1. Jews and Christians worship
the same God.
Before the rise of Christianity, Jews were the only
worshippers of the God of Israel. But Christians also worship the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; creator of heaven and earth. While Christian
worship is not a viable religious choice for Jews, as Jewish theologians
we rejoice that, through Christianity, hundreds of millions of people have
entered into relationship with the God of Israel.
2. Jews and Christians seek
authority from the same book — the
Bible (what Jews call Tanakh and
Christians call the Old Testament)
Turning to it for religious orientation, spiritual
enrichment, and communal education, we each take away similar lessons: God
created and sustains the universe; God established a covenant with the
people Israel, God's revealed word guides Israel to a life of
righteousness; and God will ultimately redeem Israel and the whole world.
Yet, Jews and Christians interpret the Bible differently on many points.
Such differences must always be respected.
3. Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish
people on the land of Israel
The most important event for the Jews since the
Holocaust has been the re-establishment of a Jewish state in the Promised
Land. As members of a biblically based religion,
Christians appreciate that Israel was promised – and given – to Jews
as the physical center of the covenant between them and God.
Many Christians support the State of Israel for reasons far more profound
than mere politics. As Jews, we applaud this support. We also
recognize that Jewish tradition mandates justice for all non-Jews who
reside in a Jewish state.
4. Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of
Torah.
Central to the moral principles of Torah is the
inalienable sanctity and dignity of every human being. All of us were
created in the image of God. This shared moral emphasis can be the basis
of an improved relationship between our two communities. It
can also be the basis of a powerful witness to all humanity for improving
the lives of our fellow human beings and for standing against immoralities
and idolatries that harm and degrade us. Such witness is especially needed
after the unprecedented horrors of - the past century.
5. Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon.
Without the long history of Christian anti-Judaism and
Christian violence against Jews, Nazi ideology could not have taken hold
nor could it have been carried out. Too many Christians participated in,
or were sympathetic to, Nazi atrocities against Jews. Other Christians did
not protest sufficiently against these atrocities. But Nazism itself was
not an inevitable outcome of Christianity. If the Nazi extermination of
the Jews had been fully successful, it would have turned its murderous
rage more directly to Christians. We recognise with gratitude
those Christians who risked or sacrificed their lives to save Jews during
the Nazi regime. With that in mind, we encourage the continuation of
recent efforts in Christian theology to repudiate unequivocally contempt
of Judaism and the Jewish people. We applaud those Christians who reject
this teaching of contempt, and we do not blame them for the sins committed
by their ancestors.
6. The humanly irreconcilable difference between Jews
and Christians will not be settled until God redeems the entire world as
promised in scripture.
Christians know and serve God through Jesus Christ and
the Christian tradition. Jews know and serve God through Torah and the
Jewish tradition. That difference will not be settled by one community
insisting that it has interpreted scripture more accurately than the
other, nor by exercising political power over the other. Jews can respect
Christians’ faithfulness to their revelation just as we expect
Christians to respect our faithfulness to our revelation. Neither Jew nor
Christian should be pressed into affirming the teaching of the other
community.
7. A new relationship between Jews and Christians will not weaken Jewish
practice.
An improved relationship will not accelerate the
cultural and religious assimilation that Jews rightly fear. It will not
change traditional Jewish forms of worship, nor increase intermarriage
between Jews and non-Jews, nor persuade more Jews to convert to
Christianity, nor create a false blending of Judaism and Christianity. We
respect Christianity as a faith that originated within Judaism and that
still has significant contacts with it. We do not see it as an extension
of Judaism. Only if we cherish our own traditions can we pursue this
relationship with integrity.
8. Jews and Christians must work together for
justice and peace.
Jews and Christians, each in their own way, recognize the unredeemed state of the world as reflected in the persistence of
persecution, poverty, and human degradation and misery. Although justice
and peace are finally God's, our joint efforts, together with those of
other faith communities will help bring the kingdom of God for which we
hope and long. Separately and together we must work to bring justice and
peace to our world. In this enterprise we are guided by the vision of the
prophets of Israel.
It shall come to pass in the end of days that the
mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established at the top of the
mountains and be exalted above the hills, and the nations shall flow unto
it . . . and many peoples shall go and say, ‘Come ye and let us so go to
the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob and he will
teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths.’
(Isaiah 2 v2-3)
