Abstract
AbstractThis article discusses a reorientation of supersessionist postures in German and Dutch Protestant reflection on emerging nation states in the nineteenth-century. Historically, Christian thought often othered “the Jew” as the “nascent Christian.” Since the seventeenth-century, Protestant theologians also entertained the possibility of theological othering on the basis of the legalism of the Mosaic covenant, of which ancient biblical Israel and its cultural liturgies were regarded as a token. In the context of the modern nation, German and Dutch Protestant thought entertained this typological othering of biblical nationhood to construct the modern Jew as “Gentile” to the modern nation. As “Gentile,” “the Jew” remains the embodiment of the ultimate other, yet as “nascent Christian,” modern Jews begin to face an unrelenting demand to assimilate. This conundrum contributed to a fundamental tension in the imaginary of the nation, namely between patterns of othering and structures of belonging, echoing far beyond antisemitism, and especially in patterns of othering that are inherent to racism and Islamophobia.
Highlights
Imaginaries of the nation have historically been imbued with supersessionist narratives: the status and normativity of the Old Testament have been central in theo-political discourses on the nation and its others
As “Gentile,” “the Jew” remains the embodiment of the ultimate other, yet as “nascent Christian,” modern Jews begin to face an unrelenting demand to assimilate. This conundrum contributed to a fundamental tension in the imaginary of the nation, namely between patterns of othering and structures of belonging, echoing far beyond antisemitism, and especially in patterns of othering that are inherent to racism and Islamophobia
It does so on the basis of two metaphors that are projected on the modern Jew: “the Jew” as “nascent Christian,” and “the Jew” as “Gentile.” “The Jew” as “nascent Christian” derives from the canonical tradition: canonical toleration, which formed the basis of early modern Christian thought on coexistence, understood and conditioned the toleration of Jews as a means to their eventual conversion and their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.[2]
Summary
Imaginaries of the nation have historically been imbued with supersessionist narratives: the status and normativity of the Old Testament have been central in theo-political discourses on the nation and its others. This exploration is mirrored by a discussion of nationhood in relation to the Old Testament in the clash between the Dutch Reformed theologians Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) and Philippus Hoedemaker (1839–1910).
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