Christians and Jews

after the Shoah and the Mission to the Jews

                                                                                                                             Simon Schoon
                                                                                             

What has changed in the relations between Jews and Christians after the Shoah and after the Mission to the Jews? The word after has not the same meaning for the two very different events referred to: the Shoah and the Mission to the Jews. Nobody will deny that we live after the Shoah, although the fact of living after the Shoah does not mean the same for Jews and for Christians. For almost all Jews everything is changed, the whole world is changed. For some Christians nothing changed in the relations between them and the Jews. For them after the Shoah the same issues and questions, just as ever, are still on the table, in the first place the question of the Messiahship of Jesus. For others Christians everything is changed; nothing in church and theology remained the same after the Shoah.
The word after is even less clear and more ambiguous, when it is applied to Mission to the Jews. Many Christians are convinced that Mission to the Jews is something of the past, something we have left behind and regard as a totally inadequate response to the delicate relations between Jews and Christians. Other Christians will, however, maintain that Mission to the Jews is still, and will remain in the future, the most important or even the only legitimate Christian approach to the Jews, a holy and God-given task. So, the title of this essay does not only give an objective indication of the time in which we live: after the Shoah and the Mission to the Jews. But it gives also and perhaps even more a subjective indication of the time in which we should have to live: after the Shoah and the Mission to the Jews.

It is still too little realized in church and university that the context of Christian life in general and of theological study in particular - at least in Europe and North America - is characterized by the phrase ‘after the Shoah’. Many Christians live and believe as if nothing has happened and nothing is changed. It is also too little accepted, that the historical and the theological approach to the people Israel are linked and can not be separated. If there is still a trace left in Christian thinking of the Biblical conviction, that God is the God of history, then it must be clear that the historical and theological approaches to the Jewish People must be certainly distinguished but are yet inseparable.
Christians haven’t yet grasped, that the attempt of Hitler’s murder-machine to destroy the whole Jewish nation was – in theological language - also aiming at breaking God’s faithfulness to his Covenant-People Israel.  Furthermore, the Christian community which seeks to rely on that same unfailing faithfulness of the God of Israel, has scarcely  realized that herewith also the foundation of their own existence was under threat. The painful questions which are raised by the Shoah about the power and faithfulness of God, are not just questions for the world-wide Jewish community but are equally burning for the Church and Christian theology. So, if we hope to continue Christian theology after Auschwitz, this must be conducted in a spirit of repentance and humility, and in a readiness to listen to ‘the other’. Because it is undeniable that Christian theology was at least co-responsible for thoughts and attitudes that led to the horror of the Shoah.
It is impossible to come to a new theological paradigm and a renewal of the relationship between Jews and Christians, so long as Christian theology sees the event in the 20th century, that carries the name ‘Auschwitz’, as something of no relevance for its thinking.  A number of Christians hold the view that a new vision of the Jewish People and Judaism must be drawn, purely and simply, from the New Testament as the foundation text of Christianity, thereby dismissing nearly 2000 years of church history. Even when this intention is rooted in the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura, then the project is fated not only to fail but to offend the Jewish and other victims of Christian history. In order to come to a renewal of the Jewish-Christian relationship the Wirkungsgeschichte of New Testament texts in a long – often dreadful - history must be scrutinized in critical research. In a fierce resistance to this type of research the sincere attempts to read New Testament texts differently and to interpret them in the terrible light cast by Auschwitz are condemned as ‘hermeneutical intimidation’ and the murder of 6,000,000 Jews is dismissively compared, in cold statistical terms, with other attempts at genocide in the dreary catalogue of human crime.[1] Perhaps they are few who propound such a view, but there are many who have shrugged off the tough questions posed by Auschwitz and happily continue with repeating traditional Christian answers as though nothing has happened.  Many theological essays pass over the fundamental shock which the Shoah brings to all Christian thinking.
Few have called for a theological re-thinking as deep and intense as the German theologian Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt.[2] He went so far as to question the whole endeavour of theological reflection. Is it not, after all, better to keep silent about God, than to continue with verbal theological violence in the face of the victims?  If we yet have to speak out theologically, it is because of the fact that keeping silent means a betrayal of the victims.  According to Marquardt, the effort of theology can only be risked in the awareness of the crisis caused by the Shoah and in the readiness for a total Umdenken. This renewed attempt at a theological vision is borne from the search for practical ways to give structure and content to the relationship with the Jewish People and is not intended to refine a theoretical definition of  ‘others’.  Jews  should no longer in Christian thought, as formerly, be treated as strangers, but can only be considered and encountered from a standpoint of shared experience and solidarity.  Christians have to learn “to let the other live in his otherness, and to loosen the stranglehold of the craving for religious and theological definition”.[3]

