The Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Germany - What Lessons Can We Draw From it for a Dialogue With the Muslim World?
By Dr. Dagmar Pruin

 I. Introduction:
Before I begin, let me mention a few points, because defining one's own perspective is very important when discussing topics like these. First of all, I am German, the third generation after Auschwitz. I am a Christian, who belongs to one of the mainline churches in Germany, and I am a theologian - an Old Testament scholar. All of these elements play an important role in shaping my point of view.

Inter-religious dialogue is a hot topic these days. Politicians call for it, especially for a dialogue with the Muslim world. But as I see it, it is not clear what inter-religious dialogue actually means - or to put it this way, people often have poorly defined expectations of what it means.

For this reason I would like to focus on one concrete inter-religious dialogue: the Protestant Christian-Jewish dialogue in Germany, a dialogue I have been engaged in for almost fifteen years. It was a dialogue that continues to take place under extreme conditions, in a setting of guilt on the Christian side. It is a dialogue that, from my perspective today, I would reluctantly and cautiously call successful. It is for this reason that I am inviting you to have a closer look at this particular dialogue and to ask what lessons, if any, we might apply to other inter-religious dialogues.

And since the focus is on inter-religious dialogue, it is important to begin with a presentation of sacred texts and official statements of the churches. It is here, and not on the meta-level of public discourse, where we have to evaluate the sustainability of inter-religious dialogue.

II. Background: The Jewish - Christian Relationship or the Problem Lies in the Holy Scripture Itself.

"For a Christian it is quite easy to neglect the Christian-Jewish dialogue, however it is impossible to ignore the Christian-Jewish relationship." (Peter von der Osten-Sacken) The Christian faith has to position itself in relationship to Judaism, since this determination, in whatever shape, is an inseparable topos of Christian theology.

The greater part of the Holy Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, connects Christianity and Judaism. The smaller part, the New Testament, pays tribute to the parting of the ways.

Because Christianity has to deal with Judaism, but not Judaism with Christianity, the relationship of both religions is an asymmetric one; paying close attention to such asymmetries is an important principle of each form of inter-religious dialogue. To avoid any confusion here: Judaism, of course, has always had to relate to Christianity, but this is mostly for social and political reasons. It does not have to be an integrated part of Jewish theology. To investigate these different aspects is a very important task - especially for the dialogue with Islam.

If you take a look at Western church history, it becomes apparent that through time the churches have defined and identified themselves superior to Judaism. The church, "the true Israel," defined herself as a successor to the promises that had been given to the Jews. In classical Christian theology, the new Covenant between God and the Church replaces the Covenant between God and Israel.

Additionally, anti-Judaism - and here I distinguish between religious anti-Judaism and an anti-Semitism that is based on racial, biological, economic or social arguments - was a permanent feature within Christian theology. Christian theologians who blamed the Jews for the murder of Christ first appear in the second century. It is also here, for the first time, that the topic of a collective guilt of all Jews surfaces.

What makes this so difficult is that the roots for this kind of theology can be found in the New Testament, i.e. in the holy scripture of the Christians itself. Looking at the Passion narratives in the different gospels, sentences like Matthew 27:25 - "His Blood be on us and on our children" - signal the beginning point for Christian anti-Judaism.

III: Change of Perspective: The Christian-Jewish Dialogue in Germany since 1945

Because of limited space, an investigation of church history as a whole, or even the protestant church history in the Third Reich, will not be discussed here in great detail. With a few exceptions, it is a history of guilt and of non-engagement with Jews. I will focus instead on the Jewish-Christian dialogue after the Shoah, since this is a time during which German Christians slowly began to face the consequences wrought not only by secular anti-Semitism but also by religious anti-Judaism, and that Protestant theology had played a prominent role in providing the rationale for the killing of more than six million Jews in Europe.

Phases of the Jewish-Christian-Dialogue in Germany

From today's perspective, four different stages can be identified. I am not going to analyze every stage, but I would like to highlight several points.

1. The post-war period, which could at best be called a dialogue without dialogue.

2. After the early sixties, the real dialogue started slowly, mostly in Protestant academies, e.g., in academic surroundings, but not in the universities. It was a movement more outside than inside the establishment. What was characteristic and, in fact, had made the dialogue possible were defined discussion circles in which the same people met for years or even decades and talked about the topic. Without spending hours and hours together, this inter-religious dialogue would not have been possible. Building trust was the first task.

