Johnny Hart’s contribution to Easter was his "B.

Monday, June 04, 2001

Johnny Hart’s contribution to Easter was his "B.C." comic strip that pictures a menorah being replaced by a cross. A lot of ink was spilled in an attempt to recharacterize the piece as an anti-Semitic attack, an assertion that Christianity had extinguished Judaism. It is nothing of the sort, either by Hart’s intent or objective reading. Zealous efforts to combat intolerance become counter-productive and dishonor the concept of tolerance when what is no more than political correctness itself becomes intolerant.

I had seen the prepublication protest of the strip and was prepared for the worst. It never came. Rather, it is simply a menorah, a seven-branched candlestick of Hebrew and Jewish tradition, pictured burning. (I have one such, which I acquired in Israel, in my study precisely because of its Jewish significance.) The several flames begin to die in successive frames until but one remains under the quotation "It is finished." The final frame offers a cross with but fading smoke from the earlier flame. I get it, I thought; what’s the fuss?

The fuss is not what Hart drew but what his antagonists impute he means. An editor saw a prerelease notice from Creators Syndicate, which distributes Hart’s work, and contacted a religion professor at a small Methodist school in Iowa whom she knows to be eager for additional fodder in his canon of anti-evangelical artillery. That is to say, she knows him to be biased against evangelicals – especially those who, like Hart, are also evangelistic (which is not the same thing). He, in turn, contacted a rabbi whom he knows to be similarly biased. (I purposefully omit names, because I have a strong sense their names becoming known has much to do with the enterprise.) Together they distributed an opinion piece written in the arrogant language of final authority. They did not allow Hart to speak for himself, but they took it upon themselves to tell readers what Hart must mean, because they want him to mean it so they can attack him for meaning it. In the mandate of Hebrew scriptures, this is bearing "false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20).

What, then, does Johnny Hart mean? Let’s start with the single set of words in the graphic: "It is finished." The speaker was a Jewish teacher, often called rabbi, by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The grammatical antecedent of the neuter pronoun "it" is not Judaism (at least not per se) but Jesus’ own work on the cross. Moreover, the Greek word of the Gospels is "teleo" (John 19:30), i.e., finished in the sense of completed. Jesus, then, announced "It [my redemptive work] is now accomplished."

If Judaism should be factored into this equation at all, it would not claim its being extinguished but its fulfillment or accomplishment. It would say what the rabbis had taught is now realized.

The Hebrew scriptures teach that all the wonderful things God means the nation Israel to be would one day be realized in the person of an individual whom he would sent to the nation, i.e., the Messiah of Israel. The unique understanding of these prophetic portions enjoyed by Christianity is that the Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, is in fact this very Messiah.

Judaism does not sustain this understanding and, of course, its adherents disagree with Johnny Hart and the New Testament. The disagreement, however, is not alone between Judaism and Christianity or between Christians and Jews. Orthodox Judaism, like Christianity, does believe in a personal Messiah, but its understanding is opposed by Liberal Judaism. Some even religious Jews do not believe in any messiah at all, and some Jews have no religious belief. Finally, thousands of Jewish people are also Christian believers and not the less Jewish because of their spiritual faith. A lesser number are even intensely Jewish and style themselves as Messianic Jews.

Johnny Hart was, in fact, doing nothing more than expressing the Easter message on Easter for Christian celebration. Those who attack him hit below the belt a man who is sincerely expressing his personal religious beliefs. This, in a word, is gross intolerance – dishonest at that. Acting intolerantly is no way to teach tolerance.

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays.