Theses on the "Jewish Christian Question"


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With his “72 Theses on the Jewish Christian Question”, Hans Ehrenberg took a position in the church. Despite such political developments as the boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933 and the introduction of the “Aryan paragraph” for government officials April 7, 1933, the Protestant church was imbued with strong uncertainty with regard to the “Jewish Question” because of its anti-Jewish tradition.


Affected personally, Ehrenberg considered the church to be faced by the status confessionis at this point. He emphasized that the church came from Israel and is also united with it forever. Christians of Jewish descent are absolutely essential for the church in terms of salvation history. The Evangelical Church in Germany would stand or fall in 1933 with the segregation of “Jewish Christians”.


While Ehrenberg fully accepted Judaism’s religious function for Christianity, as a Christian of Jewish descent he opposed the potential dominance of secularized Judaism socio-politically and culturally. Thus, even Ehrenberg drew on traditional anti-Semitic prejudices.


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  • © Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche von Westfalen, Bestand 3.17 III.3

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