A new paradigm?

In recent decades, it must be recognized, more has changed for the better in Jewish-Christian relations than in nearly 2000 years. As proof of this statement, one can point to a stream of official church statements and a library of theological studies. Even so, Christian readiness to change is not primarily based on theological considerations. New studies yielding Biblical insights about the Jewish People have not been the most important instrument shaping the fundamental Christian review of its conception of Jews and Judaism. Historical factors - far more than theological ones - have driven the church’s far-reaching reconstruction of its ideas in this vital matter.  The shock-waves caused by the Shoah, and the great impression made by the establishment of the State of Israel, are the prime movers that set in motion the change in Christian views on Jews and Judaism.However, one must honestly ask: Has so much really changed in the teaching and life of the Church, that Jews could risk the possibility of an open dialogue wit Christians? Or must we recognize, that the amended conception of Jews and Judaism has still barely touched more than a small part of Christendom? Do not these ideas provoke strong resistance, proving that the new concept is yet to strike deep roots in our churches and theological faculties? Do Christians and churches really live after the Shoah, and beyond the Mission to the Jews? Can we yet speak of  reaching a new theological paradigm in the views of churches and Christians on Jews and Judaism? Is Judaism really recognized theologically as a living tradition and is the ongoing theological significance of the Jewish People in the postbiblical period accepted in Christian thinking? Have consequences been drawn from these convictions for the basic tenets of our faith and doctrine? These questions cannot quickly be answered, and must remain open for the present.Documents

In the last half century, a lot of work has been done to amend theory and doctrine of the Church on Jews and Judaism. Various attempts have been made from the side of many churches in official documents to break away from supersessionism and substitution theology and to develop a different perspective on the relationship Church-Israel. More important than the groundbreaking studies of individual theologians are these official church documents, although these theological studies prepared the ground for the official church statements. In this respect, the declaration  Nostra Aetate (Nr. 4) of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 must be seen as a milestone. Looking back from the 21th century, it is scarcely imaginable how that first, careful statement forshadowed a tectonic shift in the theological thought of the Roman Catholic Church towards Jews. The declaration begins thus:

“As this sacred Synod searches into the mystery of the church, it recalls the spiritual bond linking the people of the new covenant with Abraham’s stock (...)
The church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy deigned to establish the ancient covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles.”[4]

Nostra Aetate was developed further in important statements, in 1975 and 1985.[5]

In contrast, apart from a brief reference at its establishment  in 1948 in Amsterdam, the World Council of Churches has never dared to come out with such a fundamental statement, at the highest level, about the theological significance of the Jewish People.[6] In the Introduction to the 1948 Declaration on  The Christian Approach to the Jews it was indeed recalled that the delegates were meeting in a country from which 110,000 Jews, in the so-recent war, had been deported and murdered, but it continued with a blunt call to the Church to resume its missionary task among the Jews. Remarkably, the text includes a comment on the State of Israel - established that same year - which the WCC could not bring itself to repeat in all its years since.

