German Protestants renounce efforts to convert Jews
Germany’s main Protestant church mostly gave up efforts to convert Jews in the decades following the Holocaust, and closing that chapter should have been a formality.
But the Evangelical Church in Germany, or EKD, made up of 20 regional Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches, did not officially abandon the Judenmission, or mission to the Jews. And small groups of evangelicals in a few member churches have long opposed an official statement against conversion, despite calls from Jewish groups to issue one.
Now the 23-million-member EKD has officially renounced its mission to convert Jews to Christianity. At its annual meeting in November in Magdeburg, a resolution passed unanimously saying that Christians “are not called to show Israel the path to God and his salvation.”
