The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers ruleSnoek, Johan M.
Religion
The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers rule
Snoek, Johan M.
Antisemitism; Christianity and other religions -- Judaism; Judaism -- Relations -- Christianity; Protestant churches -- Europe
"The International Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews desires
to lay before the Oxford Conference on Church and Community and State the
problem of Anti-Semitism.
The fact of Anti-Semitism is proved, by the ample material in the
possession of the Committee to be of growing importance and menace in
the world. It constitutes one of the principal denials of modern life
of the Christian doctrine of man. It is an attack upon the unity of
the Una Sancta, it is even a denial of the person of Christ Himself.
It has been largely instrumental in aggravating existing economic and
social strains until they have become intolerable. The human misery
created, maintained and at the same time concealed by the influence
of Anti-Semitism is difficult to estimate. Graver, however, than the
volume of human misery is the poisoning of the spirit, the drying up
of sympathy and the warping of judgment caused by the influence of
Anti-Semitism, especially among the young. Deepest of all is the denial
which Anti-Semitism offers to the Unity of the Church, and to the meaning
of the Person of Christ Himself.
The Committee would further ask the Conference to consider the terrible
fact that this problem is not, like many on the Conference will consider,
that of an influence external to the Christian Church with which it must
make its account, but also of an evil within the Church.
Anti-Semitism antedates Christianity and it is not suggested that it is
a purely Christian phenomenon, but it is aided by false Christian teaching
and it results in the appalling situation, present in several countries
where Christian Churches are reluctant, or frankly refuse, to receive a
Jewish convert. <96>
It is plain that where racial and physical conditions of church membership
override the conversion of heart and will, the Christian religion has
ceased to exist except in a vain form. But this devitalising influence is
present within the Church, not only in one country but in many, and far more
widely than is suspected.
The Committee therefore invites the Oxford Conference to do two things: in
the first place, realizing that the Conference can make its voice heard
widely among the Churches of all lands it begs the Conference to speak out
clearly on the dangers of Anti-Semitism to the Church itself and to
recognize openly the total impossibility of a Church tainted with this
form of racial absolutism bearing any valid witness to the word of God
in the world.
Secondly, it asks that in any provision that is made after the Conference
for international Christian study of the great problems that confront the
Church in the modem world, attention shall be given to this problem of
Anti-Semitism. The International Committee which has already collected a
certain amount of information on the subject would gladly co-operate in
such a study." [239]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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