“We appeal to the nations to deal with the problem [i.e. the State of Israel] not as one of expediency – political, strategic or economic – but as a moral and spiritual question that touches a nerve centre of the world’s religious life.”[7]

Coming to the eightees, a virtual flood of Declarations, Statements and Pastoral Letters appears, from bishops, synods and other church assemblies. These pronouncements, of varying significance and quality, signalled remarkable shifts in the Christian visions on the Jewish People.[8] Prior to 1980, the Netherlands Reformed Church was almost the only church in the world, that addressed the subject of the Jews and the relationship Church-Israel as a serious matter of faith. By this church the theme was repeatedly placed on the agenda of international ecumenical meetings. In 1949, an annual Israel Sunday on the first Sunday of October, in the season of the Jewish High Holydays, was instituted. In 1959 the Synod published the study Israël en de kerk (‘Israel and the Church’), whereby Israel’s enduring election and involvement in the Covenant was affirmed. Furthermore, the State of Israel was identified as a sign of Gods faithfulness towards his People, a sign that - in spite of all human betrayal and unbelief - the Jewish People had been given a new chance to give expression to its election in history.
After the Council of the Evangelical (Evangelische) Church in Germany published its wide-ranging study Christen und Juden (‘Christians and Jews’) in 1975, it was the Synod decision in 1980 of the Evangelical Church of Rhineland, which sparked an intense discussion. After that more publications and declarations came out in Germany and elsewhere. The confessing statements of 1980, a few of which I will quote, went to the roots of the issue, and betokened a important theological change in the German churches:

"1. We confess with dismay the co-responsibility and guilt of German Christendom for the Holocaust.
3. We confess Jesus Christ, the Jew, who as the Messiah of Israel is the Saviour of the world and binds the peoples of the world to the people of God.
4. We believe 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.
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 the peoples of the world."[9]

A remarkable document also came out from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which completed six years of study in 1987 with a declaration at Synod level, entitled A Theological Understanding of the Relationship between Christians and Jews, of which the main professions of faith are as follows:

"1. We affirm that the living God whom Christians worship is the same God who is worshipped and served by Jews. We bear witness that the God revealed in Jesus, a Jew, to be the Triune Lord of all, is the same One disclosed in the life and worship of Israel.
2. We affirm that the church, elected in Jesus Christ, has been engrafted into the people of God established by the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore, Christians have not replaced Jews.
3. We affirm that both the church and the Jewish people are elected by God for witness to the world, and that the relationship of the church to contemporary Jews is based on that gracious and irrevocable election of both.
4. We affirm that the reign of God is attested both by the continuing existence of the Jewish people and by the church’s proclamation of the Gospel of  Jesus Christ. Hence, when speaking with Jews about matters of faith, we must always acknowledge that Jews are already in a covenantal relationship with God."[10]

