Part 13 (1/2)
The Executive Committee of the Ec.u.menical Council of Life and Work at Novi Sad issued the following ”Appeal on Behalf of German Refugees” in November, 1933: <94>
”A new appeal is hereby addressed to Christians, at this Christmastide.
It is an appeal to help those who are suffering because there is no place for them in Germany: Jews, Christians of Jewish origin and political refugees. They are dispersed in Palestine and in different lands of Europe.
They are in a deplorable situation and a great number of them are dest.i.tute...
The gifts of the Churches will const.i.tute a welcome proof of that truly ec.u.menical and Christian spirit which, beyond all differences of race and cla.s.s, regards every man as a brother.”
George Cicestr, President of the Ec.u.menical Council for Life and Work; Germanos, Archbishop of Thyatira, Co-President; W.A. Brown, President of the Administrative Committee; Waldemar Ammundsen, Interim President of the European Section; Wilfred Monod, Vice President. [237]
The International Missionary Council was organized in 1921, to co-ordinate missionary work throughout the world. Its ”Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews” met at Vienna, 28 June-2 July, 1937. A report of the Subcommittee on Anti-Semitism and the Church was submitted, and adopted in the following form:
”We desire to record our conviction that in contemporary anti-Semitism we face an extraordinary menace against which all Christians must be warned.
All forms of hatred and persecution must be deplored by Christians, and their victims must be succoured; but there exists to-day a type of racial anti-Semitic propaganda inspired by hatred of everything springing from Jewish sources; and this creates more crucial issues for Christianity than ordinary outbursts of race feeling.
Christian Churches must be warned that they cannot be silent in the presence of this propaganda, still less connive at or partic.i.p.ate in the extension of its errors and falsehoods, without betraying Christ, undermining the basis of the Church, and incurring the most severe judgment of G.o.d.
The Christian Church must let no doubt about this att.i.tude prevail in the eyes of the world. Realizing that enmity to the Jews has now become a cloak for the forces of anti-Christ, and conceals hatred for Christ and His Gospel, the Christian Church must reject anti-Semitism with complete conviction. <95> To realize its true nature and to vindicate its right to the t.i.tle of the 'Body of Christ', the Church must preach the Gospel and open its fellows.h.i.+p to men of all race, including the Jews. Our mission to the Jews cannot consistently be carried out without at the same time combating anti-Semitism among Christians, and giving more tangible evidence than has been given of our sympathy with Jews and Hebrew Christians in their present distress.
Anti-Semitism can and should be combated systematically: 1. By suitable literature, capable of influencing specially wide cla.s.ses, also by sustained treatment in Christian Reviews and newspapers.
2. By occasional conversations, discussions, and lectures, on the destiny and the hope of the people of Israel.
3. By sincere and friendly discussion between Jews and Christians.
4. By the realization among Christians of the treasures committed to them (Christianizing of Christians).” [238]
The same Committee submitted the following resolution to the Oxford Conference, in 1937:
”The International Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews desires to lay before the Oxford Conference on Church and Community and State the problem of Anti-Semitism.
The fact of Anti-Semitism is proved, by the ample material in the possession of the Committee to be of growing importance and menace in the world. It const.i.tutes one of the princ.i.p.al denials of modern life of the Christian doctrine of man. It is an attack upon the unity of the Una Sancta, it is even a denial of the person of Christ Himself.
It has been largely instrumental in aggravating existing economic and social strains until they have become intolerable. The human misery created, maintained and at the same time concealed by the influence of Anti-Semitism is difficult to estimate. Graver, however, than the volume of human misery is the poisoning of the spirit, the drying up of sympathy and the warping of judgment caused by the influence of Anti-Semitism, especially among the young. Deepest of all is the denial which Anti-Semitism offers to the Unity of the Church, and to the meaning of the Person of Christ Himself.
The Committee would further ask the Conference to consider the terrible fact that this problem is not, like many on the Conference will consider, that of an influence external to the Christian Church with which it must make its account, but also of an evil within the Church.
Anti-Semitism antedates Christianity and it is not suggested that it is a purely Christian phenomenon, but it is aided by false Christian teaching and it results in the appalling situation, present in several countries where Christian Churches are reluctant, or frankly refuse, to receive a Jewish convert. <96> It is plain that where racial and physical conditions of church members.h.i.+p override the conversion of heart and will, the Christian religion has ceased to exist except in a vain form. But this devitalising influence is present within the Church, not only in one country but in many, and far more widely than is suspected.
The Committee therefore invites the Oxford Conference to do two things: in the first place, realizing that the Conference can make its voice heard widely among the Churches of all lands it begs the Conference to speak out clearly on the dangers of Anti-Semitism to the Church itself and to recognize openly the total impossibility of a Church tainted with this form of racial absolutism bearing any valid witness to the word of G.o.d in the world.
Secondly, it asks that in any provision that is made after the Conference for international Christian study of the great problems that confront the Church in the modem world, attention shall be given to this problem of Anti-Semitism. The International Committee which has already collected a certain amount of information on the subject would gladly co-operate in such a study.” [239]
The Oxford Conference (July, 1937), organized by ”Life and Work”, was an event of major importance. [240]
The 425 regular members of the Conference included 300 delegates officially appointed by the Churches, representing 120 communions in forty countries, and const.i.tuting a cross-section of Christendom, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church; only some personal observers from that Communion were present by invitation.
Not less than 300 delegates came from the United States and the British Common-wealth. The Orthodox Churches and the Lesser Eastern Churches were represented by some two score dignitaries and scholars.
This delegation represented the Ec.u.menical Patriarchate, the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch, the Churches of Cyprus, Greece, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, the Russian Church in Exile, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Armenian Church, and the Church of the a.s.syrians.
<97> German Church leaders had taken a prominent part in the preparations for the Conference, but the German secret police had seized the pa.s.sports of leading members of the Confessing Church, including those of Dibelius and Niemoeller, who had been chosen as delegates to Oxford. On July 1, 1937, before the Conference opened, Niemoeller was arrested. Other delegates of the Confessing Church who still retained their pa.s.sports decided that, unless all the representatives of the Confessing Church were allowed to attend, none of them would come, thereby demonstrating their unity. [241]
The German authorities must have realized that the absence of the leaders of the Confessing Church would make a bad impression on world opinion, but apparently they were also aware that the position of Niemoeller and his friends would have been strengthened, if they had been able to attend the Conference.
The Oxford Conference sent a ”Message to the Churches of Christ throughout the World”. We quote the following:
”The Christian sees distinctions of race as part of G.o.d's purpose to enrich mankind with a diversity of gifts. Against racial pride or race-antagonism the Church must set its face implacably as rebellion against G.o.d. Especially in its own life and wors.h.i.+p there can be no place for barriers because of race or colour.
Similarly the Christian accepts national communities as part of G.o.d's purpose to enrich and diversify human life. Every man is called of G.o.d to serve his fellows in the community to which he belongs. But national egotism tending to the suppression of other nationalities or of minorities is, no less than individual egotism, a sin against the Creator of all peoples and races.
The deification of nation, race, or cla.s.s, or of political or cultural ideals, is idolatry, and can only lead to increasing division and disaster.” [242]
We also quote the following from the Oxford Conference's ”Longer Report on Church and Community”:
”Each of the races of mankind has been blessed by G.o.d with distinctive and unique gifts. Each has made, and seems destined to continue to make, distinctive and unique contributions to the enrichment of mankind.
All share alike in the love, the concern and the compa.s.sion of G.o.d.