*4.4. Theological Concerns*

Bearing in mind the conflictive and too often violent history of Jewish-Christian relations, one has to be careful as a Christian theologian to point to possible shortcomings of a distinct Jewish approach to theo-politics. There has been a long history of Christian replacement theology towards Judaism, which in the case of the Catholic Church only started to be overcome in the course of the Second Vatican Council and Nostra Aetate in particular. Yoram Hazony speaks as a Jewish religious political theorist, but intends to establish a sound theoretical basis for National Conservativism, bringing together Jewish and Christian religious nationalists. Thus, it is essential to point to several critical issues from a Christian theological perspective12.

National Conservativism intends to establish a Jewish–Christian axis against the imperialist shortcomings of liberalism it identifies. For Hazony as lead-theorist, only the Hebrew Bible, i.e., the Tanakh, can offer a legitimate anthropological basis for political theory. From a Christian theological point of view, this is difficult in several aspects. First of all, for Christians the canon of Scripture encompasses more books than the Tanakh. Both the books of the First and the Second (or: Old and New) Testament are canonical (although the exact number of books and some verses are disputed in between the different denominations). Hazony reads the Hebrew Bible as a political vademecum for nationalism and projects the idea of a nationalist, ethnically and religiously homogenous state, which is deeply enwoven with the nationalist romanticism of the 19th century, back into an imagined historical community. In many regards, this nationalist reading of the Bible is the result of a "choose and pick" exegesis, connected to the wish of religiously legitimating a political idea, i.e., exclusivist nationalism, dating back to recent modernity. One must ask, what actually happens to those texts that are seriously critical of immanent political rule, i.a., the parable of the bramble (Judges 9: 9–15). Or the continuous tension between Jesus' understanding of power, community and solidarity and those in his direct environment? (Neulinger 2018)

A serious problem within Hazony's theory is the depiction of those religious traditions that either do not fit into the concept of one religion—one nation, one state—or are not identified as "Judaeo-Christian", Islam in particular. In case of the Catholic Church, a line is drawn between imperialist-papalist Catholicism, which intends to go beyond borders, and projects of establishing Catholic national churches, such as French Gallicanism. The concept of a "catholic" church in its literal sense (on the whole, general oruniversal) strictly contradicts the idea of particular communities. However, in Hazony's National Conservativism, legitimate religion is identified with traditionalist, hierarchical and patriarchal Judaism and Christianity within clear territorial borders. Religious communities, such as families, are little fortresses next to each other, but without any integrating figure such as a "pontifex maximus", one of the traditional titles of the Roman bishop. Thus, particularly with regard to Catholicism and papacy, the ambiguity and ambivalence of National Conservativism becomes visible. We might point to the use of John Paul II as a symbolic figure, e.g., in the Rome Conference's title. On the one hand, specific aspects of a traditionalist and anti-communist Catholicism as fostered by Pope John Paul II are celebrated. The focus on the traditional reproductive family, the protection of traditional family values and the support of sovereign nation states against totalitarian ideologies and their regimes were of deep concern for John Paul II13. On the other hand, his support for international diplomacy, human rights and interreligious dialogue, especially with regard to Islam, clearly contradict the basics of Hazony's conservativism14.

National Conservativism distinguishes between legitimate and non-legitimate interpretations of Jewish and Christian faith. The leading criterion is whether the respective interpretation supports the political pathway of National Conservativism or not. Other versions, especially those which question the identification of nation, state and religion and the traditional, patriarchally structured family, are delegitimized and rejected as violent, liberal imperialists. This has already been visible in Hazony (2000), where liberal or leftist Judaism is delegitimized as anti-Zionist and thus, for Hazony, anti-Jewish. Similarly, now, this split into legitimate and illegitimate religion and its political expression is introduced into Christianity and the Catholic Church. Hazony does not invent this Christian polarization, but it can easily accommodate with the already existing inner-Catholic polemics between "true" and "false" Catholics, particularly strong in North American Catholicism15.
