Religious Foundations of Western Civilization: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (review)

With Religious Foundations of Western Civilization, Jacob Neusner has assembled a substantial volume of writings, from a dozen contributors, on the three monotheistic religions of the West—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The essays in this book cover historical, theological, and philosophical topics, and consider each religion in itself as well as the historical interaction of the three religions in the context of Western civilization. Shaded sections include excerpts from important primary sources, from antiquity to the recent past.

Neusner has navigated a sensitive topic with brilliance and sensitivity: each of these religious traditions is treated fairly and respectfully, yet without omitting the historical blemishes on each tradition's record.

Students doubtless think of these three religions as inveterate antagonists, or at least inherently unfriendly. But in his discussion of Averroes, Maimonides, and Aquinas, Seymour Feldman reminds readers that "during the medieval period there existed a continuous and mutually profitable conversation amongst some of the intellectual giants of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (p. 209). (The essay is followed by excerpts from Averroes' Decisive Treatise, Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, and Aquinas' Summa Theologica.) At a stroke, Feldman addresses the myth—still widespread among students and the general public—of the intellectually moribund Middle Ages and demonstrates the possibility of fruitful intellectual exchange among representatives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

A section on "Zionism, Imperialism, and Nationalism" includes essays entitled "Zionism," "Christian Imperialism," and "Political Islam." Of particular note is Neusner's sound and dispassionate overview of Zionism, a phenomenon that initially attracted the opposition of Orthodox and Reform Judaism, both of which viewed the Zionist program as a secularization of the divine promise that the Jews would one day be restored to the land. Neusner concludes that there is "no more probative evidence" of the ongoing significance of religion in Western civilization than this fact: "Much of the history of the West from World War II to the present would be written in the conflict between Zionism and the State of Israel and Arab nationalism and the state of Palestine" (p. 388).

Toward the book's close we are treated to three worthwhile studies regarding the "modernization"—an unfortunate, ideologically loaded term—of each of these religions over the past several centuries. Islam comes under particular scrutiny here, largely by way of the primary sources for this section, which include an eighteen-page excerpt from the writings of Fazlur Rahman, the Islamic modernist who was forced to flee Pakistan in 1968 because of the hostility his views incited.

Finally, we conclude with a discussion of modern ecumenism. In Bruce Chilton's essay, subtitled "Christianity Meets Other Religions," we have the book's weakest contribution. Caught outside his area of specialty, Chilton discusses nineteenth-century economic history as if the great standard-of-living debate had never occurred and R. M. Hartwell had never taken up his pen, and his coverage of Vatican Council II, necessarily brief, is superficial.

Worse, we do not actually read anything in the essay about Christianity's meetings with other religions—quite an interesting topic, that—apart from a couple of throwaway lines in the concluding paragraph and a brief reference to "militant Islam" as allegedly "a direct consequence of Christian policies of war and oppression" (p. 616). Although Islamic anger today may be attributable, at least in part, to Western and particularly American foreign policy, that policy is neither presented nor conceived of as expressly "Christian." And if Chilton is instead making oblique reference to the Crusades, they were such a minor event in Islamic history that as recently as the eighteenth century hardly any Muslim at all would have heard of them.

Still, the excellent essays, well-chosen primary sources, and useful discussion questions make Religious Foundations of Western Civilization ideal for course...