Guest lecture “Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Theological and Practical Challenges” by Philip A. Cunningham, November 14th, 2016

Philip Cunningham teaches at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and is president of the International Council of Christians and Jews.

He approached the topic of Christian-Jewish Dialogue from a practical theological perspective, whereby starting from the Jewish concept of Shalom he opened up a perspective on the alliance that enables Jews and Christians to acknowledge the alliance of the respective other with God and to support each other in the realization of their own alliance. In addition, Cunningham identified the tasks that will be pending in the domains of research and practice in the coming years in the Christian churches, the Catholic Church in particular. The themes that fall into that category are the role of messianic Jews in Christianity as well as the touchy topic of the nation state of Israel amongst others.
Besides the many students there were also members of the Coordination Committee on Christian-Jewish Collaboration (Koordinierungsausschuss für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit) present during this lecture based on in-depth experience, which afterwards led to a varied discussion.