Philip Cunningham has made the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate an occasion to document and analyze the history, development, controversy, and prospects surrounding the “most profound change in the ordinary magisterium of the Church” to emerge from Vatican II. It is clear, judicious, thoroughly documented, and insightful. Built substantially on Cunningham's published work of the past two decades, which has been diligently refashioned to avoid the many potential pitfalls of a “collected works” book, Seeking Shalom is a coherent account of the main themes of the new Catholic theology of Jews and Judaism. It can serve well as an introduction to the field for the general reader, a college classroom, or a parish study group, and deserves a place on clergy bookshelves as a summary of matters that remain crucial in the church's continuing engagement with its own history and with religious pluralism.
Cunningham divides the book into two parts: Scripture and theology. Each part surveys foundational documents and statements and follows with several case studies on the central issues. The Nostra Aetate “move” is situated in relation to preconciliar shifts in biblical hermeneutics and the more authoritative teachings in Dei Verbum and Lumen Gentium. Cunningham then traces the move through subsequent papal, curial, and episcopal elaborations, buttressing his assertion that the changes are real and irreversible.
The key themes with which Cunningham presents the new theology are the historical-critical, contextual “actualization” of Scripture, with an emphasis on the Jewishness of both Jesus and Paul; living Judaism's continuing experience of God in a redemptive covenantal relationship; a futurist eschatology that leaves (remarkably) open the possibilities for fulfillment in both Jewish and Christian perspectives; and a relational theology that is grounded in a philosophical shift from ontological to historical categories and suggests a theological method of “mutuality.” Key quotations and themes from Nostra Aetate and the subsequent interpretive Guidelines (1974) and Notes (1985) ring through the book as a refrain.
The case studies give attention to Paul's Letter to the Romans, the gospel presentations of Judaism, the Passion narratives, Matthew's Christology, the “master narrative” of the Christian story, the relationship of Jews to the triune God of Christianity, and biblical land promises in relation to the State of Israel. In these and elsewhere, virtually every point of friction or dispute in Christian-Jewish relations is treated (my list grew to more than three dozen; a thorough index would have made the book a more effective reference). Cunningham's positive theological agenda and the scope of coverage in a manageable book mean that some controversies and nuances have had to be left aside, but only occasionally is the reader left in the dark that deeper issues are at stake. Often, one can hear Cunningham responding to one or another contrary position with regard to a controversial issue, without that other voice having been brought into the conversation.
The focus is kept close on Catholic thought. While that lets Cunningham make his case within a delimited theological system, Protestant and Orthodox readers may find the argumentation by turns unnecessary or irrelevant in their own communities. Generally, the benefit outweighs the cost.
Cunningham struggles most with the issues of Christ's universal saving significance and the biblical land promise. This is unsurprising, as these are the two points on which Christian supersessionism has most directly challenged the legitimacy of Jewish identity. His work on the first delves deeply into Catholic categories, to the degree that one wonders, with his colleague Adam Gregerman, what Jews are to do with the ideas. His work on the second is plainly still in progress, though one wishes he had at least given his assessment of the cited effort by Richard Lux to articulate a Catholic theology of the land.
That Cunningham has and will have more to say on all of this is clear: his 1995 textbook study, work on Passion presentations, leadership of the Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today project, and continuing leadership of Promise, Land, and Hope get due notice and offer more extensive coverage of the pertinent issues. One could hardly ask for anything more than this as a mile marker and blaze on the trail at this moment fifty years on from Nostra Aetate.
