What do you think?
Rate this book
Stepping-Stones to Further Jewish-Lutheran Relationships: Key Lutheran Statements
Book by Ditmanson, Harold H.
144 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1990
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 19, 2025
I went into this more prepared for what the content of these documents is likely to be (having already read Bridges: Documents of the Christian-jewish Dialogue: The Road to Reconciliation (1945-1985)) so I wasn’t quite as taken aback. That being said, I kind of expected better from Lutheran statements considering I’ve been told that currently, Lutheran “missionary” work consists of improving relationships between Lutheran churches in different locations, not trying to spread the Gospel to the local population. Maybe this book is just too dated.
What I liked:
The more “interfaith” rather than theological commitments, focusing on person-to-person relationships rather than trying to work out a theological solution to the relationship between Jews and Christians. At least the threshold of advocating for working against antisemitism and working with Jews on shared causes was met.
Harold Ditmanson’s revisionist approach (which has become popular amongst those who recognize the problem) that Jews still have an active covenant with God and don’t need to accept Jesus, and it’s all some Divine mystery that humans can’t understand. This at least solves the problem of proselytizing. It’s admirable and it’s the best that I think is possible.
But none of the conventions or documents actually took a clear stance enshrining the revisionist approach. They always leave a door open for those who want to proselytize to Jews. There’s no commitment.
There is a real lack of understanding of so, so many things that makes many of the statements and recommendations for moving forward miss the mark.
First of all, Jews are uncomfortable with Christian theology for reasons other than missionaries. E.g. the Christian self-understanding that they have been “grafted on” to the people of Israel. It’s possible for there to be a shift to stop proselytizing to Jews; I don’t think it’s possible to uproot all the appropriation or even recognize it because it just isn’t seen as a problem– it is the core belief. When discussing things like Biblical interpretation a 1974 American Lutheran Church report states that there may be “drastic differences” over things like Christian claims about the fulfillment of the Old Testament, but there’s no acknowledgement that Jews may find some of these beliefs not just to be drastic differences but to actually be disrespectful. I don’t know what you do with a disrespectful, appropriative belief. There’s no solution to those without everything falling apart.
Then there’s the idea that Jews may be wary or unwilling to enter Christian relationships because of the negative history. No acknowledgement that there’s anxiety over the PRESENT existence of proselytization! I think this stems from a fundamental issue where a lot of these thinkers seem to be under the impression that there’s a “mutual challenge.” There didn’t seem to be any understanding of the fact that the challenge is not really mutual… Christians need Jews to have a place in their theology, while Jews don’t need Christians to have a place in our theology at all. The conversation is only necessary to Jews from the angle of reducing antisemitism and fostering good relationships, which does lead to kind of unequal footing when you know the other party feels the need to “witness.” Actually experienced this myself with a coworker this summer when I thought we’re just having an interesting conversation about religion and then he went on a really passionate speech about the good news and how revolutionary it was that anyone can be saved. Like even if he wasn’t overtly trying to proselytize or convert me, being “witnessed” to like that is so uncomfortable! Your beliefs should not be stated as a fact about the world that you’re kindly sharing to the uninitiated. This was never addressed and I think that contributes to a lot of the misunderstanding and mistaken suggestions.
The absolute worst document was from the 1977 Missouri synod (which was in Texas. Go figure) about sharing gospel with the Jews. This was a wild ride- trigger warning for total disrespect. It wasn’t saying anything that doesn’t apply to all non-Christians but was just focusing on Jews because most Jews don’t know anything about the Gospel and it thinks we’ve been neglected in evangelism. (I think we have had our fair share of it. And do we know less about the Gospel than other non-Christians? I don’t know where they got this concern from.) Now for the worst part. Not evangelizing to Jews is ONE OF THE WORST forms of antisemitism. Because you aren’t sharing the love. Beyond words!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I think this is actually not the first time I came across that claim.) It also claims that Jews are “without hope” because we’re without Christ which was pretty awful. And their grand suggestion at the end of the statement? Reach out to Jewish communities near you in love AND BOLDNESS and WELCOME THEM INTO YOUR CONGREGATION AND FELLOWSHIP. I have to laugh. It would be in the best interests of furthering Jewish-Lutheran relationships to make sure this document gets lost for good.
An interesting tidbit I learned from the Bossey Report is that while Jews believe (generally) that we have free will to choose between good and evil, with sin being individual actions, Christians hold that before conversion you’re in bondage to sin and can’t even choose to believe in Jesus unless the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel. After conversion you are in tension between slavery and freedom because sin is a more all-encompassing enslaving power. I’m sure that’s not how everyone believes but that’s how it was framed in here.
