REACTING TO THE HOLOCAUST: THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONSHIP REDEFINED

The Holocaust forever altered the way in which Jews of the second half of this century would view non-Jews. While Christianity did not cause the Holocaust, many of its myths and images supported European anti‑Judaism and justified the Nazis’ murder of Europe’s Jews. There were many Christians and Church leaders who endangered themselves in order to protect Jews. But many more supported and executed the Nazis’ plans, and many did so in the name of Jesus and Christianity. While the Nazis also killed many Christians, many, even most, of the murderers of the Jews were baptized followers of Christ. Contemporary Christians struggle with this truth, as do current Jewish thinkers.

Gary Porton, ‘Judaism and Christianity: After the Holocaust’, in J. Neusner et al. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Judaism (1999)

In the wake of the Holocaust, a particular object of scrutiny for concerned Christians has been the old Christian doctrine of supersessionism—the idea that the ‘new’ people of God (the followers of Jesus and subsequently the church) have displaced the ‘old’ people (the Jews), with a ‘new’ covenant displacing the ‘old’ covenant. This implied that Jews were particularly stupid or wicked or deficient in some way, since they did not recognize the ‘truth’ of Jesus’ message.

Before the Shoah, there were few Christian thinkers who criticized this dominant idea. Even afterwards, there was no immediate Christian response because the connections between Christian anti-Judaism and modern antisemitism were either ignored or denied. The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) issued a statement in 1948 that acknowledged the Holocaust and spoke of the failure ‘to fight with all our strength the age-old disorder of man which anti-Semitism represents’; it confessed that ‘the churches in the past have helped to foster an image of Jews as the sole enemies of Christ’, and insisted that ‘anti-Semitism is sin against God and man and ‘absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith’, but it didn’t examine its link to Christian doctrine. It also added that Christians needed ‘to recover the universality of our Lord’s commission by including the Jewish people in their evangelistic work.’ There is no recognition of the contradiction between missionizing and the call to combat prejudice; the cancelling of God’s covenant with the Jews is just taken for granted.

At WCC’s Third Assembly, in 1961, some progress was made: as well as urging its member churches ‘to do all in their power to resist every form of anti-Semitism’, it noted that ‘the historical events which led to the Crucifixion should not be so presented as to impose upon the Jewish people today responsibilities which must fall on all humanity, not on one race or community’.

But the single most important document to advocate a reversal of supersessionist theology was the Roman Catholic Church’s declaration Nostra Aetate, issued at the Second Vatican Council in 1965—a revolutionary council that has changed the face of Catholicism dramatically:

As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading. Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues… Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues. True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. … Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.

Excerpts from Pope Paul VI, Nostra Aetate, 28 October 1965

It’s not perfect—it still asserts that ideally Jews will become one with gentiles in Jesus and proclaims the ‘cross of Christ’ as the source of God’s grace. Once again Jews play a subordinate role in someone’s else’s story, at the beginning (Jesus’ life) and the end (which for the Church is Jesus’ triumphant return), but at the moment they are simply an eternal and indispensable witness to somebody else’s saving truth. Nevertheless, for the 1960s it was an absolutely revolutionary development. A series of documents has followed, and in 1998 the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews produced a statement on the Shoah in which the Church expresses regret and speaks of itself as doing teshuvah for the sins of Catholics involved in the Shoah:

At the end of this Millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as members of the Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great compassion the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment.

Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, 1998

Protestant churches have issued their own statements, such as this 1980 one from the EvangelicalChurch of the Rhineland in Germany, which admits Christian involvement in and guilt for the Holocaust:

1. We confess with dismay the co-responsibility and guilt of German Christendom for the Holocaust. … 3. We confess Jesus Christ the Jew… 4. We believe the permanent election of the Jewish people as the people of God and realize that through Jesus Christ the church is taken into the covenant of God with his people … we deny that the people Israel has been rejected by God or that it has been superseded by the church.

Synod of the EvangelicalChurch of the Rhineland, Germany, Towards Renovation of the Relationship of Christians and Jews, 1980

Many more statements have been made, by several different churches, including the some of the Orthodox churches. In 2002, a group of about 225 Jewish scholars issued a response, perhaps the first of its kind, called Dabru emet:

In the decades since the Holocaust …Christianity has changed dramatically. An increasing number of official Church bodies, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, have made public statements of their remorse about Christian mistreatment of Jews and Judaism. These statements have declared, furthermore, that Christian teaching and preaching can and must be reformed so that they acknowledge God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people and celebrate the contribution of Judaism to world civilization and to Christian faith itself. We believe these changes merit a thoughtful Jewish response. Speaking only for ourselves—an interdenominational group of Jewish scholars—we believe it is time for Jews to learn about the efforts of Christians to honor Judaism. We believe it is time for Jews to reflect on what Judaism may now say about Christianity.

Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, 2002

At long last things are changing. It’s important that Jews, as well as Christians, learn about this process and take part in it. We too have hostile stereotypes that we should reassess. With goodwill and reflection on both sides and a commitment to a clear-eyed remembrance of history, we should all be working towards a future that is not darkened by the shadows of the past.