Not Using "Pharisee" as an Insult: A Guide for Latter-day Saints

One of the best decisions I've made in my religious life was finding chronically online people of other faiths to follow. From a Jewish person I follow, I was recently introduced to a simple request for Christians: stop using "Pharisee" as an insult. Not for Jews, not for Christians, not for anyone. Jewish people today believe they are descendants of the Pharisees. Using Pharisee as an insult, regardless of the intent, reflects poorly on Jewish people.

It's not asking a lot, but the amount of push back Jewish people get for this one is both unnecessary and unsurprising.

Coming from a Mormon perspective, I think the best way for us to approach this in our community is to remember some core truths that were never in dispute for any of us. The criticism Jesus gave for Jewish leadership in his day was not a rejection of Judaism in its entirety, Jewish people generally, or even all Pharisees. Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

The New Testament is unkind to a very small list of people in Jewish leadership: namely the Herodians, Annas, and Caiaphas. They're poor reflections of Judaism in the New Testament record, which is all the more reasons Judaism shouldn't be judged by them. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received for interfaith relationships is to never compare your best to anyone else's worst. Defining all of Judaism by the behavior of a handful of people is ludicrous. That's what this request not to use Pharisee as an insult is about.

There is no necessary relationship between modern Judaism and these conflicts that are described in the New Testament, unless Christians bring them to life and make them real. Jesus doesn't need us to continue defining Christianity with antagonism to Judaism. It's gone on long enough.

Those of us who are disciples of Jesus Christ can begin healing these relationships by respecting reasonable requests not to use "Pharisee" as a pejorative. It's not a difficult request to respect. If anything, it's an opportunity for us to understand our own scripture better. For example, I think using Pharisee as an insult is a really good example of what 2 Nephi 29 condemns. Anything we say about Judaism that comes from a place of ignorance and disrespect is beneath us and them. So let's do better about it.

4 But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles?

5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.

I think we should also consider the idea that "recovering" the Jews as mentioned in verse 5 need not mean to convert them to Christianity. Any attempt to interpret it that way, I believe, should be discouraged. Recovery can also mean restoring Judaism and Jews to a place of dignity and respect within our society.

This is what God expects from our interfaith relationships with Jewish people as Latter-day Saints. We don't have to be in the same religious community to achieve that goal.