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"Remember, when you get into heaven, it'll be by blood, but it'll be the blood of your Jewish ancestors, not a failed crucified savior."
That was one of the last things my Jewish grandmother told me before wanting nothing to do with me because I became a Christian. I've had mixed emotions for years when reflecting on my grandma's words.
In one sense, the comment created in me a hubris where I would think to myself, 'Well, if I got this Jesus thing wrong, at least I have my Jewish insurance to fall back on to ensure I'll get into heaven.' Other times, I felt sadness and shame because up until her death, my grandmother remained devoutly Jewish. Especially as an evangelical, I would feel guilt and shame that I wasn't able to 'save' her.
If what I was taught about Christianity was true, she is currently experiencing an eternity being consciously tormented in hell because she didn't put her faith in Jesus.
Living in the tension between Judaism and Christianity, both religions agreed that God had a chosen people. Within Judaism, it is all Jewish people; for Christians, it is the Church.
When we examine the Scriptures of the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), we find an evolution of God's tribal nature. The concept of God having a "chosen people" is the result of tribal religious identities by specific historical communities rather than the nature of God.
God's Tribal Origins
"Now the LORD said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" (Genesis 12:1-3, NRSV)
In the beginning, monotheism identifies God as a tribal deity who chooses a people to be his own based on ethnicity. When God first called Abram in Genesis 12:1-3, four arguments are used to claim God made Israel God's chosen people. The first is a divine call and command from God to Abram. The call is for Abram to leave his land and follow God; the command is that God desires a special relationship with Abram and his descendants.
The second claim is a promise made by God. God promises to create a great nation through Abram. This idea of God's nation-building is often seen as an explicit reference to God uniquely choosing the people who will become Israel.
The third and fourth arguments are that within the promise is a covenant made by God. The covenant is that God will bless Abram and his descendants. Finally, tied to this blessing is a universal blessing that through Abram's descendants' blessing, they will, in turn, bless the world.
These four claims working together have formed the historical notion that God has a chosen people, and if you're Jewish, you believe that chosen people are the Hebrews. However, within the Hebrew Bible, as the story of this covenant unfolds, we see cracks in the argument that Hebrews are God's chosen people.
One example is in Joshua 6, about a woman named Rahab (history has sadly labeled her 'the prostitute'). As the story goes, Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho, protects Israelite spies by hiding them and helping them escape, securing a promise that the Israelites will spare her family during the city's destruction. When the Israelites attacked Jericho, they honored the agreement, and Rahab's faith is later recognized in the genealogy of Jesus, highlighting her significance in biblical history.
Not only does the Hebrew Bible show Rahab and her family as being included with the people of the Hebrew people, but in Hebrews 11:31, we see Rahab praised by Christians for her faith. Where the Hebrew Bible shows cracks in the tribal nature of God choosing a select people based on ethnicity, the Christian Bible makes the cracks even larger by changing the definition of being chosen from an ethnic one to an exclusively religious one.
The Expanding Definition of 'God's Chosen'
From the inception of Christianity, the notion of God having a chosen people has persevered but has been modified from its Jewish origins. In the gospel of John, we see a new definition of what it means to be God's chosen;
"But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13, NRSV)
Christianity removed the prerequisite of needing to be ethnically Hebrew to be included as God's chosen. Christianity broadened the definition in one sense by arguing that your ethnicity doesn't limit your ability to be part of God's chosen people. In fact, the Christian Bible regularly argues for the acceptance of Jews and Gentiles within the Church.
Nowhere do we see the tearing down of this distinction more than in the writing of the Apostle Paul. In the book of Romans, we read Paul saying:
"For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:12-13, NRSV)
Though Christianity removed ethnic exclusivity as necessary to be part of God's chosen people, it replaced it with explicit faith in Jesus as the new prerequisite. Largely based on the writings of Paul, we have seen how theologians throughout church history have created narrower and narrower doctrines to limit which Christians are actually God's chosen.
From the time the Roman and Orthodox churches first split in the Great Schism, Christianity has used infighting and doctrinal differences to increasingly narrow who are those who genuinely follow Jesus. Nowhere in history has this splintering over who are indeed God's people than during the birth of Protestantism known as the Reformation.
Despite the evolution, Christianity brought an understanding of God as not being an ethnically tribal God; it failed to eradicate tribalism completely from God's nature. Instead, it simply changed God's tribalism from ethnicity to salvific exclusivity in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God Is Not Tribal
In the seventh century, God gave humanity another revelation that finally rooted out the notion that the creator God of the universe is in any way a tribal deity. It wasn't until I began reading the Quran and studying it for myself that I learned that God entirely eradicated all forms of tribalism.
When we look back at God's initial self-revelation in Genesis 12:1-3, we see that this revelation's root is humankind's universal blessing. In the Quran, we see the promotion of a vision of humanity that transcends ethnic or religious exclusivity. Instead, it focuses on faith and ethical behavior as the basis for one's standing before God.
Tragically, the version of Islam that most Americans are exposed to is the most fundamentalist and closed-minded stereotypical version of what Islam actually teaches. For example, the Quran says:
"Those who believe, including Jews, Christians, and Sabians — all who believe in God and the last day and do good works — they shall have a reward from their Lord, and they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve." (Sura 2:62, The Quran A Verse Translation)
This verse indicates that believers from various faiths can attain God's favor, reinforcing the idea that righteousness is the key criterion for divine acceptance. To reiterate the point that God is a God for all humanity, not a select few, we see in a later Sura:
"For each of you, We made a law and a path. If God had willed, He could have made you one people, but He would test you in what He has granted you: so compete in good works." (Sura 5:48, The Quran A Verse Translation)
What God is revealing in these verses is that if God had wanted one monotheistic faith, we would have a single monotheistic religion. Furthermore, God calls those who follow Judaism, Christianity, and Islam' people of the book.' These are distinct people with their own scriptures who are still identified as people of the book, not books. This means God sees the revelation of all three religions as including a through-line that points to the same creator, God.
My grandmother was a great woman who lived authentically based on her convictions. I no longer worry about where she is spending eternity but I do still grieve. I grieve for how hubris, the ideology that led her to believe she was special and chosen, impacted the way she viewed and treated other people. I grieve that our relationship was permanently impacted due to the divisiveness that is inherent in in-group and out-group thinking.
As people of faith, we have witnessed throughout history how religions have conquered, colonized, and caused suffering under the guise that destruction was justified in the name of being God's chosen people. Much of the pain and hardship in human history stems from an incomplete understanding of God as a deity for all of humanity. In the 21st century, we are called to educate ourselves about God's non-tribal nature. As we embrace this truth, let us actively pursue holistic righteousness, thriving, and justice for all.
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