Is Antisemitism Christian?
"And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord. "
These are the words at the end of chapter two of Mein Kampf. Some of you would want to say that Adolf Hitler was mad - others that he was possessed. But I ask, what was the Christian climate of his day that allowed him to say that he was doing God's work in taking antisemitism to the unbelievable extremes of Auschwitz? What was the climate that encouraged mechanised murder on such an unprecedented scale?
Let me offer two more quotations - the first was something said to a Jewish leader in 1942: "You will not die there of hunger or disease. They will slaughter all of you there, old and young alike; women and children - it is the punishment that you deserve for the death of our Lord and redeemer, Jesus Christ1". This was no fanatic - this was not the German Führer at his worst - these were the words of an archbishop of the church.
One more quotation: "The Jewish minority within the Polish government cannot be tolerated, because the nation fears it". Later, challenged about what he had said, the speaker affirmed his statement: "I said aloud what the Polish nation is thinking. Not by mistake, but out of conviction 2. A politician? A fanatic from the extreme right? Another wartime example? No - this was a statement by a Christian priest made in 1997. Is antisemitism Christian? That is the question I ask. And the answer is 'Yes'. Christianity has incited the world to antisemitism throughout its long and iniquitous history. And I say now that it is time for it to stop. It is time for us to listen to our Lord and Saviour Jesus - to Jesus the Jew - and to root out all the lies, the propaganda and the wicked, wicked seeds of hate that have blighted our Christian history from the very beginning. You will, no doubt, point out to me Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a handful of other remarkable and brave Christian saints from the last war. Believe me, they are a tiny minority. Most of the church was either solidly behind Hitler, or was just carried along with his policies without so much as a word. And there are more than six million dead Jews who will one day testify to that!
We've heard in the first of our readings tonight that God made a covenant with the sons and daughters of Israel 3. This was to be a lasting covenant. It will not end this side of eternity. We have heard in the words of the Apostle Paul that God has in no way rejected His people, or for that matter, the law that He gave them on mount Sinai. And we have heard in the gospel reading that Jesus came not for us gentiles, but for the Children of Israel. How then can we go along with the antisemitism with which our church has soiled itself until recently?
I could give you quote after quote after quote - from the early church fathers, from the church in the middle ages, and from the reformers. And all of those quotes would be violently, obscenely antisemitic. I can distil them all into one sharp sentence. "The Jews killed God - they crucified Him - and they all deserve to die - every last one of them!" None of us can look at another denomination than our own, and place the blame on it - this is something in which we all share.
And it is not even true. It's a lie. A fabrication. A piece of really malicious propaganda. The Jews didn't kill Jesus - our bible tells us that the Romans did. And if you want to say that the Jews put them up to it, look again. Some Jews - and only some Jews - took part. And they - all of them - have been dead for many a century. You might want to point to that dreadful blood oath in Matthew's gospel - I quote: "Then the people as a whole answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children!'" How many generations have there been in which we have condemned the children of Israel? Where would be the loving, forgiving God that Jesus came to show us if those words have brought condemnation on Jews for nearly two thousand years. And did not that wonderful saying from the agonised, crucified Jesus: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" cover all those who were involved?
This is the faith which we have inherited. A faith bloodied with the lives of millions of Jews - a faith contaminated - a faith a million miles away from the teachings of our beloved Saviour Jesus. We have seen the awful conclusion to the distortion of that faith - we have seen the awful horror - we have seen the destruction of six million of God's own chosen people. And it could happen again. It could happen tomorrow unless we are prepared to read our bibles and understand - and be prepared to purge our Christian faith of antisemitism for once and for all.
It is we - we of this present generation - who have to face up to the errors of the past. It is we who have to change. But the benefit to us when we do take a long hard look at our elder brother, the Jew, is going to be pure gold. You may have been taught - as I was - that present day Judaism - the religious faith of the Jews - is nothing more than a barren legalism. That teaching couldn't be further from the truth. When we meet the Jews and listen to them, we soon begin to see that many of them have a depth of faith in Almighty God that surpasses that of a great many Christians. We find that present day Judaism is alive, and deeply spiritual. And when we listen to the rabbis, and read the wisdom that is handed down to us in the Mishnah and the Talmud, light begins to dawn on much of our bible that never was there before. And it is not only the Jewish bible that comes alive - we begin to read the gospels and the letters of our Christian scriptures in a different way too. Paul takes on a new light when we read him as Paul the Jew; when we soak ourselves in the traditions of his people. And the teachings of our Master himself take on an even greater authority than they had before when we see them through the lens of the Jewish Torah.