Worldwide

The many official declarations in the last decades of the 20th century, often the result of years of debate in committees and councils, reflect strongly the changed attitudes of the churches over Judaism and the relationship between Jews and Christians. For a long time, the issue of Jewish-Christian dialogue had been almost exclusively a transatlantic concern of Europeans and Americans. Christians from other parts of the world had little connection with what they saw as a mainly ‘western hobby’. They understood that this special European and American fascination sprang from the western Christians’ guilt feelings about the centuries-long persecution of European Jewry and from their recognition of Christian co-responsibility for this history. 
From various places, in recent years, a change has come about. An institutional dialogue has been set in motion by representatives of Judaism and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. After the Iron Curtain came down, many East Europeans have rediscovered the rich Jewish heritage in their countries. New Councils of Christians and Jews have been established here, which encouraged churches to catch up with the times and to fight anti-Judaism in theology and religious practice. Also churches in the Middle East, especially by the discussions in the Middle East Council of Churches, have become interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue, on account of its obvious implications for the political tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.[11] It is an extraordinary development, that many theologians from Third World countries have made trips to Israel, or have actually studied there for longer periods, thereby discovering that the encounter with living Judaism can be immensely rewarding.
So the Jewish-Christian dialogue slowly spreads, to a limited extent, into various contexts of the world. The North Atlantic Hemisphere, in which the memory of the Shoah plays a vital role, is no longer the only one. Nor is western theology the only instrument to mediate Jewish-Christian dialogue in other ecumenical contexts. It is found to be more fruitful, to create separate, bi-lateral dialogues between Jewish partners on the one side and Christians in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa or Asia on the other side. Sometimes these discussions have become trialogues with Muslems as third party,[12] and many times the Jewish-Christian encounters have been widened to become a multi-religious dialogue with members from various religions.
Apart from this, the internal debate between Christians from different confessional backgrounds on the impact of Jewish-Christian dialogue on church and theology is of great importance, a discussion that, though difficult and exhausting, must not be broken off. Jewish questions directed towards the heart of Christian identity always give Christians reasons for reflection. Perhaps this could be seen as ‘the Jewish Mission’ to the Church and the Christians. For example: The christogical implications of the Jewishness of Jesus and the theological significance of the election and continuing existence of the Jewish People will always mean impetus and challenge for intra-Christian reflection.[13]
We may recognize real progress in Jewish-Christian encounters in the last quarter century. Perhaps we can agree too that the greatest achievement of this dialogue is the fact that Jews and Christians from many and various backgrounds are ready to join hands in the struggle against all forms of anti-semitism and racism in the world. It is of fundamental significance, that Jews and Christians are now more likely to see each other as allies than as opponents or even enemies. This was clearly expressed in A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, undersigned in September 2000 by more than 150 rabbi’s and Jewish scholars in the United States, England, Canada and Israel:

“Jews and Christians, each in their own way, recognize the unredeemed state of the world as reflected in the persistence of persecution, poverty, and human degradation and misery. Although justice and peace are finally God’s, our joint efforts, together with those of other faith communities, will help bring the kingdom of God for which we hope and long. Separately and together, we must work to bring justice and peace to our world. In this enterprise we are guided by the visions of the prophets of Israel.”[14]

Change calls forth dissent. Many Christians feel their identity threatened by the altered views on Jews and Judaism. Therefore old theological standpoints can be fiercely defended. Even the old supersessionist theology can be refurbished and given a fresh look. One should not, of course, dismiss all dissent out of hand. In different circumstances dissent can take different forms. It is, for example, too easy, coming from a western background, to accuse Palestinian Christian theology of anti-Judaism, without giving attention to the specific conditions to  which this theology forms a reaction.[15] In an intra-Christian theological debate with Palestinian Christians, Westerners may indeed explain what they after centuries of anti-Judaism -  to their shame  - at last have learned about Jews and Judaism. But it must also be expected, that they remain acutely aware of the exceptional circumstances, in which Palestinian Christians experience Israelis and which have shaped their theology. The context of Latin American liberation theology is again completely different.  In their position, the anti-Judaism of  western Christendom is often uncritically adopted and an image is formed of Jesus as Liberator, in sharp contrast with the ‘legalistic Pharisees’ of his time. These serve as prototypes of the exploiters and oppressors of Latin America, past and present, in the church as well as in the ruling class.[16]
A great ability and willingness to change insights has been shown by Feminist Theology, which in its initial phase pictured Jesus as ‘a feminist avant la lettre’ in sharp contrast with the patriarchal Judaism of his time. So this Judaism was made the scapegoat for all the later discrimination against women in Christendom. Moreover, Biblical Israel was held responsible for the suppression of the cult of the Earth-goddes and thereby accountable for the patriarchal structure of  the later Church. There was a lot of traditional anti-Judaism in the early years of Feminist Theology, because new movements often accept unconsciously a lot of old ideas without careful study. So, Jesus was supposed to have broken, in his words and deeds, with the established pattern of Jewish tradition and to have left the patriarchal Judaism of his time far behind. Through careful questioning of the Jewish partners, many feminist theologians have come to realize, that such conclusions can only be drawn from an uncritical and actually fundamentalist reading of the New Testament.[17] An historical-critical reading, coupled with a profound study of Jewish writings from the time of the Second Temple, allows other aspects to come to light.[18] In this research, a common error is to compare, or contrast, different periods of history. Jesus teachings and sayings cannot be set beside rabbinic sayings from the Talmudic period. Objective research would compare the sayings of the Church Fathers about women with those of Talmud-sages of the same era. In recent years a concrete solidarity came into being between representatives of Jewish and Christian feminist movements, which led to mutual recognition and assistance in the opposition to patriarchal structures which exist both in Judaism and in Christianity.

