My narrative kink is okay, yours is kinda...well, okay.

I hadn't really thought about it in that way but I have three that I can name off the top of my head. One is religion (and I don't mean the Judeo-Christian thing.) I mean any religion and I actually prefer made up ones appropriate to the culture in the book. Right now I'm enjoying Jay Lake's Clockwork World series (Mainspring, Escapement--reading now) in large part because of the religion(s) there in.
The other one is artificial intelligence and this isn't limited to robots/androids. I've really enjoyed some stories where it's just something inhabiting the wires and communicating through speakers/screens, etc.
Strong/smart female characters that don't cop out.

"Judeo-Christian" is a really offensive term because it's so often used as shorthand for:

"Even though we took your holy books and interpret them our own way, blaming all of our deity's bad moods on the books you wrote and claiming that only our prophet/secondary aspect of our deity is the merciful one, and claim that we are the ones who are doing your religion right and you must convert, we're going to pretend you had an equal say in this culture's development--never mind the hundreds of years we spent killing and/or trying to convert you or driving you out of our towns."

"Abrahamic" is better, and includes Islam as well.

It was not my intent to offend. And I apologize if my term offended you. I actually meant the two traditions that are commonly referred to in the United States --Christianity and Judaism. And I meant no disrespect to any religion in the use of the term. This is the first time I have been made aware that it could be offensive. I had heard it used many times in my Unitarian church and I am surprised that this had never come up.

If I thought you intended to offend me I probably would have ignored it. :)

But I know a lot of other Jewish people who hate this word, they just don't say anything. It's soaking in Christian privilege. There's very little that's Jewish about Christian culture.

[pause, Google]

[glyph of thoughtfulness]

Hmm. I had not realized that the coinage (or at least the modern adaptation) of "Judeo-Christian" was quite so recent, and I definitely hadn't been aware of the degree to which it's evidently been deployed with explicit (and IMO inappropriate) political intent.

Under the circumstances, I can see where you're coming from with respect to the way the word has been used in current political discourse. It seems to me, however, that the term remains at least potentially useful in various fields of academic discourse -- not in the sense of either Judaism or Christianity co-opting one another, but as an acknowledgment of and descriptor for the unique (and often problematic) relationship that's existed between the two faiths since Christianity came into being.

And I think it's worth adding that, used in the academic sense I find more appropriate, the term absolutely ought not carry an implication of "Christian privilege". If anything, the connotation I'd derive would be simply that Judaism is the senior or parent faith, or at worst that the two labels should be viewed with equal importance, in much the same way that "African-American" or "Eurasian" are used to give equal weight to both aspects of a dual cultural heritage.

[blink]

I'm confused here as well, and would appreciate some amplification.

Like adelheid_p, I've never run into a previous instance of anyone taking offense at the use of "Judeo-Christian". I've run into a variety of instances in which writers have been careless or over-broad with respect to their use of "Christian", but I don't think I've ever seen "Judeo-Christian" show up in that class of mis-usage.

Moreover, I can think of no suitable equivalent term for the many instances in historical and scholarly discourse where "Abrahamic" is not an appropriate substitution. For good or ill, the history of European and American culture is tied much more closely to Judaism and Christianity than it is to Islam, and the development of the two faiths is specifically intertwined in ways that more often distinguish them from Islam than connect them to it. There are certainly contexts in which it is appropriate to use "Abrahamic" or an equivalent ("Peoples of the Book" is one I've heard), but there as many or more where "Judeo-Christian" more accurately reflects the writer's intent.

I've always heard it used by conservative politicians to claim diversity points and expand the claimed history of Christianity to "all the way back to when humanity was created," thereby somehow claiming a monopoly on acceptable/authentic/relevant civilization.

Usually in the security of feeling that Christianity's social dominance and majority status will remain unchallenged while Judaism remains the "good" minority, piping up when it's useful and shutting up when it isn't.

As for your search for an equivalent term, "Christian and Judaic traditions/theology/mythology," modified for the specifics of what you're talking about, should work reasonably well---you don't need a catchphrase for it when descriptive language will do the job.

(Minor note: a lack of seeing anyone take offense does not in itself constitute proof that something isn't offensive. It's hard to challenge someone's usage of a term, especially if they're among the first to speak up about it. People keep quiet about "little things" like non-hostile-but-still-offensive descriptions a lot. The fact that you've only heard about this once, just now, doesn't affect its truth-value. Everything has a first time it's heard.)

As I commented in the parallel sub-thread, I've had a chance to investigate a bit, so that I see why you and tiferet have reacted as you have. I understand that reaction now, I think -- but my reaction is different. To my mind, the response to hearing a perfectly good word abused should be to take the word away from those who'd propagandize it.

That can be accomplished by promoting the less judgmental, more accurately descriptive usage I suggested in my other comment. It can be accomplished by encouraging others to use the term -- and words in general -- respectfully and with care. And it can be accomplished by directing one's ire where that ire is warranted -- at those who are abusing a perfectly good word, not at the word itself. (There are, I'll grant, instances where a word is in itself sufficiently derogatory that its use is nearly always inappropriate and/or offensive. I don't think this is one of them.)

I study at an alternative grad school that includes broad-based and holistic views on spirituality, and that emphasizes inclusive language. I have never heard that "Judeo-Christian" is an offensive term. What is your source?

The feelings of a lot of Jewish people I actually know, including me.

Of course that may not be good enough for you, but just consider the amount of christian privilege this language incorporates.

I think the way you have heard it used, and the people you have heard it used by, may have something to do with the connotations you have in regards to the term that others who have used/heard it purely academically, and without the Christian-superiority meaning, do not find.

As someone neither Christian nor Jewish, but who heard the term bandied about in a philosophy class alongside Abrahamic when that was more accurate (we were discussing monsters and traditions of monsters in the Masoretic Text, New Testament, and Qu'ran and similarities/differences between), I never "heard" the things you hear in the term. I'm not saying people haven't used it in an offensive way around you, but their misuse and warping of the term, I hope, hasn't redefined it as an offensive term in any usage.