Persecution and Rejection Decried : 2 Churches Affirm Jews’ Covenant With God

Disputing for the first time the evangelistic dictum that Jews are religiously doomed without Jesus, conventions of two major Protestant denominations have recently said that Jews have a continuing covenant with God that should be respected.

The United Church of Christ said it most strongly in a resolution approved Tuesday in Cleveland as delegates concluded their national convention for the 1.7-million-member denomination.

Decrying past Christian persecution and rejection of Jews, the resolution said: “Judaism has not been superseded by Christianity; that Christianity is not to be understood as the successor religion to Judaism; God’s covenant with the Jewish people has not been abrogated. God has not rejected the Jewish people; God is faithful in keeping the covenant.”

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), at its General Assembly two weeks earlier in Biloxi, Miss., approved a document for study which also says that Christianity has not replaced Judaism, that both the church and the Jewish people are “elected by God for witness to the world.”

‘Covenantal Relationship’

When speaking with Jews “about matters of faith, we must always acknowledge that Jews are already in a covenantal relationship with God,” the Presbyterian study paper said. It is to be distributed throughout the 3-million-member church “as a provisional understanding of the subject,” according to a Presbyterian news release.

American Jewish Committee spokesmen welcomed the two statements.

The United Church of Christ document “is just about the best that has come out of an American church,” said Alan Mittleman, a program associate in interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee in New York City. Mittleman helped draft the document.

Earlier, the Presbyterian action had been greeted by Jewish Committee leaders as “potentially of great historic importance because a major Christian body has seriously and systematically grappled with the central issues in the Christian-Jewish encounter and has broken significant new ground.”

Jewish-Christian relations have been strained in other arenas lately. Pope John Paul II’s reception last week at the Vatican of Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, accused of complicity in Nazi war crimes, angered many Jews. The meeting has damaged Catholic-Jewish relations, officials say, regardless of the progressive theological stances taken by the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council stated in 1963 that “Jews still remain most dear to God,” and Pope John Paul II, speaking last year at a Rome synagogue, called God’s covenant with the Jewish people “irrevocable.”

‘Born Again’

In another development, former Southern Baptist President Bailey Smith was cheered by fellow evangelists in mid-June when he reiterated his controversial statements of seven years ago that unless Jewish people repent and become “born again,” they cannot receive salvation.

Liberal Protestant churches rarely endorse or engage in evangelism among Jewish people, but neither have they been eager to disavow entirely the traditional concept of proclaiming their beliefs to anyone who will listen.

In an analysis of the Presbyterian paper, Rabbi A. James Rudin, the Jewish Committee’s national interreligious affairs director, said that saying Jews already have their own valid covenantal relationship with God means that “the entire raison d’etre for Christian evangelism to the Jewish people is undermined.”

The approved document, which Presbyterian delegates changed extensively over several days during the General Assembly, says that “Christians are commissioned to witness to the whole world about the good news of Christ’s atoning work for both Jew and Gentile.”

At the same time, it notes that many Jews have been unwilling to accept the Christian claim and points to “dialogue” as “the appropriate form of faithful conversation between Christians and Jews.”

The United Church of Christ document did not deal directly with attempts to convert Jewish people, but the ground rules have changed in Christian-Jewish relations, according to the Rev. Avery D. Post, the denomination’s president.

“There is no restraint upon members witnessing to their faith along with Jewish people witnessing to their faith,” Post said in a post-convention interview.

“But as to the alleged basis for claiming (Christianity’s) superiority or that Judaism has been superseded, we disavow that. We feel we have broken new ground in saying that.”

The resolution, in arguing the case for Judaism’s continuing covenant with God, quoted Romans 11:29, a letter from the apostle Paul. Although he indicated that it would not make any difference, Post noted that instead of “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable,” the resolution erred in using the word “promise” for “call.”

Although the more than 700 delegates in Cleveland approved the resolution overwhelmingly, Post said the General Synod’s action does not dictate to the 6,400 churches. “The General Synod is a teaching body,” he said.

The Rev. Fred Register, conference minister, or executive, for 140 United Church of Christ congregations in Southern California, said the convention approval affirms a widespread attitude in the denomination.

He recalled the “shock” among his fellow ministers in Southern California a few years ago when one affiliated congregation conducted some programs dealing with evangelism of Jews.

“I’m sure that in neighborhoods which have both synagogues and a United Church of Christ church, you’d find superb relations and sometimes joint services on special occasions,” Register said.