I don’t have access to an OED or similar reference to find an earliest usage cite, let alone how the usage may have evolved. I strongly suspect that wide usage goes back well before 1970, though. A couple of quick searches suggest that one possible originator was Nietzsche, but that the phrase really took off after WW2.

I interpret the usage, stereotypically in the phrase “Judeo-Christian values”, to imply (correctly or not) a community of values between Christians and modern Jews (in practice those Jews resident in majority Christian or historically majority Christian countries, or recently descended from same, e.g. Israelis). In other words, assuming that one could meaningfully speak of “Christian values” and “Jewish values”, then the intersection (those values in common) would be “Judeo-Christian values”, which, at least in the minds of the people using the phrase, are distinguishable from other value sets which may or may not be coherently definable (”Islamic values”, “Asian values”, “Enlightenment values”, “Revolutionary values”, …).

At least often the intent of the phrase if used by a Christian is to be inclusive of Jews (for any of a variety of reasons), while when used by a Jew to attach whatever values claim that person is making to the value system of the [Christian] majority.

The phrase “Judeo-Christian civilization” implies a civilization in which both Jews and Christians participate, and by further implication in which those who are neither do not participate (at least in the same degree or way). It’s at least arguable that Western European civilization post Haskalah could be described that way (I’m not sure it’s valid, but I don’t think it’s clearly invalid).

So, I think you [Daniel] are saying that one or more of the required referents are non-existent?

1) Regarding your objections to “Islamofascist”, you make good points about the difference between Islam and fascism. But it seems wrong to me to simply imply that Islam the religion is our problem (or the problem of the Islamic world). Clearly there are millions of practicing Muslims who have reconciled themselves to the modern world, democracy, individual rights, etc. I think that if we want to be more exact about our enemies, they are those Muslims who interpret Islam to mean they must destroy “the West”; or to be more specific, kill Westerners and/or destroy Western interests (like our investments in oil). Perhaps the short-hand “radical Islamists” works better, as it implies those who want to use Islam to justify radical action.

2) Regarding your objections to “Judeo-Christian”, I think you make even more good points but it seems like if Judeo-Christian is redundant (because Christian civilization properly includes the contributions of Jerusalem) then the term “Christian civilization” as a substitute for “Western civilization” seems to obscures the contributions of Jerusalem, Athens, not to mention the Enlightenment thinkers. That’s why I prefer Western civilization as the term to use when referring to what I think sustains and nurtures our great country. But for someone like you, who is not a big fan of the Enlightenment (not sure what you think of Athens), I can see why “Christian civilization” would be preferable.

Yes, I think people do use Judeo-Christian to avoid that label, as if just using the adjective of Christian to describe the religious and moral tradition of our civilisation were intended to denigrate or ignore the contribution of Israel to the story of salvation history and the cultural inheritance of Christendom.

On “Judaeo-Christian”–don’t people use it because they want to say “Christian civilization” or some such but are afraid of being called antisemitic if they do? Serious Jews though find the expression somewhat imperialistic I think.