International Council of Christians and Jews

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The International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) is an umbrella organization of 38 national groups in 32 countries worldwide engaged in the Christian-Jewish dialogue.[1]

Founded as a reaction to the Holocaust, many groups of theologians, historians and educators dedicated their efforts to seek Christian–Jewish reconciliation.

History

Background and origins

The impetus for the founding of the organisation traces back to the first half of the 20th century, with two significant organisations in the

religious toleration, focusing on the three main American religious groups; Protestant, Catholic and Jew.[2] This effort had been immediately preceded in the United States by the interreligious Committee of Goodwill, founded by the ecumenical Federal Council of Churches and B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organisation.[2]

The British organisation, however, traces its ideological origins to

British media) before rejoining during the Pontificate of Pope John XXIII
.

Oxford, Seelisberg and Fribourg

The First Conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews was held in Oxford in August 1946, in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, as well as at the onset of the Cold War and was themed "Freedom, Justice, Responsibility". Some of the most prominent figures present were Geoffrey Fisher, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Reinhold Niebuhr, Rufus Isaacs, Rab Butler, Rabbi Leo Baeck, Alan Paton, Hermann Maas and others. Those in attendance came from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the British Mandate of Palestine, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. Most of the participants were either Protestant or Jewish. They endeavoured for there to be "an emergency conference to deal specifically with the problem of antisemitism in Europe", which "should be convened at the earliest possible moment."

The aforementioned conference would manifest as the Seelisberg Conference of 1947, organised under the joint auspices of the American and British organisations. A French-based chapter was founded in 1948 as the Amitié judéo-chrétienne de France and a Germany-based chapter was founded in 1949 as the Deutscher Koordinierungsrat der Gesellschaften für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit.

Mission

According to the Mission Statement of the ICCJ,[3] the group:

  • promotes understanding and cooperation between Christians and Jews based on respect for each other's identity and integrity
  • addresses issues of human rights and human dignity deeply enshrined in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity
  • counters all forms of prejudice, intolerance, discrimination, racism and the misuse of religion for national and political domination
  • affirms that in honest dialogue each person remains loyal to his or her own essential faith commitment, recognizing in the other person his or her integrity and otherness
  • coordinates worldwide activities through conferences held regularly in different countries
  • encourages research and education to promote interreligious understanding among students, teachers, religious leaders, and scholars
  • performs outreach in regions that so far have little or no structured Jewish-Christian dialogue
  • provides a platform for theological debate

Location

Martin Buber Haus in Heppenheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany

The international headquarters of the ICCJ are located in

Nazi
persecution forced him to flee Germany.

The 10 Points of Seelisberg

In 1947 the ICCJ published a document after the Seelisberg Conference, giving 10 points in recommendation.

Main article: Seelisberg Conference

Recent activities

In 1993 ICCJ published "Jews and Christians in Search of a Common Religious Basis for Contributing Towards a Better World." This document "contains both separate Jewish perspectives and Christian perspectives concerning mutual communication and cooperation as well as a joint view of a common religious basis for Jews and Christians to work together for a better world..."[4]

The ICCJ runs a website, Jewish-Christian Relations, "which is devoted to fostering mutual respect and understanding between Christians and Jews around the world."[5]

In more recent years the ICCJ and its members increasingly engaged in the

Abrahamic dialogue: the encounter between Jews, Christians and Muslims
.

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ "International Council of Christians and Jews". Archived from the original on 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  2. ^ a b c Simpson, William W. The Story of the International Council of Christians and Jews. p. 14.
  3. ^ "International Council of Christians and Jews. Mission Statement". Archived from the original on 2007-12-14. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  4. ^ Jews and Christians in Search of a Common Religious Basis for Contributing Towards a Better World Archived 2007-08-19 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Jewish-Christian Relations

Bibliography

External links

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