Kinew’s ‘Old Testament’ remark creates controversy

“As an observant Jew who was celebrating Shavuot, a holiday mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a time of rejoicing, I was shocked to open my paper on Friday morning to see our premier indulging in an antisemitic Christian trope — apparently being tough on drug dealers is ‘Old Testament,’ and having love and compassion for drug users is ‘New Testament’?”

That’s what a writer of a letter to the editor of the Free Press said last week. He was writing in response to a remark made by premier Wab Kinew about his approach to drug dealers and drug users in the province.

At an event on May 21, Kinew said Manitoba’s stance would be “Old Testament for the drug dealers, New Testament for the drug users.”

By that he meant there will be “harm reduction and compassion and recovery” for users, but “law enforcement” for those who deal drugs.

The letter writer said he was willing to give the premier benefit of the doubt over his choice of words, recognizing his “penchant for shooting from the lip without thinking of the consequences of his words.”

But, he added, those particular words were “really hurtful for a minority group … An apology, and maybe some education on this kind of talk, would be nice.”

Like the letter writer, I don’t think the premier meant to cause harm. His comment about the Old versus the New Testament reflected what has been a longstanding view of the Bible among Christians — one that has been taught in Sunday school, seminaries and sermons for decades.

In that view, the Old Testament — a Christian label for what Jews call the Tanakh — is a collection of books that emphasizes burdensome law and commandments. The God that it portrays is seen as strict, harsh, judgmental and punishing.

The New Testament, Christian teaching goes, is seen as the opposite. It is a collection of books that emphasize a God of grace, mercy and forgiveness, as evidenced by the life of Jesus.

That may be the way many Christians view the Jewish scriptures today. But it is not the way Jews see them.

Jews acknowledge there are accounts of divine punishment in the Tanakh. But those accounts are balanced by messages of God’s mercy and an enduring covenantal relationship — a relationship that is characterized by God’s forgiveness, patience and redemption.

And while the Tanakh does contain many commandments — or mitzvahs, as Jews refer to them — they are viewed more as guides to help people live righteous and meaningful lives, not as a strict set of harsh orders that compel obedience.

It wasn’t only Jews who reacted to Kinew’s remark. Also weighing in was James Christie, former dean of the faculty of theology of the University of Winnipeg.

In a letter published on social media, Christie said he, too, was “deeply troubled” by way the premier used a “well-known trope” to portray the Old Testament as harsh and retributive and the New Testament as “sweet reasonableness.”

That comparison is “a perverse, pernicious, and patently false distinction, and in this time of skyrocketing antisemitism, dangerous, even deadly,” he said.

For an additional perspective, I reached out to Carney Shalom Rose, senior rabbi at Congregation Shaarey Zedek.

“I do not know the premier well, but I am confident that he did not set out to hurt or offend with that remark,” Rose said. “What I think he was trying to articulate was well-intended, but sadly, inaccurate.”

For Rose, Kinew’s words “fail to capture the true depth and profundity of both spiritual traditions. The binary it lays out is artificial as each tradition truly cares deeply about both law and love.”

In some ways, Rose said, “it takes us back to a bygone era when the categorization of Judaism as the tradition of law and Christianity as the tradition of love was the basis for not only misunderstanding our respective spiritual moorings, but also justification for the proliferation of unfounded and unnecessary anti-Jewish as well as anti-Christian sentiments.”

During this time of rising antisemitism in Canada, Rose thinks “we would be best served if we moved forward with both super-sensitivity as well as with a more sophisticated sense of nuance. Let’s take the time to truly get to know each other and the depth of one another’s traditions. Otherwise, we run the risk of misrepresenting both of our wise spiritual traditions and that would be both unfortunate and unnecessary. Let’s use this moment as an opportunity to build bridges of mutual understanding and collegiality.”

faith@freepress.mb.ca

The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba through our Religion in the News project. This reporting continues because readers like you step forward to fund it.

Donate now to support our reporting on religion.
Your donation is eligible for a charitable tax receipt. BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER