What Happens to Philo-Semitism If Christians Become Biblically Illiterate?

Reading Wilfred McClay’s “What Christians See in Jews and Israel in 2020 of the Common Era” reminded me of Father Matthew’s arrival in south Louisiana.

A few years back, I was part of a small group of Eastern Orthodox Christians who started a mission parish here in my hometown. Orthodox Christians are thin on the ground in the Deep South, and we had to call a priest from up North. Life in a small Mississippi River town proved quite an adjustment for our Yankee priest. Shortly after he arrived, he took his golden-threaded vestments—the most elaborate of all Christian traditions—to a dry cleaner in town. When he laid them out on the counter, the African-American clerk exclaimed, “Oooh! Those look like they got God all over them!”

The young black woman asked Father Matthew about the meaning of the vestments. He began to explain that the symbolism is drawn from the Hebrew Bible’s description of the vestments worn by priests engaged in the Temple service. To the cleric’s utter astonishment, the woman, with nothing but a high-school education, began to discourse with him about the relevant passages from what Christians call the Old Testament.