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This I do summarily by saying Yes to both parts: Yes, it is necessary, in an important sense, to be part of a religious community in order to experience a full and right relationship with God. And Yes, there is an important difference as between the Old and the New Testaments in answering this question. I shall now briefly elaborate this summary answer – beginning, once again, with the second part of the question and then proceeding to the first.

In talking about the relevant difference between the Old and the New Testaments so as to answer the first part of the question, we are in particular danger of oversimplifying certain things that are more complex than we allow, thereby furthering misunderstanding rather than understanding. But fully recognizing this risk, I still think one can speak truly about an important difference between the Old and the New Testaments as they bear on answering our question. The difference, very simply, is the difference between being part of a religious community that is, in principle, at one and the same time, a national or political community – in the case of the Old Testament understanding of Israel – and being part of a religious community that is, in principle, distinct from all other historical communities, national or political very much included – in the case of the New Testament understanding of the church, which is sometimes spoken of there, significantly, as "the new Israel." It was just this difference, of course, that occasioned the first great controversy in the early Christian community over whether it was necessary for gentiles – which is to say, all

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members of nations other than Israel – first to become Israelites before becoming Christians, just this being the significance of circumcision.

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