ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE CHURCH

You can hear this talk here: http://www.odcf.ca/index.cfm?i=11810&mid=18&g=40109

In considering the topic of Anti-semitism in general we immediately face some challenges.
In my mind the worst way to consider it is to take the immense suffering of the children of Isaac throughout history and reduce it to a simple answer why.

This week during the bad snow storm one of my friend's daughter was killed in the horrific car pile up on the 402 near Sarnia.

Even if they knew all the reasons their daughter died the grieving parents will never be satisfied to just know the facts.

Though they want the facts, Far more important is they want for others to know the preciousness of their child.

They want others to know the joy they had in their child and the unfathomable depth of grief they hold in their hearts at their loss.

Even if they had a difficult relationship with their child (which they didn't) in the stark reality of death, because they are loving parents, their thoughts would not be fixed on the conflict they had. It would be on the love they continue to hold.

When we look at the perceived causes of anti Semitism we find that there are many.
But all of them relate to Abraham's relationship to God.
Genesis 12
 ¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;² And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing; ³ And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." 

But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
Genesis 17:19

Ultimately the fulfillment of God's promised covenant with Abraham and Sarah was to bear witness to the reality, character and saving work of God. 

The focus of that call led to the birth, life and resurrection of Jesus.

This understanding gives us perhaps the most important reason for the suffering of the Jewish nation. 

The enemy of God has always sought to destroy that which God loves.

Further he has always sought to destroy the life of word of God.

From Abraham what ever has contained the life of Jesus has been persecuted.
For this reason as we consider the evil of anti-Semitism we must understand God's heart toward the children of Abraham and Sarah. 

But Zion said, "the LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me."
¹⁵ "can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
¹⁶ "behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:14-16 (NASB)

We all understand the love a mother holds for her nursing child. No one harms the child without first harming her. While there are some women who would not do so most mothers would die themselves rather than let their child be killed. A good mother's love is perhaps the greatest love possible in human hearts. They love regardless of the condition of their child's heart toward them. A good mother never forgets her child.

Through Isaiah God tells us that his love for Israel is greater than the best mother on the planet. It is so deep that he will never forget them and to make sure he never does he has purposefully scared his hands with the sign of his love for them. Every moment of his life he embraces them. He will never forget them.

Another deeply moving affirmation of his love is found in the writings of Jeremiah.

Thus says the LORD,
Who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;
The LORD of hosts is His name:"If this fixed order departs
From before Me," declares the LORD,
"Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
From being a nation before Me forever." Thus says the LORD,
   "If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below,
Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel
For all that they have done," declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:35-37 (NASB)

God created the fixed order of the universe. We look at the majesty and the complexity of the universe and as far as we can see it's laws remain faithfully in place. The sun, moon and stars follow their set courses without fail. They continually speak of the faithfulness of the one who created them and set them in motion.

They are an awesome object lesson about God's ways. And what do the proclaim every day they continue? That God will never forget or forsake his ancient people.

The first principle we must have rooted and grounded in our hearts is that no matter what Israel has ever done God's heart remains forever bound to her. Even in his anger towards her actions he loves her forever and will never turn his back on the plans he has for her.

Further we can never accurately interpret the Bible unless we do so fully understanding God's heart for the children of His friends Abraham and Sarah.

If you are at all acquainted with the history of anti-Semitism you will know I just countered one of the strongest justifications for specifically "Christian" acts of hatred towards Jewish people.

Often in moments of violence against Jewish people living in Europe the cry rang out, "Christ Killers." This phrase and its underlying heart of revenge was a primary blinder to the church seeing the horror of their own hearts.

It not only blinded the church to the evil being done before their very eyes but it also fueled the fires of the holocaust. It gave the rationalization for why Jewish people could be treated as they were without conscience.

History bears record that Hitler was not a misguided fanatic who believed his mission was to take revenge on Jewish people for their part in the killing of Jesus. Nor does it say that even the church was convinced he was doing so.

But it was used as the rationalization for Christians to overlook what was really happening.
The tragic history of this thinking in the church did not start with Hitler. It was there almost from the beginning.

Justin Martyr - Dialogue with Trypho (Between 138A.D. and 161 A.D.)

We too, would observe your circumcision of the flesh, your Sabbath days, and in a word, all your festivals, if we were not aware of the reason why they were imposed upon you, namely, because of your sins and the hardness of heart. The custom of circumcising the flesh, handed down from Abraham, was given to you as a distinguishing mark, to set you off from other nations and from us Christians. The purpose of this was that you and only you might suffer the afflictions that are now justly yours; that only your land be desolated, and you cities ruined by fire, that the fruits of you land be eaten by strangers before your very eyes; that not one of you be permitted to enter your city of Jerusalem. Your circumcision of the flesh is the only mark by which you can certainly be distinguished from other men…as I stated before it was by reason of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observance of the Sabbath as a mark.
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

The clear evidence of the hostility and the theological arguments made to justify that hostility are both found in this early anti-Semitic text from one of the earliest writings we have besides the New Testament.

An even earlier writing shows that just after the last apostle died the concept that the church had taken the place of Israel was common place. 

"Epistle of Barnabas" Chapter 4vs 6-7 (between 130A.D. and 138 A.D.)

Take heed to yourselves and be not like some piling up your sins and saying that the covenant is theirs as well as ours. It is ours, but they lost it completely just after Moses received it.
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

Building on a vein of anti-Semitism in the early church the fullness of that evil came in the later centuries.

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.)

We may thus assert in utter confidence that the Jews will not return to their earlier situation, for they have committed the most abominable of crimes, in forming this conspiracy against the Savior of the human race…hence the city where Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election.
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.)

