1 "2012-02-06T11:37:45Z")
What is this “Judeo-Christianity” I’m starting to hear so much about from the USA? The Jewish influence on European history and culture has been negligible, beyond what was contributed through the formation of Christianity. And that’s already mentioned in the second term. And certainly less than the input from for instance paganism. And nobody is speaking of our Pagan-Christian culture. Or does the term Judeo-Christianity merely refer to some common shared political interests in the present time? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/2 "2012-02-06T11:44:34Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > What is this “Judeo-Christianity” I’m starting to hear so much about from the USA? The Jewish influence on European history and culture has been negligible, beyond what was contributed through the formation of Christianity. And that’s already mentioned in the second term. And certainly less than the input from for instance paganism. And nobody is speaking of our Pagan-Christian culture. Or does the term Judeo-Christianity merely refer to some common shared political interests in the present time? I think part of it is that they (unlike Islam) share part of their holy book (i.e. the OT), so yeah, you could see it as about the formation of Christianity. It is used in that historic sense in academia. But I think it’s mostly [a US term](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion) designed not to alienate the substantial Jewish US minority when referring to the shared US heritage. And no, there hasn’t been a substantial Jewish influence on culture (as opposed to influential Jews, of which there’ve been plenty), but you can’t really compare it to Paganism - Judaism is still around, Paganism, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/3 "2012-02-06T11:57:38Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Or does the term Judeo-Christianity merely refer to some common shared political interests in the present time? More like a way of dealing with the tendency of believers to shift the definitions of whatever god they are speaking of, either to dodge arguments or for “gotcha” points . “Judeo-Christianity” is broad enough to make that harder. ---
**Author:** ![dorsk188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@dorsk188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorsk188)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/4 "2012-02-06T11:57:39Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > And nobody is speaking of our Pagan-Christian culture. They certainly should do. Classical Greeks had an immense amount of influence over modern western culture (and over Jewish culture back in the day, as well.) The existence of the term Judea-Christian can be explained thus: There is a separation of church and state in the United States, but for a long time, that really only prevented individual denominations of Christianity from being cited as authoritative in popular culture. People largely assumed everyone was a Christian (and probably a Protestant). As immigrants arrived and we became a more pluralistic and enlightened society, people realized they couldn’t just appeal to the common “Christianness” of the country (both because it wasn’t uniformly Christian and because Christianity became one sect of many recognized legitimate religions), so they brought in Judeo- to try to make the case that the culture _was_ non-sectarian, but still pretty much Christian, too. It’s pretty much Christian policies saying they have a Jewish friend, so it can’t be sectarian. For the most part, I don’t hear Jews use the term, at all, (unless they are hired by a conservative organization to serve as their non-Christian legitimizer). The reason they chose Jewish is because Christianity is essentially a wacky, idolatrous, laughably misguided, evangelical Jewish cult of personality. Though it has a long history of its own, Christianity is rooted in Judaism and any attempts to cut those ties were unsuccessful. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/5 "2012-02-06T13:23:40Z")
The very first Christians were Jews, that accepted Jesus as the Messiah. They still followed the Jewish law, until Paul’s time, he and Peter argued about weither theyshould still eat Kosher,then God was supposed to have sent Peter a vision and changed that! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/6 "2012-02-06T14:31:34Z")
Like many neologisms, Judeo-Christian (sometimes Judaeo-Christian), has meant a number of different things over many years. Various Christian writers have used that term, (or one like it), to point to the Jewish roots of Christianity for several hundred years–sometimes in approbation and sometimes in condemnation. It entered U.S. conversations in the 1940s when groups, particularly the _National Conference of Christians and Jews_\*, used the term to indicate that Jews and Christians had a common tradition that should be recognized with mutual respect in the face of the anti-semitism of the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. More recently, the term has been dusted off and employed by the Religious Right to emphasize the “union” of Judaism and Christianity that will permit them to exclude Islam (particularly) or Buddhism, Hinduism, or other belief systems that are not regarded as sufficiently (European originating) “American” while avoiding charges of anti-semitism by including Judaism in the term. The earlier, (1940s), meaning has not disappeared from American discourse, so to understand what is meant, one needs to know the speaker of the term and how it is being employed. It has not yet become a code word for anti-European xenophobia, (although some authors use it that way), so its appearance in an article or conversation only reinforces other statements made by the author without indicating, by itself, the author’s intentions. \*The NCCJ was founded in the late 1920s when the Klan was very active persecuting both Catholics and Jews. They began to use the term Judeo-Christian in the 1940s. In the 1990s, the group renamed themselves the National Conference for Community and Justice, after having moved away from a specifically religious base as religious persecution diminished from the 1960s through the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/7 "2012-02-06T15:10:39Z")
[Wikipedia on the subject.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian) Apparently, the term goes back the early 1800s. I think for most Christians who use the term it boils down to The Ten Commandments and The Old Testament Bible Stories we all learn as kids (Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, etc.) for the Judeo- part. Those stories are meant to teach certain moral lessons, and that becomes part of our culture, even if you’re not particularly religious. Not altogether different from the common fairly tales we learn as kids (Hansel and Gretel, Pinoccio, etc.). I’m an atheist and have been one since I was a teenager, but I still feel like I am culturally part of this Judea-Christian society. It’s what I grew up in. And I can do pretty well on the OT and NT Jeopardy questions! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/8 "2012-02-06T17:10:18Z")
