"Christians and Jews": A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria

[Yusuphhai]

Is there Real Reconciliation and Peace between Lutheran(or Christians) and Jews?

""Christians and Jews": A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria" by Littll, Franklin H. - Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Summer-Fall 1999 | Online Research Library: Questia

"Christians and Jews": A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria
By Littll, Franklin H.
Read preview
Article excerpt

[Translator's Note: From 1992 through 1995, representatives of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria met in Nurnberg to work through the theme, "Christians and Jews." In conclusion, on November 24, 1998, the bishop and other judicatories of the territorial ("Land") church issued the statement translated below. Preceding this statement were other territorial-church declarations on the same theme: Rheinland (1980; E.T. in J.E.S. 17 [Winter, 1980]: 211-212), Baden (1984), Berlin-Brandenburg West (1984), Greifswald (1985), Wurttemberg (1988), Westfalen (1988), Berlin-Brandenburg East (1990), Pfalz (1990), Oldenburg (1993), Hannover (1995), and Kurhessen-Waldeck (1997), as well as the Reformed Church (1984), the Reformed Union (1990), and the Council of German Protestant Free Churches (1997). The translation was made from the document as printed in Freiburger Rundbrief, vol. 6, no. 3 (1999), pp. 191-197.]

"Christians and Jews": A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria

Preamble

The question of the relationship of Christians and Jews points to the center of Christian belief: Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom we Christians confess as the father of Jesus Christ, ties Christians and Jews together. The theme is not only laid on the church from the outside; in the same measure it puts basic life-questions to the church and theology. Because Jesus of Nazareth belonged to the Jewish people and was rooted in its religious traditions, thereby "through their confession of Jesus Christ Christians are brought into a unique relationship to Jews and their faith, [a relationship] that is distinct from the relationship to other religions." [1]

Through its action of April 23, 1997 -- "Christians and Jews: Invitation to a Fresh Start" -- the territorial synod of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria embraced this understanding as its own and called for a Year of Emphasis on this theme. At the conclusion of this year, in the month of the sixtieth anniversary of the national pogrom [Kristallnacht], the Lutheran Church of Bavaria releases the following declaration. Its purpose it to provide our territorial church with a basis for discussion to reflect on our relationship to Jews and Judaism and to provide an initiative for further work in this field.

I. The Consensus Reached in the Protestant Church

1. The Common Roots of Judaism and Christianity

Jewish belief and Christian belief live from the same biblical roots. Jews and Christians confess one God, the Creator and Savior. Jews and Christians both think of themselves as the People of God. Jews and Christians declare their faith in their public worship, in which are found many similarities. Jews and Christians are marked in their faith by the interaction of justice and love. Jews and Christians also live in the break in the shared history of God with God's people, the overcoming of which they await.

These elements in common have through centuries been forgotten and denied by Christians and misapplied and misinterpreted. For this reason, too, there came about the frightful persecutions and murders of Jewish persons, in which Christians participated, which were initiated by Christians or tolerated by Christians. In the German Protestant churches we have come during recent decades to an understanding that is important to us: that we must make a new beginning. In recent decades individual persons and agencies in the Lutheran Church of Bavaria have undertaken vigorous initiatives, whose result the church judicatories seek to express in this declaration.

2. The Importance of the Shoah

The path to a fresh start in the relationships of Christians and Jews has to begin with an understanding of the complicity of Christians in the persecution and destruction of children, women, and men of Jewish origin (the Shoah, the Holocaust). The Shoah represents a deep challenge to Christian teaching and practice. …

 

[Yusuphhai]

I know Martin Luther was an anti-semite, he was one of the creators of concentration camp theory. In the Nuremberg court in 1945, he was accused for his writing 《Jewish and their Lies》 by a German minister in charge of propaganda. He said “if Martin luther lives now he will be accused in stead of me.” But I read some material in the web that after the world war 2, many lutherans have abandoned Luther’s anti-semite part of his theology and apologized to Jewish sincerely. They have many declarations about this topic. And I heard a preaching from a Messianic Rabbi. He said he can meet Martin Luther in heaven though he felt much pain. So I have the question Is there real reconciliation and peace between Lutherans (or Christians) and Jews?

This is a answer from another Messianic member of CF:

Yes, I'm glad to see you, too, know that Lutheran was an anti semite.

I don't know how to answer the question about reconciliation between Lutherans and Jews. I have never heard anyone dealing with that issue, but I am not Lutheran and never have been. I doubt it is a big issue over here, at all. Most people in mainstream Christianity don't get into history that much. They just like their particular Churches and go there. Like many Catholics in this country barely think of the Pope - though a few idolize him- and don't' take him seriously.

To me it is a mute point. Lutheranism is another denomination that is full of traditions of men. What they do they do, it doesn't concern me.

There can be a surface peace, even friendship and love, between some Christians and some Jews. But many, many Jews have been taught that Messiah was anti Jew, even Catholic! They think Hitler was a Christian, though he was an outrageous pagan.

There are so many kinds of Jews, as there are so many kinds of Christians. Each group may hate the other, or be indifferent, or get along. I have not had many Jews in my life. A couple were extremely nice. Some were okay. Some were offensive. You know, like with most people groups.

 

[Yusuphhai]

Christian-Jewish Relations: Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community

The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on April 18, 1994, adopted the following document as a statement on Lutheran-Jewish relations:
In the long history of Christianity there exists no more tragic development than the treatment accorded the Jewish people on the part of Christian believers. Very few Christian communities of faith were able to escape the contagion of anti-Judaism and its modern successor, anti-Semitism. Lutherans belonging to the Lutheran World Federation and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America feel a special burden in this regard because of certain elements in the legacy of the reformer Martin Luther and the catastrophes, including the Holocaust of the twentieth century, suffered by Jews in places where the Lutheran churches were strongly represented.

The Lutheran communion of faith is linked by name and heritage to the memory of Martin Luther, teacher and reformer. Honoring his name in our own, we recall his bold stand for truth, his earthy and sublime words of wisdom, and above all his witness to God's saving Word. Luther proclaimed a gospel for people as we really are, bidding us to trust a grace sufficient to reach our deepest shames and address the most tragic truths.

In the spirit of that truth-telling, we who bear his name and heritage must with pain acknowledge also Luther's anti-Judaic diatribes and the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews. As did many of Luther's own companions in the sixteenth century, we reject this violent invective, and yet more do we express our deep and abiding sorrow over its tragic effects on subsequent generations. In concert with the Lutheran World Federation, we particularly deplore the appropriation of Luther's words by modern anti-Semites for the teaching of hatred toward Judaism or toward the Jewish people in our day.

Grieving the complicity of our own tradition within this history of hatred, moreover, we express our urgent desire to live out our faith in Jesus Christ with love and respect for the Jewish people. We recognize in anti-Semitism a contradiction and an affront to the Gospel, a violation of our hope and calling, and we pledge this church to oppose the deadly working of such bigotry, both within our own circles and in the society around us. Finally, we pray for the continued blessing of the Blessed One upon the increasing cooperation and understanding between Lutheran Christians and the Jewish community.