In light of recent anti-Semitic incidents across the nation, American Baptist Churches USA lifts up the “International Ministries Resolution On Anti-Semitism,” an International Ministries Resolution adopted on September 22, 2014.
The Resolution states:
Therefore, whereas anti-Semitism is wholly contrary to Jesus’ teaching, demeans Jesus and all people of Jewish ethnicity, disrupts and distorts our mission to be agents of God’s blessing to all the families of the earth, be it resolved that American Baptist International Ministries
1. reaffirms the historic American Baptist stand against anti‐Semitism.
2. commends the U.S. government for appointing and maintaining a Special Envoy to Monitor Anti-Semitism.
3. commends the Anti‐Defamation League and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights for their ongoing documentation of anti‐Semitic attitudes and actions.
4. commends the Baptist Union of Romania for its public denunciation of the December 2013 anti‐Semitic television broadcast.
5. commends the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey Council Executive Committee for issuing “A Statement of Solidarity with the Jewish Community” following the April 2014 shooting in Kansas.
6. urges individuals to petition their states to mandate high school teaching about the Holocaust and other forms of genocide.
7. urges local churches to assess the knowledge of the Holocaust among their youth and provide age-appropriate, Biblically contextualized teaching within the congregation concerning the Holocaust and other forms of genocide.
8. urges congregations in the United States and Puerto Rico as well as mission personnel and the international partners with whom they serve to use this Resolution as an occasion to reach out to Jewish neighbors and/or synagogues to build relationships of solidarity and to initiate mutual actions to confront anti‐Semitic attitudes and actions.