GCCUIC

Expressed Goal

Policy Basis

Method

1. Engage in the next phase of the interfaith dialogue between representative leaders/staff of Christian denominations along with representative leaders/staff of diverse Jewish organizations in the United States of America.
2. Seek to create opportunities for similar dialogues to take place between the heads of Christian communions and heads of Jewish organizations and between leaders of the boards, commissions and committees of our respective organizations.
   

Purposes

1. To provide a forum for regular interaction among Jewish and Christian leaders, to keep each other abreast of developments that are of common concern and keep each other accountable to the commitments made at the dialogue table.
2. To provide a forum for conversation about the developments in the Middle East, particularly but not exclusively regarding Israel/Palestine, such that we are able to interpret more faithfully to our constituents the others' perspective.
3. To identify, share, and understand issues of theological commonality and difference. Possible issues include the narratives of one another's expressions of faith and history, interpretation of classic scriptural texts and the unique challenges of living as people of faith in contemporary culture in the United States.
4. To seek each others' help to monitor our communions' theological positions and statements and our theological scholars that we do not fall in to the "adversus judeos" tradition.
5. To create educational resources including those that communicate what is learned from this dialogue for those seeking to promote or deepen interfaith dialogue and cooperation in local communities of Christians and Jews and to encourage institutional relationships between churches and synagogues.
6. To respond appropriately and quickly to shared concerns including civil liberty, religious freedom and, varied expressions of anti-semitism.
7. To engage together in appropriate actions for social justice or humanitarian projects.
   

Projected Outcomes

1. Healing Yesterday:  Christian and Jewish communities will have an opportunity to speak from their experiences, address misunderstandings, heal memories, and craft themselves anew as communities in the present.
2. Reciprocity Today:  Christian and Jewish representatives will discover anew their own expression of faithfulness through their relationship with their inter-religious neighbors.
3. New Vision of Encouragement Tomorrow:  Christian and Jewish communities will be encouraged to view one another anew, and to act in trusting relationships within each other's communities.
4. The Next Generation:  The above-stated Expressed Goal, Method, Purposes, and Projected Outcomes are faithful strides to inter-religious fellowship and understanding between Christians and Jews for the sake of our children and their children's children.