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July 1972

Report About the Conclusions of the Christian Study Group (1972)

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Joint Proposals Adopted (1972)

At the request of the Jewish–Christian Consultation in Lugano (October 1970), a group of Jewish and Christian scholars met in Geneva in April 1972 to discuss the theme “The Quest for World Community – Jewish and Christian Perspectives.” At the end of the meeting, the following Joint Proposals were formulated: The present world situation is characterized by increasing interdependence. Mass communication from continent to continent brings close to us the concerns of millions of people of whose existence we were hardly aware before. Modern travel helps us to become acquainted firsthand with ways of life and thinking which in the past were hardly known to us. Economic, technological, and political developments draw the people of this world more closely to one another. This development raises acutely the question whether mankind will be able to create a world community which allows for life in justice and peace.The realization of such a new order is not optional. It is decisive for the future of the human race., "One world ... or none" is more than a slogan. However, the concept of interdependence of mankind It may hold out the promise of new' commuKity but we also know from bitter experience that human institutions are not always unmixed blessings, no matter how noble the intentions of their founders, and may even lead to new conflicts of unprecedented dimensions. Groups can overreach themselves and destroy others. Nations can and do make war, and one world may be dictatorial or soulless.When speaking of world community we do not think of an imposed uniformity throughout the world - ideological, cultural, political and religious. Wo feci that world community needs to be under-stood as community of communities. The identity of each group must notbe extinguished, but each must find its place in the wider community 0T communities. Only such a concept provides the hope for the development of a human future in which individuals and groups will have their rights respected a…
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Memorandum Regarding the Organization of Studies and the Preparations for the Next Jewish-Christian Consultation

At the consultations in Lugano in the last days of October 1970, it was agreed that the World Council of Churches and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations engage in a joint study on the implications of the theme that was the subject of the plenary meeting – i.e., “The Quest for World Community: Jewish and Christian Perspectives.” The understanding of both participating groups was that the next plenary meeting would be held in the autumn of 1972 with the same theme as its subject, and would work toward the preparation of a position paper that would attempt to articulate the views of Jews and Christians on their relationship with each other and with people of other faiths. A second document, once approved, would be forwarded by the consulting bodies to their respective constituencies. All of the conferees at Lugano were aware that the issues before them are fraught with great difficulty, because of the wide variation of opinion and belief within their various constituencies, and that it is therefore necessary for sufficient time and effort to be invested, so that all of these views could be fairly represented and, to the degree to which that is humanly possible, be allowed to interact.It was agreed that the kind of people to be appointed to engage in this study would, on both sides, represent, primarily, the academic and intellectual community, so that whatever document emerged would be solidly rooted in scholarship. It was envisaged that each of the groups would meet separately in the early fall of 1971, and that they would meet together for the first time before the end of the calendar year.Without limiting either the Christian or-the Jewish committee, or the two of them when they begin to act as the joint body, the following were the major questions which appeared at the discussion in Lugano as important for further study.(These issues are herebeing described * not as a report of the total discussion, but rather as they were presente…
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The Quest for World Community Based on the Resources of Other Groups (1975)

1. The effort to achieve world community, as a voluntary pluralistic entity rather than as an imposed uniformity, raises a particularly sensitive question — one amongst many — to which each participant in the endeavor must essay his own answer. That question is: How can we understand and work together with communities of other religions and ideologies in their quest for a world community based on their own resources? This paper is an effort to formulate a Jewish response to this challenge. 2. It is a truism that Judaism has often interacted with contemporary civilizations, and cultural borrowing is a fact of history which requires no documentation. Yet with Judaism, such borrowing as did occur was largely unconscious. Deliberate imitation was explicitly proscribed. “Neither shall ye walk in their statutes” (Lev. 18:3) was taken as a general prohibition of pagan practices and became a major source of Judaism's strictures against non-Jewish ritual and mores. To speak, therefore, of cooperation with other faith communities on the basis of their own resources, poses an immediate dilemma. 3. There is an inherent danger in the whole enterprise that we have labelled “the quest for world community.” It may, if we are not on our guard, result in committing one of three fundamental errors. The first of these is the possibility that “world community” will become a euphemism for what can only be called religious and ideological imperialism, whether conscious or unconscious. If our goals are largely identical, why not adopt my methods? The second is the imposition of a kind of apologetic straitjacket on individual philosophies, frequently distorting them in the course of striving for preconceived conclusions acceptable to others. Jewish thought has too often suffered from this wilful if well-intentioned distortion. Third, one must beware of falling into the trap of a theological indifferentism which regards theological and cultic exclusiveness as retrograde and reactionary. If,…
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