The National Lutheran, official organ of the Lutheran Church of America, distributed today its November issue which was almost entirely devoted to pleas for greater cooperation between Christians and Jews, and denunciations of anti-Semitism. The issue was a follow-up to a statement on the Lutheran Church and the Jewish people, adopted last spring at a conference in Denmark, devoted to this problem by the Lutheran World Federation.
In one of the leading articles in the issue, entitled “Are Christians Responsible for Anti-Semitism?” the Rev. Dr. Aarne Siirala, professor of theology at Waterloo Lutheran University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, blamed Christians for anti-Semitism, “although that is not the whole answer.”
Another article, by Dr. Klara Schlink, of Darmstadt, Germany, who is known as “Mother Basilea,” revealed that, under the Nazi regime, clandestine Bible study had been organized in Germany, teaching the need for wiping out anti-Semitism. Dr. Schlink was identified by the magazine as “fully devoted to Zionism on the basis of Christian faith.”
Another leading article, by the Rev. Dr. Philip A. Johnson, public relations director for the National Lutheran Council, declares that history, theology and charity “offer a prelude to understanding” between Christians and Jews. The concept of Jewish-Christian dialogue is discussed in the magazine by Rabbi Arthur Gilbert, of the National Conference of Christians and Jews; and the Rev. Thomas Basich, pastor of the Advent Church, St. Paul, Minn.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
