Den norske kirke og International Council on Christians and Jews: Dialog for anti-misjon?

Abstract

The Church of Norway mentions the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) in its Middle East strategy. The ICCJ is the central multilateral body for high-level Judeo-Christian dialogue, but there are also a number of bilateral dialogues. The overall picture is that despite cooperation between Jewish and Christian leaders over decades, there are tensions in the Judeo-Christian dialogue, including in Norway. In addition to disagreement on several issues related to the Palestine/Israel conflict, there is one issue that creates tensions, namely the issue of missionary efforts among Jews. The stronger attention to mission in the evangelical movement is just one of the reasons why this movement is more interesting to study than Protestant and ecumenical bodies. It is relevant to remind of the central role of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschland (EKD) in Protestant and ecumenical forums, and the clear distancing from all «efforts» for Jews to change religion as expressed by the EKD Synod in 2016. The article demonstrates that it is the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which includes the Norwegian Council for Mission and Evangelism (NORME), which has received the strongest criticism from ICCJ for how they convey the view that Jews need Jesus as their Savior. The other major evangelical movement, the Lausanne movement, does not have significantly different emphasis than the WEA, but has nevertheless not been subject to similar criticism from the ICCJ. The ICCJ must be understood as rejecting only organized missionary efforts.