The book was literally falling apart in my hands as I read it and I’m going to recycle it. Glad I read it for Ditmanson’s revisionist theory. I hope it’s widely adopted but I doubt it will be. I need to treat myself to something fun after this.
What I liked:
The more “interfaith” rather than theological commitments, focusing on person-to-person relationships rather than trying to work out a theological solution to the relationship between Jews and Christians. At least the threshold of advocating for working against antisemitism and working with Jews on shared causes was met.
Harold Ditmanson’s revisionist approach (which has become popular amongst those who recognize the problem) that Jews still have an active covenant with God and don’t need to accept Jesus, and it’s all some Divine mystery that humans can’t understand. This at least solves the problem of proselytizing. It’s admirable and it’s the best that I think is possible.
But none of the conventions or documents actually took a clear stance enshrining the revisionist approach. They always leave a door open for those who want to proselytize to Jews. There’s no commitment.
There is a real lack of understanding of so, so many things that makes many of the statements and recommendations for moving forward miss the mark.
First of all, Jews are uncomfortable with Christian theology for reasons other than missionaries. E.g. the Christian self-understanding that they have been “grafted on” to the people of Israel. It’s possible for there to be a shift to stop proselytizing to Jews; I don’t think it’s possible to uproot all the appropriation or even recognize it because it just isn’t seen as a problem– it is the core belief. When discussing things like Biblical interpretation a 1974 American Lutheran Church report states that there may be “drastic differences” over things like Christian claims about the fulfillment of the Old Testament, but there’s no acknowledgement that Jews may find some of these beliefs not just to be drastic differences but to actually be disrespectful. I don’t know what you do with a disrespectful, appropriative belief. There’s no solution to those without everything falling apart.
Then there’s the idea that Jews may be wary or unwilling to enter Christian relationships because of the negative history. No acknowledgement that there’s anxiety over the PRESENT existence of proselytization! I think this stems from a fundamental issue where a lot of these thinkers seem to be under the impression that there’s a “mutual challenge.” There didn’t seem to be any understanding of the fact that the challenge is not really mutual… Christians need Jews to have a place in their theology, while Jews don’t need Christians to have a place in our theology at all. The conversation is only necessary to Jews from the angle of reducing antisemitism and fostering good relationships, which does lead to kind of unequal footing when you know the other party feels the need to “witness.” Actually experienced this myself with a coworker this summer when I thought we’re just having an interesting conversation about religion and then he went on a really passionate speech about the good news and how revolutionary it was that anyone can be saved. Like even if he wasn’t overtly trying to proselytize or convert me, being “witnessed” to like that is so uncomfortable! Your beliefs should not be stated as a fact about the world that you’re kindly sharing to the uninitiated. This was never addressed and I think that contributes to a lot of the misunderstanding and mistaken suggestions.
The absolute worst document was from the 1977 Missouri synod (which was in Texas. Go figure) about sharing gospel with the Jews. This was a wild ride- trigger warning for total disrespect. It wasn’t saying anything that doesn’t apply to all non-Christians but was just focusing on Jews because most Jews don’t know anything about the Gospel and it thinks we’ve been neglected in evangelism. (I think we have had our fair share of it. And do we know less about the Gospel than other non-Christians? I don’t know where they got this concern from.) Now for the worst part. Not evangelizing to Jews is ONE OF THE WORST forms of antisemitism. Because you aren’t sharing the love. Beyond words!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I think this is actually not the first time I came across that claim.) It also claims that Jews are “without hope” because we’re without Christ which was pretty awful. And their grand suggestion at the end of the statement? Reach out to Jewish communities near you in love AND BOLDNESS and WELCOME THEM INTO YOUR CONGREGATION AND FELLOWSHIP. I have to laugh. It would be in the best interests of furthering Jewish-Lutheran relationships to make sure this document gets lost for good.
An interesting tidbit I learned from the Bossey Report is that while Jews believe (generally) that we have free will to choose between good and evil, with sin being individual actions, Christians hold that before conversion you’re in bondage to sin and can’t even choose to believe in Jesus unless the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel. After conversion you are in tension between slavery and freedom because sin is a more all-encompassing enslaving power. I’m sure that’s not how everyone believes but that’s how it was framed in here.
The book was literally falling apart in my hands as I read it and I’m going to recycle it. Glad I read it for Ditmanson’s revisionist theory. I hope it’s widely adopted but I doubt it will be. I need to treat myself to something fun after this.
Displaying 1 of 1 review