What
does Judeo-Christian mean:
The
United States of America is the only country in history to have defined itself
as Judeo-Christian. While the Western world has consisted of many Christian
countries and consists today of many secular countries, only America has called
itself Judeo-Christian. America is also unique in that it has always combined
secular government with a society based on religious values.
But
what does "Judeo-Christian" mean? We need to know. Along with the belief in
liberty -- as opposed to, for example, the European belief in equality, the
Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern belief in social conformity --
Judeo-Christian values are what distinguish America from all other countries.
That is why American coins feature these two messages: "In God we trust" and
"Liberty."
Yet,
for all its importance and its repeated mention, the term is not widely
understood. It urgently needs to be because it is under ferocious assault, and
if we do not understand it, we will be unable to defend it. And if we cannot
defend it, America will become as amoral as France, Germany, Russia, et al.
First,
Judeo-Christian America has differed from Christian countries in Europe in at
least two important ways. One is that the Christians who founded America saw
themselves as heirs to the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, as much as to the
New. And even more importantly, they strongly identified with the Jews.
For
example, Thomas Jefferson wanted the design of the seal of the United States to
depict the Jews leaving Egypt. Just as the Hebrews left Egypt and its values,
Americans left Europe and its values (if only those who admire Jefferson would
continue to take his advice).
Founders
and other early Americans probably studied Hebrew, the language of the Old
Testament, at least as much as Greek, the language of the New. Yale, founded in
1701, adopted a Hebrew insignia, and Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until
1787. The words on the Liberty Bell, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land .
. . ," are from the Torah. Vast numbers of Americans took Hebrew names -- like
Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather (kattan in Hebrew means "little one" or
"younger").
The
consequences included a strong Old Testament view of the world -- meaning, in
part, a strong sense of fighting for earthly justice, an emphasis on laws, a
belief in a judging, as well as a loving and forgiving, God, and a belief in the
chosenness of the Jews which America identified with.
The
significance of this belief in American chosenness cannot be overstated.
It
accounts for the mission that Americans have uniquely felt called to -- to
spread liberty in the world.
This
sense of mission is why more Americans have died for the liberty of others than
any other nation's soldiers.
It
is why those who today most identify with the Judeo-Christian essence of America
are more likely to believe in the moral worthiness of dying to liberate
countries -- not only Europe, but Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. That is why America
stands alone in protecting two little countries threatened with extinction,
Israel and Taiwan. That is why conservative Americans are more likely to believe
in American exceptionalism -- in not seeking, as President Bush put it, a
"permission slip" from the United Nations, let alone from Europe.
The
second meaning of Judeo-Christian is a belief in the biblical God of Israel, in
His Ten Commandments and His biblical moral laws. It is a belief in universal,
not relative, morality. It is a belief that America must answer morally to this
God, not to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world.
That
is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values lead the fight against
redefining marriage. We believe that a pillar of Judeo-Christian values is to
encourage the man-woman sexual and marital ideal, and to provide children with
the opportunity to benefit from the unique gifts that a man and a woman give a
child, gifts that are never replicable by two men alone or two women.
That
is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values are unmoved by the idea that
the war in Iraq is moral if Germany, France, China and Russia say so, but
immoral if they oppose it. We ask first what God and the Bible would say about
liberating Iraq, not what Syria and other members of the U.N. Security Council
say.
That
is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values believe that war, while
always tragic, is on more than a few occasions a moral duty. Nothing "Judeo"
ever sanctioned pacifism. Of course, the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah yearned for the
day that nations will beat their swords into plowshares. But another Hebrew
Prophet, Joel, who is never cited by those who wish to read the secular value of
pacifism into the Bible, said precisely the opposite: "Beat your plowshares into
swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, 'I am
strong!'"
And
that is why those who want Judeo-Christian values to disappear from American
public life affirm multiculturalism, seek to remove mention of God from all
public life, and make Christmas a private, not a national, holiday.
The
battle over whether America remains Judeo-Christian or becomes secular like
Europe is what this, the Second American Civil War, is about.
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