The concrete involvements, neglect, and silence about the murder of the Jews are to be investigated thoroughly. The mandate to witness to all people the message of salvation in Jesus Christ belongs to the essential nature of the church. In this the church cannot fail to take seriously the witness and self-understanding of Judaism. The biblical tradition of the Promised Land is a sustaining element in the Jewish tradition. The land of Israel has religious meaning for Jewry, different from that for Christians, for whom the salvation promises of God are not tied to a specific land.
Christians support the effort of the Jewish people to achieve a secure existence in their own state.
At the same time, they are concerned for a peaceful solution in the Near East, which also includes the rights of the Palestinians, including especially the Christians among them, and which guarantees peace, justice, and security to all the people living there. Therefore, we must think through more vigorously how justice is to be achieved in the region, without neglecting solidarity with the Jewish people. Public Worship and Instruction Christian teaching and practice share with Judaism the basic elements of biblical belief and of the carrying out of public worship. In spite of that, Christians have in both worship and Christian education all too often used aspects of the Jewish religion as a negative foil, in order to present the Christian self-understanding all the more positively. It is our task to discover what is common and what is indeed one's own, to test what separates as to its authenticity, and to take care that distorted and defamatory talk about the Jews and Judaism in public worship and teaching is not repeated.