During the seven years between the Second and Third Assemblies of the World Council of Churches, the forthcoming merger of the International Missionary Council and the World Council was necessarily a major item on the agenda of the International Missionary Council's Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews. What would, or should, be the consequence for the Committee? In one way or another, the religious and world situation that was making such a consolidation desirable if not necessary affected the way the mission of the IMCCAJ also had to develop.

Not least was the changed demographic situation of the Jewish people, which now, instead of being concentrated in eastern and central Europe, was divided among three very different parts of the world. Göte Hedenquist summed it up in a report to the IMC on the future of the Committee:

The areas of Jewish population have changed, especially since World War II, and the gravity centre of the Christian approach to the Jews has moved from Central and East Europe to the USA, where about half of world Jewry lives. The second centre of Jewish population is Russia, with an estimated number of 3 million Jews, more or less unreachable for the Christian approach to the Jews. The third centre is the State of Israel, with 1,600,000 Jews. In Western Europe, including the Scandinavian countries, there are about 900,000 Jews, half of which number is to be found in Great Britain, and a quarter of a million in France. In North Africa there may be about half a million Jews and in South Africa about 100,000. In Latin America there are about 600,000, and in Australia about 50,000.

Since the prospect of reaching Soviet Jews was nonexistent, North America and Israel became the areas of most immediate concern. There were problems and opportunities in each place.

The Approach in America

During the years when he was Director, Conrad Hoffmann had struggled almost alone to keep the American Committee going, but when he retired and Göte Hedenquist, who maintained his office in Uppsala, Sweden, replaced him, the American Section fell even further into disarray than it had been before. The search for a full-time secretary for America was never successful and Hedenquist was forced, as a consequence, to spend as much as three months in most years traveling there. Though there had always been representatives of the American Section as members of the IMCCAJ, they usually were poorly represented at international meetings and sometimes not at all. Nevertheless, the source of the bulk of the Committee's funds continued, even after Hoffmann's retirement, to be the American churches.

It was hoped that the American committee would be rejuvenated in 1955 when Harold Floreen, a missionary to Jews who had had some success with the parish approach, agreed to become part-time secretary and Associate Director for America of the IMCCAJ, but after one and a half years he was forced to resign in frustration at the lack of financial and other support.

The explanation for the discrepancy between Americans' minimal direct involvement and their disproportionate financial contribution lay in the structure of American church organization and the history of American Christians vis-a-vis Jews, both of which was radically different from the European experience.

On the one hand there were strong independent Jewish missionary societies, usually with a definitely fundamentalistic theology, which Hoffmann had noted as long ago as 1941 were the mainstay of efforts for conversion of Jews. On the other were the mainline church missionary boards and agencies. It was the latter who contributed to the budget of the IMCCAJ, but through the foreign mission divisions of those churches. The home mission agencies were much less inclined actively to work at converting Jews, though they were well aware of the numbers of Jews in their midst. Organizationally, the American Committee had become part of the National Council of Churches where "the need for teamwork...could not but introduce an element of restraint." The need for restraint resulted, of course, from the reluctance of many, if not most, American church leaders to disturb the relatively good relationship they had with the leadership of the Jewish community.

Following the Evanston Assembly, Visser 't Hooft devoted an issue of The Ecumenical Review to the Jewish people and the churches. It included an article by Joseph Sittler, one of the signers of the minority report, on "The Abiding Concern of the Church for the Jewish People" that spelled out the position of those who dissented at Evanston, and an essay by F. Ernest Johnson, at the time a consultant to the National Council of Churches (USA), plus others by Göte Hedenquist, W. W. Simpson, and F. Lovsky of France. All of them took notice, in their different ways, of Visser 't Hooft's question, most specifically to Johnson: "Why do so many American Christians take the position that there is no basic difference between the Jewish people and its proper attitude toward members of any other nation or race?"

Johnson elected to do a survey of American churchmen whose positions he did not already know in order to "throw some light on our theological situation in one of its aspects which most European theologians apparently find baffling and which distresses not a few of their American brethren. As one very influential Protestant leader put it, 'The main question is what we are to make of the basic idea of "the Chosen People." If we regard this idea seriously (and we have to do so if our theology is to take its point of departure from the Bible), then there really is a valid ground for thinking of the Jewish people somewhat differently from the way we think about other peoples.'

