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    The Biblical Roots of Christian Supersessionism

    Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM until 8:00 PMCentral Daylight Time UTC -05:00

    Join us on campus in Hamilton Hall (Samuel Lloyd Forum) or register for the livestream below for the annual Advanced Degree Program Lecture to be delivered by the Rev. Dr. Reed Carlson. A common conviction in Christian-Jewish discourse holds that supersessionism is either post-biblical or marginal within the New Testament. To support this, many scholars emphasize the exceedingly "Jewish" character of Jesus, Paul, and the early Jesus movement, implying that contemporary Christians could shed supersessionist theology by reclaiming the admittedly strained but ostensibly complementary understanding of Judaism that characterized the early church.

    In this lecture, the Rev. Dr. Reed Carlson challenges this usually well-meaning but misguided thesis. Drawing on Jon Levenson's insight that Christianity betrays its indebtedness to Judaism most clearly through supersessionism, Carlson argues that supersessionism is not only integral to the New Testament, but it is rooted in contested traditions about the nature of God’s people inherited from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism. Following Amy-Jill Levine's recommendation to accept supersessionism's inevitability, Carlson charts a new course for Christian theologies of Israel, Jews, and Judaism— one focused less on denying supersessionism and more on combating antisemitism and Judeophobia.

    Registration is no longer available because the registration deadline has passed.