Ajcommittee Raps Missionary Campaign of the Lutheran Church-missouri Synod

The American Jewish Committee has sharply criticized the special missionary campaign of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, that seeks to convert the Jewish people to Christianity.

The Synod, at its 1 977 Convention, passed a resolution committing itself to “a two-year goal of persuading 50 percent of our congregations to prepare themselves for effective witness to Jewish people” and to “encourage especially those congregations located in or near Jewish communities to reach out to the Jews and share our faith that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah.”

Rabbi A. James Rudin, the AJCommittee assistant director for interreligious affairs, declared: “By singling out Jews for intensive proselytizing, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has, in effect, branded Judaism as an inadequate and incomplete religion. By undertaking this program, the Missouri Synod has sadly revived the medieval image of the Jews as a theologically deficient people. The resolution is a moral affront to the Jewish people and to forty centuries of Jewish religious life and theological self-understanding.”

Last week, and earlier last December, Rudin and Jordan Harburger, West Central area director of the AJCommittee, met in St. Louis with the Missouri Synod leadership responsible for implementing the Church’s resolution promoting evangelism among Jews. At both sessions, the AJCommittee representatives expressed their deep concern about the intent and implications of the resolution, and they specifically called for an immediate suspension and a total revision of a highly offensive training manual entitled “Witnessing to Jewish People.” The manual was designed for the training of Lutheran missionaries.

MANUAL CONTAINS STEREOTYPES

“The manual employs base stereotypes that do gross violence to the integrity of Jews and Judaism. It is replete with caricatures and inaccuracies,” said Harburger.

At the meeting with the Lutheran leaders, Rudin and Harburger also condemned the manual’s use of conversionary material designed by Moshe Rosen, the leader of “Jews for Jesus.” They said it was scandalous that the Missouri Synod-Lutheran Church had reprinted Rosen’s deceptive blueprint for luring Jews away from their ancestral faith.

He and Harburger expressed the hope that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod will abandon its present missionary campaign directed at the Jewish community and will instead embark on programs of education and true dialogue that will advance mutual respect and understanding between Lutherans and Jews.