RESOLUTION ON JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOG

WHEREAS the Gospel of God celebrated among us has come to us through the people of Israel; and

WHEREAS the God who we know as the God and Father of Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants; and

WHEREAS the call and promise to Israel has never been revoked; and

WHEREAS the Hebrew Scriptures are a precious treasure and word of God to us; and

WHEREAS in Jesus Christ God has made us who were no people, one with his people Israel; and

WHEREAS Christians tend to be painfully ignorant of the faith, hopes, joy, sorrows, and experiences of their Jewish sisters and brothers;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

· Local LSM groups and individuals be urged and encouraged to initiate dialog with Jewish sisters and brothers; and *The LSM Council collect and disseminate material to local groups- including this resolution — to further Jewish-Christian dialog; and with the goal of implementing a national study conference for Lutherans and Jews along lines similar to the Lutheran - Roman Catholic Study Conference of 1969 and that projected for 1976; and

· That LSM communicate by registered letter to the boards of publications of the three Lutheran bodies in the United States the recommendation that all materials of Christian education be reviewed by members of the Jewish Community so that inaccurate and scurrelous references to Jews be excised from our churches' literature; and

· The same letter express the LSM's desire that a course on the Holocaust* be prepared for use in our churches; and *Local LSM groups seek ways to celebrate YOM HA SHOAH (The day of Remembrance of the Holocaust) with their Jewish sisters and brothers as an event in Christian as well as Jewish history.

· Holocaust: Term used by the Jewish community for the termination of Eurcpean Jews by the Nazis in WW II.

ACTIONS TAKEN:

Held Kvinge, from Grand Forks, North Dakota took responsibility for writing the letters to the publishing houses of the three Lut^heran Church bodies. Below are excerpts from 1 response to our concern:

... I'm Director of the Editorial Division for our Board of Parish Education , which produces materials (curricular pieces) which Concordia Publishing Houses publishes for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

I'm glad to hear about the concern and interest of your Lutheran Student Movement National Council in Jewish-Christian relations, and particularly the persistent problem of anti-Semitism. When I wrote my doctorial dissertation some six years ago, I addressed myself to this very problem as part of my study. At that time, there were a^. number of books tracing relationships between Christian teaching and anti-Semitism--like the Glock-Stark study, and some earlier studies which our Board participated in: Faith and Prejudice a study of images of outgroups in Protestant curricular materials, and the later follow up study by Gerald Strober, The Elder Brother. Your group may be interested in looking at particularly the last two studies, if you are not aware of them.... We have also submitted our materials for intensive study by Jewish individuals and groups, and have been getting some very positive feedback from such people as Gerald Strober of the American Jewish Committee. So, in short, I guess what I am saying is that we feel that we are, to a large extent, alerted to the problem of screening bias in our materials and are continuing to do so. All o; our editors are working according to specific guidelines which keep them to sensitive to the concern.

Regarding a specific course on the Holocaust: This sounds like an idea which may be quite viable, and might particularly lend itself to an inter-Lutheran treatment. I shall bring it up at our next meeting of our Coordinating Council on Cooperative Parish Education Projects. This is a meeting, held twice a year, attended by the education executives of all three Lutheran Church bodies...

Regarding your request for a specific course on the Holocaust, let me ask you to give me some further input in ways which LSM could help us promote such a course, if it were produced. It would be helpful to me if you could share some information about your organization and what kind of avenues of communication you might have available to youth, etc…. we need to get as much information as we possibly can on the potential market for any courses which we develop. At any rate, I hope that the above serves to answer some of your questions. And let me encourage you and your organization in your very commendable concern for materials that deal helpfully and in Christian love with Jews and other ethnic, racial or religious groups.

In Christ,

Dr. Earl H. Gaulke Director, Editorial Div.

RESOURCES AVAILABLE:

Lutheran Churches Urged to Increase Jewish Concerns,

A SUMMARY OF A CONSULTATION in Oslo by Church leaders world-wide, convened by the Lutheran World Federation, which dealt with a concern for increased Lutheran-Jewish relations.

Available from the National LSM office.