After the Shoah great changes took place in Church and theology. But the question remains open, if  by the encounter with the living Jewish People a paradigm shift will break through in the whole realm of Church and theology. Many Christians confess with their lips the end of substitution theology but show in their thoughts and actions that this theory is still very much alive. So far there has not been much reflection of what could substitute the substitution theory in Church and theology. It is still uncertain that repentance caused by the shock of the Shoah will bring about lasting change in theological thinking, when in the 21th century the memory of this horror will slowly fade away. A paradigm shift evokes always lots of resistance and denial. It is not unthinkable that Church and theology will shrink from the heavy task of re-thinking the whole of Christian tradition, in the light of the encounter with the living People Israel. As long as in Church and theology the identity of Judaism as a living tradition is not recognized, it is impossible to use the term ‘paradigm shift’.
            Anyhow, anti-Judaism and Mission to the Jews can not yet be called phenomena of the past. There is nothing that casts so much doubt for Jews on the officially expressed readiness by Christians to listen to living Judaism than the activities of Mission to the Jews. Ongoing attempts by Christians and Christian organizations to convert Jews to the Christian faith are regarded as the very negative expressions of Christian triumphalism. In the worldwide evangelical movement regularly declarations are issued, in which Christians are called upon to activate Mission to the Jews and even give it high priority. More than once from the evangelical side the reproach is made, that churches, stimulated by pressures from Jewish organizations, unrightly deviate from their biblical task to call all people to Jesus Christ, including and even especially Jews. According to these Christians, the memories of complicity and passivity of Christianity in the times of persecutions of Jews may never lead to the consequence of giving up the Great Commandment to missionize the whole world, because that would mean abandoning ‘Christian truth’.[19]
            Often the mandate of Mission to the Jews is linked with the expectation that Jewish Christians will realize the special task of bridge-building between Judaism and Christianity. These Jewish Christians have, especially in Protestant and Evangelical circles, since the Second World War a clear preference for the name ‘Messiah Confessing Jews’ or ‘Messianic Jews’[20]. By themselves and by other Christians these Jewish Believers in Jesus are regarded to be bridge-builders par excellence, because in their very existence the special link between the Christian community and the Jewish People has taken a very concrete shape. But this possible function of Jewish Christians is fiercely rejected by the great majority of the Jewish People. It is the result of many centuries church history, that just this group, that by its descent and background would seem to be most qualified for bridge-building, can not make this true. Perhaps that in the first centuries of the common era this function was still possible, but there is no direct historical continuity between ‘the Church from the Circumcision’ of the first centuries and the present Jewish Christians or the movement of Messianic Judaism. The Christian-Jewish community (or: ‘Judaeo-Christians’) with its own character, liturgy and doctrine, has disappeared from the stage of history in the 4th and 5th century. Most modern Jewish Christians are just like the Gentile Christians characterized and shaped by church history and centuries of Gentile systematic theology. It is an anachronism to try to copy the situation of the first century into the 21th century.[21]      

