An orthodox Jewish organization in Israel said recently in a statement that Christians and Jews would benefit by engaging in dialogue with each other.
The Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation said that it has collaborated with Christian organizations for some three years and finds that doing so is mutually beneficial, Christian Newswire said.
The CJUC has worked with The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ by giving access to their scholastic work at Yale University and the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem on “ Hope & Responsibility in the 21st Century,” and “Covenant & Mission,” Christian Newswire reported.
The CJUC also engaged in information exchange with scholars from the Hebraic Heritage Christian Center in Atlanta, GA on the issues, “Jewish Understanding of Christianity,” and “Evangelization,” according to Christian Newswire.
The statement said, “Jewish and Christian theologies are no longer engaged in a theological duel to the death. Jews should not fear a sympathetic understanding of Christianity that is true to the Torah, Jewish thought and values. In today’s unprecedented reality of Christian support for the Jewish people, Jews should strive to work together with Christians toward the same spiritual goals of sacred history — universal morality, peace, and redemption under God — but under different and separate systems of commandments for each faith community and distinct theological beliefs.”
Rabbi Sclomo Riskin, CJCUC founder told Christian Newswire, “This statement only represents the view of our center but should also be used as a catalyst for other orthodox Jews and Jewry worldwide to consider fostering relationships with Christian communities. Leaders within the mainline Christian denominational world as well as the non-denominational movements of Evangelical Christianity have sincerely become friends of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. It is vital that we strengthen our relationship with them. We are certain that through these relational dialogues we will find far more which unites us than divides us.”
Evangelical response
In response, a group of Evangelical Christians issued a statement that is posted on the CJCUC website saying, “[We] acknowledge and affirm that we worship the same God as the Jewish people and that we inherited from them our understanding of monotheism—the very foundation of our faith—because faithful Jewish witnesses have transmitted this knowledge to the world since the time of Abraham.”
The statement pointed out the historical and spiritual links of the two faiths, and said, quoting Jesus’ words in the bible, that the salvation as Christians know it is “from the Jews,” the website said, adding, “We believe that Jews and Christians share a mutuality of witness that is profitable to both communities.”
The Evangelical statement on the website noted that, “Because Evangelical Christians—not unlike the larger Jewish community—represent wide diversity in both beliefs and practices we do not pretend to speak for all Evangelical Christians or for any other Christian communion. We speak only for ourselves as individuals and as participants in ongoing Christian-Jewish dialogue.”
The statement on the website added that Evangelicals “do so with great reverence for the calling that God has graciously given us and for his commission that we remain faithful to these deeply held convictions that have been revealed and confirmed to us by the Holy Scriptures.”

