Bridges Documents Of The Christian Jewish Dialogue

This book continues with a comprehensive collection of statements on Christian-Jewish relations by church bodies and interfaith organizations in the United States and around the world from the period 1986-2013, with introductory essays by three leading scholars in the field. Included are Protestant statements from North America and Europe, Roman Catholic documents, including Vatican documents, selected documents of conferences of national Catholic bishops, Orthodox Christian statements, ecumenical Christian statements, joint Christian-Jewish statements, and Jewish statements. +

Continues with a comprehensive collection of statements on Christian-Jewish relations by church bodies and interfaith organizations in the United States and around the world from the period 1986-2013, with introductory essays by three leading scholars in the field.

Intended mainly for the use of church study groups. Surveys the history of Judaism, and of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, from New Testament times to the present. Discusses anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament in their historical context. Describes pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation of the medieval and early modern periods, the intolerance of differences in the Enlightenment, and the antisemitism of late 19th-century Europe. Traces the history of antisemitism in the U.S. (pp. 80-105), commenting that Americans have generally endorsed the rights of Jews as individuals but retained subtle (and at times not so subtle) prejudices against Judaism and Jewry. Describes the Holocaust (pp. 113-123), with emphasis on the German Churches' lack of opposition to Nazism. Concludes that antisemitism still constitutes a danger but that there is hope in the new Christian-Jewish dialogue.

I believe that the sense of limitless horizons for human potential in classic science fiction, such as the works of Isaac Asimov, opened my mind at a young age to the "radical" idea that any system, seen from a wider perspective, can and should be changed for the better, an ideal that at its core is profoundly biblical.The Bible is essentially "counter-cultural" in any given period of history. It measures the present always to the yardstick of human and, indeed, cosmic perfection of the End Time of universal justice, harmony, and peace. Such a concept is guaranteed to make the people of any generation open to its call to be restive and uncomfortable with human institutions in which they live and with which they interact, whether political or religious. I am obviously not alone in this.I believe "thinking outside the box" is to some extent a characteristic of my generation, which came to age in the 1960s, however much life's trials and challenges have forged and molded that instinct in diverse ways.

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council formally issued a historic document titled Nostra Aetate (In Our Time). It was an attempt to frame the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish people. Never before had an ecumenical council attempted such a task. The landmark document issued by the Council and proclaimed by Pope Paul VI precipitated a Copernican revolution in Catholic-Jewish relations and started a process that has spread to the Protestant and Orthodox worlds as well. A Jubilee for All Time, consisting of essays and reflections by Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish scholars and theologians, by pastors and professors from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, and Israel, is an evaluation of what Nostra Aetate has accomplished thus far and how Christian-Jewish relations must proceed in building bridges of respect, understanding, and trust between the faith groups. A Jubilee for All Time serves as a source of discussion, learning, and dialoguefor scholars, students and intelligent laypersons who believe that we must create a positive relationship between Judaism and Christianity.