"Perhaps one may generalize to this extent: Thoughtful Protestants in America agree that the concept of Israel, the People of the Covenant, has great significance for the Church and for the Christian tradition; but many questions arise concerning the extent to which Christianity should be considered as furnishing a theological norm for the Jewish people."

Harold Floreen was among those who were convinced that the gospel was, indeed, the "theological norm for the Jewish people" and, moreover, that the evangelistic emphasis upon Jews should "find itself as a vital and integral part of the forward stream of American church life....Until this had been accomplished, there would be little real progress in enlisting the churches in a Gospel witness to Israel." By "Israel" Floreen meant the Jewish people as such but he was also concerned that the American churches were abdicating their responsibility in the State of Israel, allowing instead the resources of Christians to be directed toward "the multiplicity of free-lance American groups sending missionaries to Israel."

Though the largest Jewish community in the world was in the United States, the work of the IMCCAJ floundered there, for, as Floreen put it, the "most significant characteristic attitude toward a Christian Approach to the Jews is that of sheer indifference."

The Approach in Israel

Discussion about the theological significance--or lack of it--of the State of Israel was quickly relegated to the background, for the practicalities of functioning as a religious minority in the Jewish state surged to the fore. The IMCCAJ worried about the legal difficulties of Protestant marriage in Israel, about the possibility of establishing an Israeli branch of the Committee, about appropriate Hebrew terminology to use in Israel, and about the development of a Christian Council in Israel to represent all the Protestant churches operating there.

A considerable amount of time and money was spent on a proposal to buy and operate a printing press in Israel because the need for good Christian literature in Hebrew was immediate, particularly in light of the fact that Israeli printers would not accept Christian missionary material. There was, moreover, a need to offset the onslaught of literature coming mainly from American independent missionary bodies. Harold Floreen researched the cost of various such machines in the United States and other investigations were made in Israel, but in the end the decision was taken to put the project in abeyance.

And, then, there was the question of an "indigenous church," a concept that brings to mind the controversy about a "Hebrew Christian Church" of earlier years. This time, however, the question grew out of the position of Christians and the churches in the Israeli state and was not limited to converts from Judaism. The missionaries were not certain just what was meant by the term, "indigenous church," but they knew something of the sort probably was necessary. After some considerable discussion at the 1956 Stockholm meeting, an initial definition was offered:

By an indigenous Church we understand a Church in which nationals of the country take responsibility for leadership and for relating their Christian faith to the life around them, are growing in self support and seek to express their worship as guided by the Holy Spirit in forms congenial to the spiritual heritage of their nation.

Such a Church will not be bound by traditions brought from other lands, but will be conscious of its membership of the world-wide Church and maintain its fellowship with other communions in the main stream of Christian life and practice.

Such a Church in Israel will treasure the traditions and expressions of worship derived from the ancient liturgy, and while rejoicing in its call as the people of God will lay stress upon the fact that in Christ all divisions of race and nation are surmounted.

Several aspects of this definition are worth noting. First, such a church is composed of "nationals of the country" who are responsible for their own leadership and financial maintenance. There was a small community of Arab Protestants in Israel as well as an even smaller community of Hebrew Christians. Both of them were to be included in the idea of an indigenous church.

Second, an indigenous church would "not be bound by traditions brought from other lands," though it would always see itself in relation to the universal Church, the "main stream of Christian life and practice." By this definition, the IMCCAJ ruled out the influence of the freelance missionaries, largely from North America, who preached a far more fundamentalistic gospel than its own member societies did.

And, third, an indigenous church would "treasure the traditions and expression of worship derived from the ancient liturgy." By not spelling out just which "ancient liturgy" was meant, the Committee left open the possibility that Christians in Israel could utilize Orthodox or even Catholic worship patterns, not to mention those of the Jewish people.

The discussion continued the following year at Baarn, Holland. H. L. Ellison "felt that two things marked out an indigenous church--it is responsible for its own actions and has control over its clergy." And he "wanted to enlist sympathy for the Arab Episcopal Church for it had to be remembered that the Church of Israel will be largely Jewish as the Protestant Arabs are a small minority of the Arab Christians." But Harcourt Samuel, who represented the International Hebrew Christian Alliance, had a somewhat different concern. He thought it necessary to "guard against encouraging splinter groups calling themselves the Church of Israel."