I already mentioned the asymmetric structure of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. In addition to this, the dialogue itself was also asymmetric. It was a dialogue between victims and perpetrators - though this is a very simplistic way of saying it - and it was a dialogue with only a few Jewish partners. Today there are 110,000 Jewish people who belong to Jewish communities throughout Germany. More than sixty-five percent came after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. This may give you an idea of how small the Jewish community was in the sixties.

The participation of these Jewish people in the inter-religious dialogue in that historical situation was a gift. For many reasons, I can sympathize with everyone who did not want to participate. But this asymmetric structure was a determining feature of the dialogue and its topics.

How much the dialogue is determined by structure and by the relationship between majority and minority is much more obvious to me after having studied in Jerusalem. There I found myself in a totally different situation. As a German Christian studying Talmud and Midrash at Hebrew University, I was definitely not in the majority, but in the minority.  Looking back during that time at the Jewish-Christian dialogue in Germany, it is obvious to me how many topics have not been discussed, not exclusively, but nevertheless because of the minority-majority situation.

Over time and through the development of the Jewish-Christian dialogue, the Christians tried to reformulate their theology in a non anti-Jewish way. Because the roots of anti-Judaism are found in the Holy Scripture itself, this was not an easy task. But after another twenty years the churches in Germany slowly started to stand behind this reformulated theology and made it official. This is an important point: the dialogue finally became part of the Church establishment.

3. So we arrive at a new and third phase of the Protestant Christian-Jewish dialogue in Germany: official church statements from the beginning of the eighties. To demonstrate how this theology was reformulated, and where the problems lay, a discussion of the Declaration of the Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland is helpful. Just to be clear: "evangelical" here means "protestant" and in fact speaks for the protestant Christians in the largest of the German Bundesländer (states). It was the first declaration of this kind in the world and is still one of the reference documents for other declarations in Germany as well as in the United States. And yes, there are many declarations about this topic in the United States, too, so it is not only a German topic, as some may have assumed.

Several aspects of this declaration are worth emphasizing. Here I am concentrating on the very beginning sentences. Points 1.1. and 2.1. of the declaration read: "(...) the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland accepts the historical necessity of attaining a new relationship of the Church to the Jewish people. The church is brought to this by four factors: 1. The recognition of Christians' co-responsibility and guilt for the Holocaust -- the defamation, persecution and murder of the Jews in the Third Reich."

Auschwitz is mentioned as the beginning point, the point of departure. From my point of view, and from the view of church history, this is obviously right, but for other people in the churches it was a scandal; a political incident leads to a reformulation of theology. Theologians who criticized the declaration saw a failure of categories. I personally would argue that this failure of categories happened on the other side.

But there is an important point I would like to make here. In my view and experience, talking about Jewish theology and Auschwitz poses unique difficulties. Again, for brevity's sake, I can only add a few sentences here.

In Jewish theology God has always been a God in History, who guided his people.  However, the industrial killing of six million Jews also shook the foundations of Jewish theology. After Auschwitz, it became increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to speak about a God who always remained this God of history.  The theological concepts and theologies of Emil Fackenheim, Richard Rubinstein and Irwin Greenberg provide witness to such problems.

The Protestant theologians who wrote the declaration also faced this crisis. Jews and Christians both are asking: "Where was God in Auschwitz?," but German Christians also have to ask: "And where were we in those days? "This whole line of thinking and argumentation lies in the background when mentioning the Holocaust.

If you follow the argument of the declaration in point 2.2., the next important point emerges. "The new biblical insights concerning the continuing significance of the Jewish people within the history of God (e.g. Rom. 9-11), which have been attained by the Confession Church." Point 4.4. belongs to the same line of argumentation: "We believe in the permanent election of the Jewish people as the people of God and realize that through Jesus Christ the church is taken into the covenant of God with his people." The church is not the successor to the Jewish community, as it has been in Christian theology before; to make it short, he who was the successor became the younger brother.

If you refer back to 2.2., you will find the formulation "the new biblical insights" and a reference to the letter to the Romans, from which the programmatic superscription of the declaration was taken. "Thou bearest not the root, but the root thee (Rom.11:18b)." The rediscovery of these chapters provided the basis and the reason for the proclamation of a new relationship with the Jewish people. It was not so simple as it sounds in these few words - "rediscovery" here means that there is a whole exegetical discussion behind this, because the older theology of inheritance also has its foundation in the New Testament, especially in the Letters of Paul. But this rediscovery made it possible for the church to renew her relationship with the Jews and to renounce proselytizing amongst Jews; this is in fact the most important point of the declaration, and you can find it almost hidden in 4.6. "We believe that in their respective calling Jews and Christians are witnesses of God before the world and before each other. Therefore we are convinced that the church may not express its witness towards the Jewish people as it does its mission to her people of the world."

