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in North America DEFENSE OF THE FAITH |
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in North America DEFENSE OF THE FAITH |
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(Ecumenical Press Service, March 21-31, 1994) |
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Geneva - Visions of Christian mission and conversion which adopt the terminology
of military conquest, political domination or economic exploitation are
no longer valid, a World Council of Churches (WCC) official has told a
Christian - Jewish conference in the United States.
"This theological arrogance has played its last cards," Hans Ucko told 78 Christian and Jewish scholars and officials at the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding (CCJU) in Fairfield, Connecticut, this month. The meeting was held to assess missionary methods of Protestant groups targeting the Jewish community. Ucko, the WCC secretary for Christian-Jewish relations, told the conference that, for the most part, the mainline Protestant churches had abandoned aggressive campaigns seeking converts. "Mission which sees itself as carrying the Truth with a capital 'T' to the world, or claims the mandate of alone saving out of darkness and the right to dismiss the religious experience of the other, will never affirm dialogue in any other way than as a means of securing better access to the other," Ucko said. Ucko emphasized that Christian "exclusiveness, displacing other religions, must be abandoned . . . It is no longer through our doctrinal formulation on God or Christ, but rather through our collective human search for meaning and sacredness that the universe of faiths can be adequately understood."
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