The Grey Book Part 39

An International Conference of Christians and Jews was held at Seelisberg, in 1947, and attended by sixty-five persons from nineteen different countries.

They adopted the following "Address to the Churches", which became widely known as "The Ten Points of Seelisberg": <300>

1. Remember that One G.o.d speaks to us all through the Old and the New Testaments.

2. Remember that Jesus was born of a Jewish mother of the seed of David and the people of Israel, and that His everlasting love and forgiveness embrace His own people and the whole world.

3. Remember that the first disciples, the apostles, and the first martyrs were Jews.

4. Remember that the fundamental commandment of Christianity, to love G.o.d and one's neighbour, proclaimed already in the Old Testament and confirmed by Jesus, is binding upon both Christians and Jews in all human relationships, without any exception.

5. Avoid disparaging biblical or post-biblical Judaism with the object of extolling Christianity.

6. Avoid using the word Jews in the exclusive sense of the enemies of Jesus, and the words the enemies of Jesus to designate the whole Jewish people.

7. Avoid presenting the Pa.s.sion in such a way as to bring the odium of the killing of Jesus upon Jews alone.

In fact, it was not all the Jews who demanded the death of Jesus. It not the Jews alone who were responsible, for the Cross which saves us all reveals that it is for the sins of us all that Christ died.

Remind all Christian parents and teachers of the grave responsibility which they a.s.sume, particularly when they present the Pa.s.sion story in a crude manner. By so doing they run the risk of implanting an aversion in the conscious or subconscious minds of their children or hearers, intentionally or unintentionally. Psychologically speaking, in the case of simple minds, moved by a pa.s.sionate love and compa.s.sion for the crucified Saviour, the horror which they feel quite naturally towards the persecutors of Jesus will easily be turned into an undiscriminating hatred of the Jews of all times, including those of our days.

8. Avoid referring to the scriptural curses, or the cry of a raging mob: His blood be upon us and upon our children, without remembering that this cry should not count against the infinitely more weighty words of our Lord: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

9. Avoid promoting the superst.i.tious notion that the Jewish people is reprobate, accursed, reserved for a destiny of suffering.

10. Avoid speaking of the Jews as if the first members of the Church had not been Jews. [638]

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APPENDIX II

SOME PARTICULARS ABOUT THE CHURCHES MENTIONED [639]

Austria

The Protestant Churches in Austria are minority Churches. The (Lutheran) Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession has 406,966 members; the Reformed Church of Austria has 16,078 baptized members.

Belgium

The Protestant Churches in Belgium are minority Churches, together comprising less than half percent of the population. The total number is less than 50,000.

Bulgaria

The Orthodox Church in Bulgaria claims a number of six million members, being the vast majority of the population.

There is no other Christian community of any numerical importance in Bulgaria.

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Czechoslovakia

The largest non-Roman Catholic Churches in Bohemia and Moravia are: the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (295,354 baptized members), the Czechoslovak Church, and the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Silesia (48,000 members).

There are two Protestant Churches in Slovakia: the Reformed Church of Slovakia (165,000 baptized members) and the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Slovakia (520,000 members).

Denmark

The vast majority of the people of Denmark belong to the Lutheran Church, which has 4,104,000 members.

Finland

The vast majority of the population of Finland belongs to the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, which has 4,429,137 members.

France

The Protestants in France are a small minority, numbering altogether not more than 800,000 souls. Members of the Protestant Federation of France are: The Reformed Church of France (375,000), the Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine (50,000), the Lutheran Church of Alsace and Lorraine (240,000) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (50,000).

Germany

The vast majority of the Protestants of Germany belonged to one of the 28 Landeskirchen (Lutheran, Reformed or Uniate), of which the largest was the Church of the Old Prussian Union, with 18 million members. In all, there were forty-five million Germans who were, nominally at least, members of the Protestant Church.

Great Britain and Ireland

The main non-Roman Catholic Churches in England are: the Church of England, claiming 2,989,704 members and 15 million adherents (1950); the Methodist Church (775,294 members and 2,2250,000 adherents in 1955); the Congregational Union of England and Wales (451,523 members in 1955); the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland (246,400 members in 1955) and the Presbyterian Church of England, having 70,298 communicants. <303> There are four Free Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, as well as Baptist, Episcopal, Congregational and Methodist Churches. The Church of Scotland is by far the largest Church, having 1,281,559 communicants.

The political part.i.tion of Ireland did not divide any of the Churches. Most of the non-Roman Catholic Churches were represented in the United Council of Christian Churches in Ireland. The (Episcopalian) Church of Ireland has 400,000 members. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has 140,395 communicants and 397,500 baptized members. The Methodist Church has approximately 30,000 communicants and 100,000 baptized members.

Greece

The vast majority of the population of Greece belongs to the (Orthodox) Church of Greece, which has an estimated 8,000,000 members.

Hungary

According to the 1941 census, there were in Hungary 9,775,310 Catholics, 2,785,782 Calvinists (Reformed Church of Hungary), and 729,289 Lutherans (Hungarian Evangelical Church).

Italy

The Waldensian Church has 25,000 members. Other non-Roman Catholic communities are the Methodist and Baptist Churches. Their total membership amounts to about 0,19 per cent of the population.

The Netherlands

The DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH has 3,500,000 baptized members. The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands had 640,984 members in 1940. The Evangelical Lutheran Church has 52,587 members. The other Churches mentioned are of about the same size, or smaller.

<304> Norway

The (Lutheran) Church of Norway has 3,456,687 members, being 96,2 per cent of the population.

Poland

Out of a population of 32,000,000 there are a 130,000 Protestants. 100,000 of them belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Poland. Smaller communities are the Evangelical-Reformed Church (5,000 members); the Baptist Church (2,500 members) and the United Gospel Church (7,500 members).

Rumania

The vast majority of the population of Rumania belongs to the Rumanian Orthodox Church, which has an estimated 11,500,000 members. The Reformed Church of Rumania is the Church of the Hungarian national minority; it has 693,511 baptized members. The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession is mainly the Church of German immigrants; it has 183,399 members.

Russia

Before 1917, the Orthodox Church of Russia claimed a membership of 100,000,000. Estimates about the present situation - "perhaps 25-50,000,000"

- are unreliable.

Smaller communities are the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of U.S.S.R.

and the Lutheran Churches in former Estonia (350,000), Latvia (350,000), and Lithuania (30,000).

Sweden

The vast majority of the population of Sweden belongs to the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden, which claims 7,000,000 members.