New biblical insights also require a special look at the story of the Passion and the images of the Jews in these stories. The gospels, and thus the different stories of the Passion, were written between 70 and 120 after Christ. They tell us more about the time and the space they have been written in - i.e. the separation between church and synagogue and the beginning of the persecutions of the Christians by the Romans - than about the period they are writing about. They could hardly be called a historical source since they are mostly about religion and politics in the Roman Empire.

The last point that has been heatedly discussed and that I would like to mention here is point 2.3. It is also about religion and politics, but in another way. "The insight that the continuing existence of the Jewish people, its return to the land of Promise, and also the foundation of the state of Israel are signs of the faithfulness of God towards his people." The foundation of the state of Israel is called a sign of the faithfulness of God towards his people. Despite all the deep solidarity with the state of Israel that I feel, as a theologian I have to say one should have chosen another formulation. I am not talking about the whole paragraph, just the mention of the state of Israel in this way.

If one wants to summarize this third phase of the dialogue, it was the wish and the goal from the perspective of the Christians - and as I said from the beginning this is the only perspective I can talk about in an adequate way - to highlight the connection and the relationship with the Jewish people. This was the main topic of the inter-religious dialogue for more than thirty years.

But from today's perspective, it is necessary to ask if there was too much "embracing" from the Christian side - that is, perhaps the Christian embrace of the Jewish partner was so strong that its partner could no longer breathe.

4. This is why - in the fourth phase of the dialogue - both religions today also emphasize what is distinctive about Christianity and Judaism. And it is necessary to do so. But this is - and rightly so -- only possible today after the common traits were highlighted first, not only in a short statement but in a very long and intensive inter-faith discussion.

IV. And What Can We Learn from It? What Does It Mean particularly for a Dialogue with the Muslim World?

Again, I am talking from a Christian German perspective. If and how this could be compared to the experiences in the United States can be discussed during our session.

Dialogue needs defined groups of participants who meet over a long period of time. The first task is building trust, and in the post 9/11 world this is not an easy one.

If these defined groups do not exist, the discussion will not succeed, and the process will have to begin over and over again. Dialogue has phases; there will be different phases within the dialogue with Muslims, but they will develop. If people do not meet in defined groups, you will only scratch the surface.

To make it clear: what I call here "scratching the surface" can be very important. Organisations, lectures, etc., where people meet occasionally and talk about Christianity and Islam are more than necessary. And it is necessary to show the German public more insights into the Muslim religion. Many people have no idea what they are talking about; they either condemn the Muslim religion or avert their eyes to it.

But talking about "tolerance" and "frankness" is not inter-religious dialogue, but its prerequisite. In order to build bridges between religions, much more is needed. In the types of meetings I mentioned above, participants normally do not get to the problematic topics. Participating in the process is not an easy task, but you have to go there to build a foundation for a better relationship between the religions.

There are asymmetric structures worth mentioning. Here is the first: Jewish theology in its core does not need to deal with Christianity. Christian theology - in its core it does not need to contend with Islam. Establishing a dialogue with Islam is first of all a political and social question, not a theological one. This is an important point - though again it is easier said than done.

But there is nothing about Mohammed in the Bible, although there is a lot about Moses and Jesus in the Koran. And it will be the task of Muslim theologians to prove, if and in which way, the texts of the Koran could provide resources for a better understanding between religions. Real inter-religious dialogue has to deal with the Holy Scriptures.

But there is another asymmetric structure.  In secular or post-secular Germany, there is a close relationship between the church and state, and this means that the Churches - and the synagogues - have special rights. It will be the task of the Churches to ask when and under which conditions Muslims can obtain these rights, too. Topics that fall under this category include the headscarf debate, and the question of religions education in schools.

Many people are calling for an Abrahamic dialogue, which means a Jewish-Christian-Muslim trialogue. So much work has been done within the Jewish-Christian dialogue; why not integrate the Muslims?  I am not sure if we in Germany are at this point yet. Perhaps it would be better to take smaller steps first, such as organizing Christian-Muslim and Jewish-Muslim dialogues. Perhaps it is wise to take even smaller steps, like beginning with a German-Christian-Turkish-Muslim dialogue. We shall see; perhaps I am too pessimistic.  But I am optimistic that inter-religious dialogue is possible - even under the hardest conditions.

This essay is based on a lecture presented at AICGS on December 12, 2006 and it appeared in the February 16, 2007 AICGS Advisor. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.

AICGS is grateful to the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) for its generous support of the lecture and fellowship.