The synagogue is worse than a brothel…it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts…the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults…the refuge of brigands and dabauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews…a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a house worse than a drinking shop…a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and a abyss of perdition."…"I would say the same things about their souls… As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

Peter the Venerable - From "The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism" by Malcolm Hay

Yes, you Jews. I say, do I address you; you, who till this very day, deny the Son of God. How long, poor wretches, will ye not believe the truth? Truly I doubt whether a Jew can be really human… I lead out from its den a monstrous animal, and show it as a laughing stock in the amphitheater of the world, in the sight of all the people. I bring thee forward, thou Jew, thou brute beast, in the sight of all men.http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

While the Catholic Church through the inquisition and the Crusades killed many Jewish people, an even deeper hatred was being formed in the heart of the first leader of the Reformation. I believe that hatred directly set the path for the killing of over six million Jewish people.

Martin Luther – 1543 - The Jews and Their Lies

What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we can not tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and flames [of hell]. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice. First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians. Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of incessantly before God with bitter wailing. Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught. Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more... Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor merchants, nor the like. Let them stay at home...If you princes and nobles do not close the road legally to such exploiters, then some troop ought to ride against them, for they will learn from this pamphlet what the Jews are and how to handle them and that they ought not to be protected. You ought not, you cannot protect them, unless in the eyes of God you want to share all their abomination… To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews...
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

Martin Luther – 1543 - Of The Unknowable Name and The Generations of Christ

Even if they were punished in the most gruesome manner that the streets ran with their blood, that their dead would be counted, not in the hundred thousands, but in the millions, as happened under Vespasian in Jerusalem and for evil under Hadrian, still they must insist on being right even if after these 1,500 years they were in misery another 1,500 years, still God must be a liar and they must be correct. In sum, they are the devil's children, damned to Hell...
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

John Calvin - A Response To Questions and Objections of a Certain Jew

Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm

These quotes are only a small set of a much larger movement in the church that is rightly called anti-Semitic. You see clearly in them what later happened. The paralysis of the church to act in the holocaust was set in place long before it ever happened.

It is doubtful that Hitler could have ever done what he did had the church had God's heart for His people. In fact it is at least legitimate to say that in some measure the attitude of church was a major factor in causing the Holocaust .

Yet many in the present time would say that the roots of anti-Semitism are found in even earlier writings – the scriptures themselves.

Many people have used the scripture to justify extreme anti-Semitism. This has led to many claiming that the scriptures themselves are the basis of anti-Semitism.

Certain passages have been taken out of the context of the whole teaching of the Bible – both Old and New Testament – and have been used to foster hatred towards Jewish people. Martin

Luther is a perfect example of this. He said,

"the Jews too got what they deserved. They had been called and elected to be God's mouth as Jeremiah says...Open your mouth wide and I will fill it; they however, kept tightly closed their muzzles, eyes, ears, nose, whole heart and all senses, so he polluted and squirted them so full that it oozes from them in all places and devil's filth comes from them. Yes, that tastes good to them, into their hearts, they smack their lips like swine. That is how they want it. Call more: 'crucify him, crucify him.' Scream more: 'his blood come upon us and our children.' (Matthew 27:25) I mean it came and found you…"
http://www.Yashanet.Com/library/fathers.Htm

It is true, as we see in this writing of Martin Luther that some scriptures have been used in a deeply hateful way towards God's chosen people. For this reason we must look at the whole of scripture to understand the ones that have been used for hate as God actually intended them for love.

To fully understand God's communication the whole of the Bible needs to be considered. 

Many scriptures in the Bible which need to be considered when reading other passages are often forgotten or changed in their clear meaning. The result is a twisting of the meaning of scripture. This ends in an imbalance in interpretation. 

In this way the scriptures themselves can and have been used to promote hatred, violence, oppression and in our present topic anti-Semitism.

The only way we can accurately understand those scriptures which appear to support hatred of Jewish people is by understanding God's heart towards them as revealed in other parts of the Bible.

For example, Paul has been pointed to as being the source of most of the anti-Semitic theology of the New Testament. Yet listen to God's heart in him for his nation.

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 9:1-5

Every passage Paul has written has to be understood with this one in mind. Whatever he says must be interpreted through the lens of God's love which he states perfectly here.

If we do not interpret all scripture with the love spoken in this passage for the people of Israel it will be true that those other passages will become and have been anti-Semitic.

I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.
Romans 11:1-2 (NASB)

Paul rejects the already developing concept in the church that it has superseded Israel in God's plan. It has not and never will.

But it is vital to us to understand that the relationship God has with Israel is the actual basis by which we can understand our own relationship with Him.

I have often said that one of the strongest rational reasons to believe in the reality of God as the Bible presents Him is the nation that came from Abraham and Sarah's union.

In spite of the terrible suffering, persecution and exile from their homeland the nation of Israel has never ceased to be cared for by the God who revealed Himself to Abraham and Sarah thousands of years ago.

When God first gave the promise to them that their children would number as the sand of the seashore and the stars in the heavens someone could have accused them of religious delusions.

But we know from our vantage point in history that what this couple said God told them He would do, He has done.

He has done it in spite of almost never ending acts of hatred done against them.

Their national suffering rivals any that has ever been done against any nation. They have been scattered throughout the world, exiled twice for centuries.

Yet God has continually kept them "as the apple of His eye."
The resettlement of the land of Israel stands as one of the greatest testimonies of what we believe about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – that He is faithful to do what He has promised.

For the church to believe that somehow God would go back on His promise to Abraham and Sarah and choose the church in place of Israel undermines the very foundation of our faith in the promise He made to us.

Antisemitism and the Church