Both are Catholic schools.
The conference was open to all faculty and students of seminaries in the
Council of Southwestern Theological Schools and was participated in by Perkins
School of Theology at Southern Methodist University; Brite Divinity School at
Texas Christian University; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a
Southern Baptist school; and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary as well
as the Catholic school already mentioned. It was made possible by a grant from
the Nathan Appleman Institute for The Advancement of Christian-Jewish
Understanding.
According to a news release
by the American Jewish Committee in New York, this was "an unprecedented
dialogue between young Jewish and Christian seminarians . . . 'We have really
broken new ground here,' said Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, AJC's National Director
of Interreligious Affairs, who is no stranger to Jewish-Christian dialogues,
having pioneered such gatherings since the early 1950's . . . We are going to
plan ... to replicate this conference in the six regions of the United States —
New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the mid-West, the Northeast, and
southern California.
"These kids ten years
from now will be running the churches and synagogues of America and also the
seminaries. They will fill prominent pulpits and will help form the consciences
of thousands and thousands of their constituents."
The AJC's news release told
of students having emotional reactions to the dialogue with others of radically
different faiths. "One young woman burst into tears ..." when at the
end of the conference all participants formed a circle and passed around a clay
pot having twin vases extending from a single base, symbolizing their common
roots. Another student testified that she had found out just how Jewish she is.
One young rabbi, Michael
Goldberg, took the position that Judaism will prevail — that it ultimately will
be the vehicle through which God will save all men, including Christians.
"I realize that offends many of you here . . . but I just don't think it
helps a whole lot to sit around and jolly one another."
Dr. William Longworth of
Brite Divinity wrote, "Things are now falling into place. Many believe
that if the World Council of Schools took exception to Goldberg's statement,
warning others to "watch out for imperialist claims ... In the long run,
salvation is God's business and how salvation comes about is not for me to
say."
If we throw away the Bible
and navigate by our emotions and hypotheses born of contempory humanist
philosophy, we can understand why these men and women seminarians did and said
such things. Without Bible truths one person's guess is just as good as
another's. Smyrna Publications maintains, however, that it is impossible to
reach their conclusions if we believe God's Word. The entire Bible is replete
with the basic teaching that long before temporal Israel existed. God was
justifying people according to His plan. The world had existed at least 2,500
years before national Israel emerged, yet we are led to believe by the above
conferees that God belonged only to the Jews and all "Gentiles" were
either excluded or they worshipped "the God of Israel". This
prejudicial exclusivism has led them to finalize opinions and decrees favoring
Judaism that bear little resemblance to Bible truths.
According to an official
statement by the Texas Conference of Churhes regarding the matter of
Christian-Jewish relations, all forms of unwarranted proselytism and
"every sort of judgment expressive of discrimination ..." against the
Jewish faith are verboten. "Any kind of witness or preaching which in any
way constitutes a physical, moral, psychological or cultural constraint on
Jews" is un-Christian according to the statement. This requirement would
have totally prevented the teaching
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