The parting of the ways

In this context I will be short on the ‘Judaeo-Christians’ in the first centuries and the process of the parting of the ways between Jews and Christians. In other contributions of this book this theme will be approached from various angles, so that I can restrict myself to a few remarks.[22] It would be better to speak of a several different processes than of a single 'process of the parting of the ways', because in the first centuries a variety of processes were simultaneously active and were inter-acting with each other. It is also not possible in these centuries to speak of ‘The Church’, and even less is ‘The Synagogue’ a proper term. Neither ‘Judaism’ nor ‘Christianity’ were in this period designations of a fixed and exact definition. The manner in which the separation between Jews and Christians was completed, is difficult to reconstruct historically with precision, because many original sources have been lost and developments have been coloured by comments of later Rabbi’s and Church Fathers. In mutual processes of accusations and denunciations, charges of heresy were not made between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’ in general, but more specifically between ‘Judaeo-Christians’ and ‘Gentile Christians’ and between ‘Judaeo-Christians’ and representatives of Early Rabbinical Judaism. So, at the end of the first century there is still not a definite schism between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’, but there are many varied developments in train, different in various contexts. This means that a multitude of ‘separation processes between Jews and Christians’ is a more adequate description of this complex event.[23]
The most important processes of the parting of the ways took place on two levels: on the one hand, between the ‘orthodox’ or ‘apostolic’ mainly-Gentile church and the Judaeo-Christian churches and, on the other hand, between Judaeo-Christians and Early Rabbinic Judaism. The phenomenon of ‘Judaeo-Christianity’ is not simple to describe and its borders are not clear. In the majority of the literature on the subject, different names are used and conceptions are not unambiguous.[24] As we are obliged, in the interest of understanding, to use certain names and definitions, it is most important to bear in mind, that nobody in the first century called him/her/self a ‘Jewish Christian’ or a ‘Christian Jew’ or a ‘Judaeo-Christian’. There is not yet a consensus on a historical reconstruction of the ‘Judaeo-Christian movements’. There is, however, a growing consensus, that it was not mainly theological factors that were decisive in the parting of the ways, but much more the political upheavals of the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans in 70. Before and after 70 there were various ‘Christian’ or ‘Jesuanic’ Jewish groups, that understood themselves as part of the Jewish People, but which held highly divergent conceptions of the person and significance of Jesus and about his distinctive role for the Jewish People and the Gentiles. On important ‘Judaeo-Christian’ movements as the Nazarenes and the Ebionites we have almost exclusively reports of Church Fathers such as Eusebius and Epiphanius, who saw them as dangerous heretics, and who could therefore not be expected to paint more or less ‘objective’ pictures of what inspired these groups.
Ultimately, the ‘Christian’ Jews were caught right between the hammer and the anvil. Both large movements, Rabbinic Judaism and the ‘orthodox’ or ‘apostolic’ - mainly Gentile - Christian Church, wanted in these early ages to strengthen their identity and could not tolerate  dissidents. Compared with the Gentile Christian church, the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ movements held fast to a – more or less - strict observation of the Torah, and showed in that way their loyalty to Jewish tradition. But by their Jewish compatriots they were marked down as heretics and ultimately seen as no longer a part of the Jewish People. It is tragic that in their ‘orthopraxy’ they undoubtedly stood close to the Jew Jesus of Nazareth and were as unwelcome in the Church as much as in the Jewish People, condemned by both sides as ’heretics’.