In both centers of major Jewish concentration to which the IMCCAJ had access--America and Israel--problems of organization and conceptuality strained the limits of the Committee's capabilities at the very moment when much of its time and energy was beginning to be devoted to consideration of an uncertain future as merger of the International Missionary Council and World Council of Churches came closer and closer.

Integration?

The prospect of the International Missionary Council becoming the Commission and Division of World Mission and Evangelism within the World Council of Churches produced what might be called an identity crisis for the Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews. As a "sponsored agency," it had never been an integral part of the IMC, had never received funds for its operation from the "parent" body, and had developed its own policy and program. As such its membership was composed of more or less independent Jewish missionary societies, including those sponsored by churches. But the relationship with the IMC was an important part of the Committee's identity. Indeed, though in its beginning it had been called the International Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews, with the adoption of the 1947 Constitution, inclusion of the IMC's name in the Committee's title became official. What was to happen now that the IMC would be merely a Division of the World Council? To what body would the IMCCAJ relate? or would it be completely independent?

The issue was first raised by Göte Hedenquist in 1952 when he initiated a discussion at Naestved, Denmark, on "The Significance and Main Task of our International Committee." At that time he floated the radical idea that the specific task of the IMCCAJ--more important than direct missionary activity, which the societies would continue to do in any case--should be to "get the churches to do missionary work among the Jews." Such a definition of the Committee's role, he thought, was a direct result of its emphasis on the parish approach, which led naturally to a closer relationship with the World Council of Churches. The discussion, still concentrated on the possibility of joint IMC-WCC sponsorship, continued the following year at Canterbury. In his preparatory paper, the Director, further developing his thought, suggested that "we can now consider the Christian Approach to the Jews from the Church point of view as a Church Evangelism among the Jews."

At the 1955 meeting in Oslo the question took a pragmatic turn. Following the Evanston Assembly, with its disturbing evidence that the missionary approach was not whole-heartedly supported by many WCC member-churches, the focus of attention shifted to the Joint Committee of the IMC and WCC, and to the plans for the Bossey conference on "Christian Convictions and Attitudes in Relation to the Jewish People. Though not officially sponsored by the World Council, the IMCCAJ was increasingly being drawn into cooperative work with the major world ecumenical organization.

The Stockholm conference in 1956 produced no further light on what by that time had become a serious discussion within both the IMC and the WCC about organic union. The delegates had before them, however, a proposal from the Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church), which J. H. Grolle, on behalf of his church, urged the IMCCAJ to commend to the Bossey conference. On the basis of the Dutch church's understanding of the terms "mission" and "ecumenical," the proposal suggested that "The Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews be no longer a Subcommittee of the International Missionary Council, but a direct Committee of the World Council of Churches dependent from the WCC itself."

Presaging Wilhelm Vischer's remarks to the Bossey conference, the proposal from Holland claimed that "it is a great mistake to seek the foundation of [the Great Commission's calling] only in the general missionary commandment of our Lord to all people and creatures. In that case stress is laid upon the fact that the Jews are also a people and also creatures, so they belong in it. Now it is true that this word also in the Bible occurs too in this connection, but there this word also does not concern the Jews at all, but on the contrary: The Gentiles. And so it is quite the reverse of a part of a general commandment."

Much to be preferred to "mission" with reference to Jews, therefore, was the term "ecumenical"--"If Israel had not been elected this very idea would not exist." However, "In our time the word Oecumene is used in a very restricted sense. So we would create a confusion of tongues if we persisted on using the word ecumenical for the approach of the Church to the Jews. Therefore we drop it."

"So it is impossible," the proposal concluded, "for us to see the work of approaching Israel with the Gospel, subordinated to the International Missionary Council, or to see the Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews as a sponsored agency of the International Missionary Council. This would be contradictory to our faith and vision."

The Stockholm minutes record that there was a lengthy discussion about the proposal and considerable divergence of opinion, but in the end the Committee did not know what to do with it and merely thanked the Dutch Reformed Church for a study that had never before been undertaken.

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