Beginning with the church fathers, the standard canonical narrative told a story that displaced Israel. However, the God of Israel as portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures still strongly influenced Christian theology.
The rationalist turn in modern theology, especially in Germany, called the God of Israel into question. To some thinkers, Israel’s God was not universal and spiritual enough to meet the standards of the enlightened mind. So influential thinkers sought a new vision of God. In The God of Israel and Christian Theology, R. Kendall Soulen looks at Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Friedrich Schleiermacher ((1768-1834).
In an eye-opening discussion of these two thinkers, Soulen shows how they completely dejudaized Christianity. In the replacement theology of Irenaeus, Judaism was valid in an earlier dispensation. But it has now been replaced by Christianity. In German liberal theology, though, Judaism got completely expelled from Christianity.
For Kant, Israel was a political entity based…
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