Jewish Christians today

In our times Jewish Christian groups often refer to and regard themselves as the historical continuation of the ‘Judaeo-Christians’ of the first centuries. They look at themselves also as ‘an eschatological sign’, that proves that the final phase of history has started and the ‘end of times’ is near. Remarkably in some Christian, mainly evangelical circles, ‘Messiah-Jesus-Confessing-Jews’ are held up as a sign of the great harvest that will swiftly come. They are treated as ‘twice elected’, because they are both Jews and believers in Jesus as Messiah. Their presence in the Christian community encourages eschatological expectations, that are hoping for great numbers of Jews to accept the Christian faith and who will ultimately fulfil a great missionary endeavour over the whole world.[25]
In some ecclesiologies ‘Jewish Christians’ play  a vital and important role, particularly when it is expressed, that the Church is only the real community of Christ, in any age, when it consists of both Jews and Gentiles. The logical conclusion of this vision should be that we must zealously strive to win Jews for the church, otherwise the true essence of the church is in danger.[26] In my opinion it is not theologically necessary to absolutize as a kind of nota ecclesiae for all time the conditions in which the church began, in the first century.
The modern phenomenon of mutual conversion between Judaism and Christianity should be judged soberly and objectively. In countries where many points of contact exist between Jews and Christians, there will always be individual conversions. It is not fair to endow the phenomenon of conversion of Jews to the Christian faith with high eschatological expectations, and it is repellent to look out for a spiritual Endlösung of Judaism. In Israel in our generation, more Christians go over to Judaism than vice-versa. It would not be advantageous for the Jewish-Christian rapprochement, if Judaism was to react to this phenomenon in Israel by entertaining triumphalist conceptions and the idea of the eventual disappearance of Christianity. The specific context of a particular time and place will always play a role  in mutual conversions between different religions that live together.
In the present day a revived Judaism exercises a strong attraction for Christians, who struggle with their identity and have difficulties with the many different institutional churches. In the 18th century, the pioneers of the Mission to the Jews were forerunners in their love for the Jewish People, taking up the struggle against the ever-present Christian anti-Semitism in church and theology.[27] By the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21th century, the defenders of Mission to the Jews in the mainline churches are fighting a rearguard action against the majority opinion, that regards Judaism as a living religion and therefore wishes to abolish all forms of Mission to the Jews. But in large parts of the growing evangelical movement inside and outside the churches, the Mission to the Jews is still seen as a high priority. So it was said, on the one hand, in a declaration of the evangelical Lausanne Movement:

"We deplore  the discrimination and suffering that has been done to the Jews in the name of Jesus Christ".

But at the same time it was emphasized:

"If the bygone history is used to make the church keep silent in its witness to the Jewish People, we must protest; it would be an act of grave discrimination to withhold the Gospel from the Jewish People."[28]

Supporters and opponents of the Mission to the Jews accuse each other mutually of anti-Semitism. Supporters of the Mission reproach their opponents, that they actually commit anti-Semitism if they do not want to show Jews the way to salvation. Opponents reproach them in return, that the Mission to the Jews feeds on the old Christian ambivalence, whereby an anti-Judaic vision of Judaism is coupled with a philosemitic approach to the Jewish People. Why, they ask, should the Mission to the Jews strive to draw individual Jews out of their people, and estrange them from the specific Covenant of God with Israel, to make them members of ‘a Gentile-Christian enterprise’ such as the church?  It was and is not easy for Christian theology to accept the challenge that is so strikingly put by the Jewish feminist Susannah Heschel:

“Now it is clear, obvious, to all of us that we have to abandon Christian mission to the Jews because that would mean the end of Judaism, but may be it's not so clear to everyone that an end of Judaism might also be an end to Christianity. Where would Christians be if there is no more God of Israel? But how can there be a God of Israel if there is no more Judaism, if there are no more Jews to affirm the God of Israel?"[29]

The position of Jewish Christians or Messiah-Jesus-Confessing-Jews is often brought into the theological discussion over the theme of Mission to the Jews. Whoever rejects the Mission to the Jews, it is maintained, simultaneously denies this Christian group its right to exist. Sometimes it is suggested that churches have all too readily given up their task to reach out to all mankind, but in the first place to the Jews, this being done in order to meet the demand of Jews and in order not to obstruct the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Against this suggestion it appears a weakness when a church decides against Mission to the Jews on purely historical and psychological grounds after the Shoah. Only a firm theological basis is strong enough to support such a decision in the long term. In taking up this challenge we must make a distinction between, on the one side, the refusal on theological grounds to conduct Mission towards Jews that would be carried out by Gentile-Christian churches, and on the other side, the recognition that Jewish believers in Jesus have the perfect right to express their specific identity. It sounds as a paradox. But theologically, here a distinction must be drawn, as Heinz Kremers did already in 1979, between an internal Jewish debate about messianism – a frequent phenomenon in Jewish history - , and the continuing attempts of Gentile Christians, by means of Mission to the Jews, to separate Jews from their own People  and to make them members of a Gentile church.[30]