By George W. Cornell, Associated Press

Although scarcely noticed by many believers, a drastic, basic turn-around in Christian history is seen in the churches' newly recognized ties to Judaism.

The change has confronted the church with a "serious identity crisis" demanding some radical rethinking of what the church is, says the Rev. Paul M. Van Buren, a noted theologian of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Contray to the churches' centuries-old teachings that God had "cast off his people Israel" and replaced them with a "new Israel," Van Buren says churches now affirm that "the covenant between God and the Jewish people is eternal."

"This amazing reversal has been made by Protestants and Catholics, and on both sides of the Atlantic," he told a Christian-Jewish conference in Dallas last week on theological education.

The turnabout has occurred during the past 20 years through official declarations of Roman Catholicism's Second Vatican Council and by international and national councils of Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and other churches.

Van Buren said this jolting modern action has turned Christianity "180 degrees around, right at its stuffiest, most bureaucratic center ... (God) has made use of popes, cardinals, bishops, presidents and members of church synods and all sorts of such ecclesiastical stuffed shirts, and he has led them to reverse what the church had been saying about him for 18 centuries."

The unusual Dallas conference brought together Christian and Jewish professors and some Students from a half dozen Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish seminaries.

It was sponsored by the Council of Southwestern Theological Schools and the American Jewish Committee.

Van Buren, an Episcopalian and specialist in theological linguistics, said the new situation is far more basic than mere dialogue or just "being nice to Jews."

He said it involves recognition of "the fact that the church is nothing other than the community of Gentiles who have been called by and who worship the God of Israel."

The church's new awareness poses an "ultimate identity crisis," he said, adding, "If the covenant of Sinai is still in force, then what is the church?"

He suggested the "Church will have to see itself as the community of Gentiles who have been gathered by the Holy Spirit of the God of Israel to worship and serve him in Jesus Christ."

This doesn't mean any lessening of "Christology" — God's manifestation in Jesus Christ — but emphasis on it as "the decision of the God of Israel to reconcile us Gentiles to himself" through Christ, Van Buren said.

Concerning Jesus' saying that only through him can people come to the Father Van Buren notes the view that the "Jewish people do not have to come to the Father because they are already and always with him."

Irving, Texas, just outside of Dallas, was the scene of "A Seminarians,' Conference on Jewish-Christian Relations", sponsored by The Council of Southwestern Theological Schools and the American Jewish Committee, Jan. 10-12, 1983. The host was Holy Trinity Seminary on the campus of the University of Dallas.

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