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Editors of U.S. Church Publications Urge Christian-jewish Understanding

June 1, 1961
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The editors of America’s three leading Protestant Evangelical magazines, currently visiting Israel, today appealed for a new approach toward Christian-Jewish understanding. The three editors, who issued the appeal after conferring with leading Israeli officials and religious leaders, were Carl F.H. Henry, editor of Christianity Today, of Washington; Kenneth Wilson, executive editor of the Christian Herald, of New York; and Sherwood Wirt, editor of Decision, Billy Graham’s Minneapolis magazine.

Referring to the emergence of the State of Israel and the trial here of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, the three Protestant leaders declared in a statement: “We believe that the present moment in world history offers fresh and providential opportunity for Hebrew-Christian understanding. A breakthrough of various deadlocked Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians is now possible for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.”

Vital aspects of such a new approach were given by the three visitors as: “Christian recognition that the people of Israel are in God’s plan; a Christian commitment to unconditional love for the Jewish people everywhere; and conversations between Orthodox Jewish scholars and Evangelical Christian scholars whose common devotion to the authority of the Old Testament is their bond and point of beginning.”

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