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1950 Bad Schwalbach: Proposals for Christian religious teaching
Group of Protestant and Catholic theologians

In May 1950 at Bad Schwalbach, Germany, a group of Protestant and Catholic theologians (among whom were Pastor Freudenberg and Karl Thieme) decided to give a firmer biblical foundation to the Seelisberg statement. Their text was submitted to various groups of "Gesellschaften fur christlich-jiidische Zusammenarbeit", who suggested some alterations, and in July 1950 the text received the approbation of the Catholic hierarchy of Fribourg.

(Of this text, we are publishing only the propositions which give deeper meaning to the Ten Points of Seelisberg. Among others the original document of Bad Schwalbach is also given in Judaica, 1. Sept. 1951.)

I. One and the same God speaks to the whole of mankind in the Old and in the New Testaments. This one and only God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Moses and the Prophets. If we Christians do not believe in this one God, we adore a false God, even though we may call him the Father of Jesus Christ, which was Marcion's heresy in the second century.

II. Jesus was born of the Jewish people, of a Jewish mother, a descendant of David, and, through him, Son of David, God's anointed, we partake in the Redemption, which, for Israel is linked to the coming of the Messiah, and promised to all other peoples through the blessing bestowed on Abraham. Just as through faith we Christians are convinced of the Redemption and of the fulfilment of all the promises in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, so we are equally convinced of the coming of that day when we shall see the fulfilment of Revelation.

III. The Church, founded by the Holy Spirit is composed of Jews and Gentiles who, reconciled in Christ, together form the new People of God. We must never forget that Jews form an essential part of this Church, and that the apostles and first witnesses of Jesus were Jews.

IV. The fundamental principle of Christianity: love of God and love of one's neighbour, already proclaimed in the Old Testament and later confirmed by Jesus Christ, is binding on both Jews and Christians in all human relations without exception.

V. Because the Jew, like the Christian (Mk 12:33f; Rm 13:8-10) is subject to the same law of limitless love, it is a sin to disparage the Jews of biblical and of post-biblical times by comparison with Christians. This shows a complete lack of understanding of the Gospel as the accomplishment of the Law.

VI. It is not in conformity with the Scriptures to equate "the Jews" with "the enemies of Christ", as the evangelist John is accused of doing. Even when he seems to be identifying one with the other, in speaking of "the Jews" he is not referring to the totality of the Jewish people (even those who were living in Jerusalem) (7:12f), but to the decisive majority of religio-politically governing authorities of the time (7:48ff). Therefore, in speaking of the Passion, the crowds who wept over Jesus (Lk 23:27), and who, after His Crucifixion "went home beating their breasts" (Lk 23:48) must never be forgotten.

VII. Above all, it is neither biblical nor Christian to look upon, or to present the Passion of Christ, to whom we owe our salvation, in a one-sided manner, by attributing it to the guilt of certain historic persons, or to a single people. As far as we can judge, on the basis of New Testament assertions, three distinct guilt attitudes can be distinguished among Jesus' contemporaries.

1. The action — or lack of action — of the relatively few, who, in one way or another, were involved in the process of Crucifixion. To begin with, those who were urged by political ambition or religious fanaticism became instigators of the slaying of the Lord; those in charge and the disciples, failed through cowardice.

2. The attitude of those who could not decide to be persuaded by the apostles' message of the Resurrection, linked to the Old Testament proof of his Messianity, rather than by the arguments which seemed to speak against one who had been executed for blasphemy and uproar. (Ac 17:11, but also Lk 5:39! )

3. Many of the followers of Jesus were calumniated or persecuted (Ac 13:50; 14:19; 17:5ff; 18: IMO. But, in this respect it must not be forgotten that in contrast with attitudes of antiquity a steadily increasing number of Jewish authorities from the time of the great medieval teacher Maimonides, declared themselves in favour of con-sidering baptized pagans as worshippers of the one true God.

In all this we must not overlook the fact that we Christians carry a far greater guilt, in spite of graces received.

* when we submit to political and social Messianism, and thus inevitably end by crucifying the Saviour again in his members;

* when we are content with lip testimony, instead of accepting the opprobrium of the Cross, as the crucified and risen Lord has the right to expect from us all our life long. We should listen much more to the warnings and promises of which the years 1939-1945 gave such examples, and when, for the first time in history, Jews and Christians were persecuted together;

*when we refuse to respect the other who lives sincerely according to another faith.

VIII. The meaning of Christ's Crucifixion in relation to God's covenant with Israel is a hidden decree within God's undying fidelity to his People which the epistle to the Romans (Chaps. 9-10) reveals to us only in broad lines by allusion. There can be no question of a curse, but rather of the blessing which God wishes finally to give to his People, and with them, to all other peoples. According to Genesis 12:3 only those will be excluded from this blessing who through fickleness or malice attack this covenant relation so full of promise.

For the Christian also there are Christ's words on the Cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". The shouts of the crowds excited by the leaders of "His blood be upon us and on our children" must be used as intercession by us, in the sense that this Blood may, in the end, save those for whom it was shed in the first place. Never again can these words be used as a reason for the shedding of Jewish blood, as a kind of just punishment, but rather in the same way that the early Christians venerated the Jewish blood witness by martyrdom.

IX. The only passage in the New Testament in which the Jews are referred to as rejected is set in immediate opposition to the future "assumption" of the people of the First Alliance into the New and definitive Alliance referred to in Rm 11:15. This should be the norm of all neo-testamentary affirmations concerning rejection. It is contrary to Revelation to announce only one aspectof the two-fold biblical judgement without, at the same time, recalling the victorious one, which will suppress the first by going beyond it. The yes of the Jews to Jesus as the final word of their history has been promised by God, and this promise is the guarantee of his yes to the Jews. This must always be the final word in Christian teaching about the Jews.