[Kristina Olney]

Growing up in the reformed tradition before converting to Roman Catholicism and re-examining my faith, I was taught replacement theology and always struggled with a general impression that the God of the Old Testament seemed inconsistent and incompatible with the Jesus of the New Testament. In Nostra Aetate the Catholic Church explicitly rejected replacement theology, and this is an important passage to cite, “Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues. . .” This teaching helped me to understand that the Old Testament is an indispensable part of Scripture, and that the Old Covenant was never revoked. This course was an important reminder of the influence that replacement theology still holds today, and of the notion that God established the family of Israel to bless the world. This puts the ongoing attacks against Israel, which have heightened since the recent October 7 attacks, in a new light–those attacking Israel and the continued survival of the Jewish people are doing harm not only to the Jewish people but to the rest of the world.