Even our most treasured translations of Holy Scripture will need to be questioned when we carry out further reading and meet with Jews in discussion. I want to give just one tiny example: Open your bible at Luke Chapter 20 and verse 46. You probably have something similar to: "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the market-places and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets" 4. This same passage may equally well be rendered: "Be on your guard against those scribes who like to walk about in long robes, and love salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts 5". Can you see the difference? Why do I suggest that the second translation is more probably what Jesus had in mind? Because it is very similar to two passages in the Talmud that condemn hypocrites. And these are very likely to be sayings that were current at the time of Jesus. And why, in that case, is the first translation more commonly offered? Because the antisemitic tradition deeply embedded in our own Christian teachings suggests that all Jews were (and are) bad - but especially so when they were Scribes and Pharisees. And the bible just does not bear this out. Look how many Pharisees we see in our bible who were good men, and friends of Jesus.
So - where do we begin? I have issued a challenge here - one which may strike deeply at a part of our Christian foundations. We might want to begin by joining the Council for Christians and Jews - but if we do that, let us not fall into the trap of regarding the Jews we might meet as fodder for our weapons of conversion. Be prepared for dialogue. Be prepared to listen, and to learn. They have much to teach all of us. We might, if we are at all academically inclined, want to pick up a few books. I will be happy to point you in the right direction. But above all, be very wary of what you tell people about Jews, and especially Scribes and Pharisees at the time of our Lord. When you have read a few books by Jews about their history; when you have spoken to a few Jews and listened to what they have to say about their own problems - their own experience of persecution - then you might want to change your position.
Let me end with a brief fantasy 6. I told you that the holocaust could happen again tomorrow if we don't take steps to prevent it. In July, I was privileged to attend a Summer School in Jewish-Christian relations in Poland. During that time, we visited several Jewish cemeteries from before world war two, and we also visited Auschwitz. One might expect that the experience of Auschwitz was shattering. It was. No one can possibly describe the horror of actually going to that awful place. No amount of reading, or even viewing pictorial evidence can prepare you. But Auschwitz was not the only profoundly emotive experience.
The second of the Jewish cemeteries that we visited had been subjected to little by way of restoration. Many smashed and prone gravestones are there to be seen. The knowledge that the Nazis destroyed Jewish cemeteries is one thing. The terrible reality of a vandalised graveyard is quite another. It was in that cemetery that I experienced a kind of fantasy, a sort of waking dream. We had been told that several hundred Jews had been shot dead in that place. Murdered by the Nazi military under orders and buried in a mass grave. In my fantasy, I was there as a young soldier. How did it feel? I was feeling a great satisfaction in having assisted in purging Europe from the evil of the Jews. There was a sense of having done well for the Fatherland, and having (yes, even this) of having done God's work.
The fantasy took seconds: the after effects of that fantasy will take a lifetime to review. How much does that brief fantasy reflect thousands of young German soldiers in they way they behaved? How much does the knowledge - and yes - it is knowledge - that any of us could have been caught up in the awful horror that is the Holocaust in that selfsame way? Jesus, the most famous Jew that ever lived, said of his persecutors "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". In the light of my fantasy, I have to see that statement again - and in a different light. I can't even thank God that I was not there - that I was not of that generation - the reality is that had I been, I would have acted just as they had!
As we continue with our worship - as we move into a time of penitence - let all of us make up, our minds that we will take up this challenge, and change the church. Let us be determined to destroy forever the antisemitic legacy that we have in our midst.
© Barry Drake - 2001 barry@minister.fsnet.co.uk
1 Archbishop Kametko of Nietra, Slovakia, Quoted by Marcus Braybrooke, "Time to Meet", SCM 1990
2 Fr. Henryk Jankowsky, quoted by Stanislaw Musial, S.J. in the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, Nov 16, 1997
3 Suggested readings are: Genesis 17:1-7, Psalm 89:1-8, Romans 11:1-5 and Matthew 15:21-28
5 It is evident that the first translation is talking of "all Scribes", whereas the second is only referring to "some". In the latter rendering, the sense of this phrase is remarkably similar to two Talmudic illustrations - the first is the "showy" Pharisee in JT Berakhot 14b who 'carries his good deeds on his shoulder', and the second is the Judge who likes to walk about in his 'long robes'. Moshe Weinfeld points to both of these. For this reason, it seems probable that the second translation of Luke 20:46 is a more likely rendition of the actual teaching that Jesus was giving. The validity of the second rendition was verified with Dr. James Aitken, of AHRB Greek bible Project at the University of Reading,
6 This is quoted from an article I wrote immediately on my return from Poland. It was first published on an internet conference for students and staff of the Centre for Jewish Christian Relations in Cambridge, and later appeared in print in one or two places including the magazine of the church to which I belong.