DNK : Documentatieblad voor de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800 - Volume 45, Issue 97, 2022

‘Is Hellas or is Israel the chosen people?’

Johannes Hermanus Gunning between Neo-Humanism and Judaism

Gunning’s perception of contemporary Judaism was the result of the influence of the Dutch ‘Réveil’, especially of Isaäc da Costa. During his lifetime Gunning developed a rather consistent theology about ‘Israel’. He was no supporter of mission under the Jews. In some writings he adopted some popular ‘anti-Semitic’ ideas, but such notions were not decisive for his theology. On the contrary, Gunnings Israel-theology has given a basic impulse to the Jewish-Christian dialogue.

K.H. Miskotte, towards a renewed Relationship with Judaism

Miskotte’s dissertation on The Essence of Judaism (1932) contained a phenomenological ‘Wesensschau’, a preparation of Jewish-Christian encounter and an inner-protestant dispute at the same time. Around the Second World War too, unconditional solidarity with the persecuted Jewish people and warnings against Jewish influences on Protestantism were simultaneously present in his writings. At the end of his life, as it is presented here for the first time, Miskotte reflected in a disturbed mood on the book of rabbi Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God after Auschwitz, and returned to his initial judgement on Liberal Judaism.

Critic and Defender. A talk in connection with Abraham Kuyper’s pamphlet Liberalisten en Joden from 1878.

What did the Dutch politician and theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) think about Jews, and how did he approach them in the context of the Netherlands? To answer this question, we focus on one of his key texts related to this subject, his pamphlet Liberalisten en Joden (1878). When he distinguished the Jews as a separate group, he did so mainly because of their non-Christian religion. This approach was complicated, for the Jewish community was quite diverse in its relation to Judaism: some were orthodox indeed, but the majority was not orthodox, or not even religious. In addition, most Jews did not like to be distinguished as a separate group, they preferred to be Dutch like every other citizen in the country. Kuyper struggled with this complication, and combined antisemitic utterances with a defense of Jewish civil rights. This resulted in an ambivalent appreciation of his relation with Jews.

Neo-Calvinism and the Jewish Mission of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.

Neo-Calvinism stimulates the communication of the Christian message under the conditions of a modern democracy, where citizens enjoy the privilege of free speech. At first sight, Jewish mission would seem to fit well into this general purpose. As it is, the Jewish Mission of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands between 1896 and 1966 seems to belong to those select elements of the Neo-Calvinist legacy that are retrospectively deemed problematic even by Protestants themselves, as demonstrated by the Synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands in its declaration of 2020. This article analyzes the possible reasons for this ambivalence, and their bearing on the appreciation of the Neo-Calvinist legacy. In looking for answers, we focus on the principle of sphere sovereignty, and the distinction between Calvinist attitudes during the Republic and the activist spirit that was actively promoted by Neo-Calvinists in their Jewish Mission during the early twentieth century.

The Booklet Voor ons ons Jodendom en niet het Christendom (For us our Judaism and not Christianity) written by Chief Rabbi Justus Tal (1945)

Immediately after the Second World War, the Dutch Chief Rabbi Justus Tal published a booklet in which he defended the Jewish exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and opposed the Protestant Christian interpretation of this holy book. His purpose was to prevent the conversion of Jews to Christianity. This contribution sketches the context in which the booklet appeared and confronts it briefly with some more recent tendencies in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

Guilt and Responsibility: The Catholic Church and Judaism after 1945

The Catholic Church considers the dialogue with Judaism as more or less parallel to the dialogue of the Church with Islam. This is a striking difference with many protestant denominations. The question of guilt for the anti-Jewish invectives within Catholicism, which has partly contributed to a climate of Antisemitism or at least to indifference for the plight of the Jews during the Second World War, has puzzled the Church for a long time. The cardinals Etchegaray and Martini, as well as pope John Paul II, have broken the silence by firm declarations and appeals to free the teaching of the Church from prejudice. The issue of guilt deserves a careful treatment in order to avoid a collective guilt for the past, which would work counter-productive. The issue of the attitude of pope Pius XII during the Second World War still burdens the Catholic-Jewish relations and remains a bone of contention among historians.