"Indeed if we Christians so tell our story that Judaism is silenced, then we have not spoken rightly of Christ"
About this Quote
A quiet reprimand sits inside Radcliffe's conditional: "if... then". He doesn't merely warn against bad interfaith manners; he suggests a theological failure. The line takes aim at a familiar Christian habit: narrating Jesus in a way that treats Judaism as prologue, a hushed stage cleared once the main character arrives. Radcliffe flips that logic. If Christian preaching "silences" Judaism, it's not Judaism that's been defeated - it's Christ who's been misrepresented.
The intent is corrective and strategic. Coming out of late-20th-century Catholic rethinking after Vatican II, this is the language of post-supersessionism: Christianity cannot be told as a triumphal overwrite of Jewish life without becoming a distortion of its own origins. Radcliffe's phrasing "so tell our story" is telling. He's not arguing over doctrine in the abstract; he's diagnosing storytelling - the rhetorical choices, the metaphors, the sermon shortcuts that turn neighbors into foils.
Subtext: Christians are tempted to make coherence out of contrast. It's narratively satisfying to cast Judaism as the "before" and Christianity as the "after". Radcliffe calls that satisfaction suspect. To silence Judaism is to edit out the Jewishness of Jesus, the ongoing covenantal reality of the people Jesus belonged to, and the uncomfortable fact that Christianity is, historically, a latecomer that never fully escaped its parent tradition.
The force of the sentence is its standard of truth: "spoken rightly of Christ". Not "politely", not "tolerantly". Orthodoxy, for Radcliffe, includes refusing a story that requires someone else's erasure to make sense.
The intent is corrective and strategic. Coming out of late-20th-century Catholic rethinking after Vatican II, this is the language of post-supersessionism: Christianity cannot be told as a triumphal overwrite of Jewish life without becoming a distortion of its own origins. Radcliffe's phrasing "so tell our story" is telling. He's not arguing over doctrine in the abstract; he's diagnosing storytelling - the rhetorical choices, the metaphors, the sermon shortcuts that turn neighbors into foils.
Subtext: Christians are tempted to make coherence out of contrast. It's narratively satisfying to cast Judaism as the "before" and Christianity as the "after". Radcliffe calls that satisfaction suspect. To silence Judaism is to edit out the Jewishness of Jesus, the ongoing covenantal reality of the people Jesus belonged to, and the uncomfortable fact that Christianity is, historically, a latecomer that never fully escaped its parent tradition.
The force of the sentence is its standard of truth: "spoken rightly of Christ". Not "politely", not "tolerantly". Orthodoxy, for Radcliffe, includes refusing a story that requires someone else's erasure to make sense.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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