Działalność Komitetu ds. Chrześcijańskiej Postawy wobec Żydów w strukturach Międzynarodowej Rady Misyjnej

Abstract

In the official structure of the International Missionary Council (IMC), which was formally founded at Lake Mohonk, New York, in 1921, a Committee on the Christian Approach to Jews began its activity. Yet, the Committee never became an integral part of the IMC. It was created and sponsored by the Christians who had earlier been organized in the Jewish missionary societies. The Committee developed its own program and policy both to foster relations of mutual understanding between Christians and Jews and to help the Churches in their mission to the Jewish people. Its existence goes back to the two conferences organized by the IMC in Budapest and Warsaw (1927) on the subject of the evangelization of the Jewish people in central and eastern Europe. At the Amsterdam Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948 the Committee influenced the wording of the declaration on the Jewish people, which not only strongly condemned anti-Semitism as a sin against God and men, but also called on the Churches for the mission to Jews. At the New Delhi Assembly in 1961, when the IMC and the WCC were integrated, the Committee on the Christian Approach to Jews was reestablished as the WCC’s Committee on the Church and the Jewish People. After the integration there have appeared certain divergent concepts as to the Committee’s targets: performing a mission to the Jewish people or dialoguing with them.