It’s a manufactured term. In addition to wiki, here’s an [article](http://www.donmburrows.com/2012/01/non-existent-judeo-christian-tradition.html) via slacktivist. > [@](#): > > In short, the “Judeo-Christian tradition” is a manufactured tradition from the 1950s. It was at the time, and remains today, a right-wing political term, not at all a descriptor of any real, singular tradition, much less one that stretches back through the founding of the American republic and into the first century. > > snip > > Even as early as the 1960s, Arthur Cohen was writing a series of essays that would eventually be published together as [The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition](http://books.google.com/books?id=srbXAAAAMAAJ&q=cohen+myth+of+the+judeo-christian+tradition&dq=cohen+myth+of+the+judeo-christian+tradition&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yQskT52KOIjY0QGF7P2HCQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA). > snip > In light of that real and unfortunate history, one might be tempted to think of the “Judeo-Christian tradition” as a good thing – a Jewish-Christian reconciliation that opens up the American heritage beyond Christianity to Jews as well, who have been a part of this country since the 17th century. But the phrase has not typically been used inclusively. Rather, it has been used exclusively, as a way to define America against atheistic communists or, more recently, against Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/9 "2012-02-06T17:59:50Z")
Yes, historically Jews have been the leading group standing up for the separation of church and state in America. When politicians, judges, and teachers start preaching about “Christian America” and blurring that important distinction, it was individual Jews, Jewish groups, and civil liberties groups with high Jewish representation who did the incredibly difficult work of defending the Constitution in court. So, now, Christian supremacists think that by giving token linguistic inclusion to Jews, they can go back to the plan to demolish American secularism that they’ve always been interested in it. One hopes the growing numbers of Muslims and atheists take up the mantle of stopping them, in addition to the majority of Jews who still aren’t interested in the right wing’s nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/10 "2012-02-06T18:26:58Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It’s a manufactured term. In addition to wiki, here’s an [article](http://www.donmburrows.com/2012/01/non-existent-judeo-christian-tradition.html) via slacktivist. Are there terms that are not manufactured? Someone, at some point, invented every term that hadn’t been used be for. Saying it’s “manufactured” is like saying cities are built. So what? The question is, is it a useful term. People seem to find it to be. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/11 "2012-02-07T09:25:41Z")
Christians seem to find it to be. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/12 "2012-02-07T13:44:35Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It’s a manufactured term. As opposed to what, the terms that grow on trees? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/13 "2012-02-07T14:01:48Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Are there terms that are not manufactured? Someone, at some point, invented every term that hadn’t been used be for. Saying it’s “manufactured” is like saying cities are built. So what? The question is, is it a useful term. People seem to find it to be. Okay, it’s a term that describes an artificial = manufactured history, coined by a specific group to further their agenda. As opposed to terms that describe correctly a historic development or movement; terms that are coined by the general population, by oppressed minorities during their fight or by experts to distinguish different items. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/14 "2012-02-07T14:13:22Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Okay, it’s a term that describes an artificial = manufactured history, coined by a specific group to further their agenda. OK, that’s a little better. Now, where’s the proof to back that up? ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/15 "2012-02-07T15:04:00Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, that’s a little better. Now, where’s the proof to back that up? Do I understand this right… you are really asking for a proof of a manufactured history in which society shares Jewish and Christian values? It’s in fact laughable to even mention the phrase without chuckling on the immediate and obvious thought obstacle named… khm… Jesus. Or, more boldly, you are asking for a proof to back up a claim where a phrase is used to further specific political agenda? In both cases, proofs are so self-evident if only one looks at last 2000 years of shared Christian and Jewish history or more recently Neocon-Evangelical movement. If anything, Muslim faith borrows more strictly from Judaism albeit they may differ in implementation and the current metaphysical (and real) conflict between the two is only more recent when compared to conflict of the former two. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/16 "2012-02-07T15:32:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, that’s a little better. Now, where’s the proof to back that up? If the article I linked to and the Wikipedia articles didn’t convince you, what else do you want? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/17 "2012-02-07T15:48:39Z")
I’m guessing “something other than a blog”. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/18 "2012-02-07T19:10:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m guessing “something other than a blog”. You mean, like the books mentioned in the article? Or papers presented at a conference? Or are all blogs the same regardless of author? I see we are playing the cite game again, aren’t you. Goodbye. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/19 "2012-02-07T20:04:49Z")
Here’s another [writer](http://www.spiritual-politics.org/2011/01/hating_on_the_judeo-christian_tradition.html) who seeks to rebut Cohen on the origins of the term. According to this writer, the term’s modern usage came about in the 1930s as an anti-fascist rubric, emphasizing the commonality between Jews and Christians at a time when Jews were under increasing attack by the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966/20 "2012-02-09T17:12:06Z")
I stumbled on [this book (pdf)](http://www.churchathome.org/pdf/Judaism--Revelation%20of%20Moses%20or%20Religion%20of%20Men.pdf) by chance (searching “Revelation of Moses”). Appendix six is about the “Judeo-Christian Myth” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judeo-christianity/611966.md?page=2)