On the Jews and the Lutherans: the ELCA confronts history

The shifting attitudes of the Lutheran Church in Europe and the US during the 1930s and World War II are examined and analysed. From the 1934 Barmen Declaration in Germany which defined German Lutherans' attitude to Nazism without condemning its anti-Semitism, to 1993, when a majority of the United States' 5.2 million Lutherans condemned Martin Luther's 1543 document "On the Jews and Their Lies," to 1998 when the Lutheran Church issued "Guidelines for Lutheran-Jewish relations," it is a story characterised by ambiguity and failure to assume a positive pro-Jewish stance.