CAN A NON-CHRISTIAN BE A "GOOD CHRISTIAN"?

I first heard the expression nearly forty years ago as I was thumbing a ride down Touhy Avenue on my way back to Yeshiva. I was fortunate to be picked up by a seminarian who engaged me in genial discussion about our vocational plans. Thick into rush hour, he gave a gap to someone who was changing lanes. The fellow behind him, though, wasted no time in honking and flipping him the bird.

“Just being a good Christian,” the seminarian mumbled. I remember liking the sound of that phrase, not resenting it. I do not recall considering whether I would have said, “Just being a good Jew” under the same circumstances. And so it remained until I moved south and discovered that “good Jew” was used by some gentiles to mean an honest Jewish businessman, in contrast to most Jewish merchants, presumed to be cheats.

The designation of “good Jew” attained its apex in my current residence of Greenville, SC, as businessman and Holocaust survivor Max Heller rose to the position of the city’s most respected mayor. Ironically, Max’s being a “good Jew” was not good enough to be elected to Congress in the late 1970’s due to an overtly anti-Semitic campaign largely fomented by Christian conservatives.

All this brings us to the present. We have just weathered a mean-spirited election in which the candidates disagreed on everything. Yet, both men marketed themselves as “good Christians” in mailings, campaign events, letters to the editor, everywhere you looked.

On the flip side, South Carolina’s Senate candidate, Inez Tenenbaum, has a “typically Jewish” surname and a husband openly involved in Jewish causes. Significant, then, that her ads underscore that her parents were church elders. Let there be no mistaking; Inez is another “good Christian.” Being a “good Christian,” is apparently not merely a credential, but a prerequisite.

Max Heller was a good Jew, but he never campaigned as a “good Jew.” Joe Lieberman certainly was a “good Jew.” Yet, he and his handlers were hypersensitive about his not appearing “too Jewish.” Can you imagine building a campaign around being a “good Jew” the way that President Bush reaps the harvest of being known a “good Christian”?

What makes being known as a “good Jew” such a liability while the designation of “good Christian” so facilely gains one entry to credibility and trust? After all, to denigrate Jewish values is to deny Jesus’s most profound teachings – The Golden Rule, The Lord’s Prayer, The Beatitudes. Whenever I see a “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet, I say to myself, “Jesus would act like a good Jew.” Period.

Ah, there is the issue of heaven. Good Christians go to heaven. Good Jews and gentiles suffer eternal damnation. Our two vituperative, mean-spirited county council candidates go to heaven. Max Heller and Joe Lieberman, save and unlikely conversion, go to hell. Does Dr. King, whom I assumed was a good Christian, go to heaven, since so many “good Christians” treat him like the bogeyman? Dr. Bob Jones calls the Pope the antichrist. Does the Pope go to heaven? What does the College of Cardinals have to say about Dr. Bob’s afterlife expectations?

Jews believe that good Jews go to heaven – maybe a different heaven – and that heaven is an inclusive, not an exclusive, place. We believe that God is friendly and has lots of room for good people. Good Christians are welcome there, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, maybe even some good atheists. We will let God figure that out. Define “good”? It probably has something to do with The Golden Rule. At least that is what Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Jesus taught.

If I earn my way into Jewish heaven, I am totally psyched on the idea of spending eternity learning at the feet of Mother Theresa, Dr. King, Baha'u'llah, the Dali Lama, Moses Maimonides and oodles of people who are condemned to hell by “good Christians.” On the other hand, I get a little queasy every time I contemplate spending eternity in the company of televangelists, Bible-thumpers and politicos who promise that I will be with them if only I see things their way.

Whenever I hear a candidate being marketed as a “good Christian,” my blood does not boil. It runs a little cold. Then I stop and wonder whether folks who are simply “good people” could ever pass the us-versus-them loyalty test that would gain them entry into civic leadership, if not heaven. If Christians and Jews want to establish themselves as “good,” perhaps it could be by working together to build that magnificent “City upon a Hill” and by putting away their infantile “my club’s better than your club” games.