Remembering for the Future – A Christian perspective „Life is understood backwards, but lived forwards.“ – said Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard. Looking back helps on the path forward. „Remembrance, then, is not just about a reception of the past. Remembrance has the potential to construct, to create anew. Commemoration aims at the future. And that’s not just true for us as individuals. It also applies to the identity of communities, such as our church, our country, and Europe.“

Anti-Judaism – the degradation of Judaism to the point of hostility and persecution – is deeply rooted in the Christian religion and many culturally Christian countries. When synagogues were burned and Jews were taken to concentration camps in Germany on November 9, 1938, most Christians remained silent. Some joined in, very few resisted and actively stood up for Jews and against injustice.

It took a long time for the sin of Christian hostility towards Jews to be recognized in the Churches as such. Since the 1950s, new ways of Christian thinking and behavior towards Jews and Judaism were started in the Protestant and Catholic churches. This can be described as a theological journey „from the teaching of contempt“ towards a theology of respect.

Not only in history – but also in the present – injustice is found over and over again. People are unjustly discriminated because of their origin, gender, age, religion, health condition, disability or sexual preference.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable about the Last Judgment. „‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Christian faith proves itself in everyday life, in action, according to Jesus‘ will.

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