Love us or hate us ? (part 2)

So we've established that anti-Semitism exists and in many ways. But, although Jewish history shows us that the chief protagonist in this drama has tended to be the established Church, it was never meant to be so. Although institutional Christianity seems to hold the monopoly on anti-Semitic behaviour, we must not forget that Adolf Hitler, arguably the greatest anti-Semite of all, had a bitter hatred of Christianity and filled his camps up with dissenting Christians as well as Jews.

QUESTION : Isn't the New Testament anti-Semitic?

Thanks for that one, Gerald, on the attack as usual! I know that some Jewish scholars a few years back have decided that the New Testament has been responsible for Christian hostility to Jews. But that is wrong.

The most important thing of all concerning 'Christian Anti-Semitism' and perhaps the main point of this chapter, is that it should never have existed. There is nothing in the Christian Bible that promotes it.

Jesus always said that the core of their faith was love and forgiveness, not hate and vengeance. Even the Catholic Church, the main villains of the piece, have finally admitted their error, officially announcing at Vatican Council II in 1965 that the Jews "should not be presented as rejected by God or accursed".

Historically, when you look at Church history, one important fact sticks out - the common person was never given a Bible to read! Bible reading and interpretation was in the hands of the leaders and teachers, who had their own agendas to fulfil and used the Bible to justify their own vices, be it lust for money, power, or just good old-fashioned lust!

As soon as the Bible was put in the hands of the masses, people read it and, at the very least, saw no basis for anti-Semitism and at best saw many justifications for a positive attitude towards their Jewish brethren. We will read about some of these people in the next section.

And this is still the case. Christians today are not like 'Christians' of yesteryear. Anyone who reads the Bible would have no excuse for reading Anti-Semitism into it, unless their judgement is clouded by their own desires.

We can see the effects of this when we consider the vast number of cult groups around today, such as the one involved in the 'Waco seige'. These groups, on the whole, spring up when one man, usually possessing a charismatic personality, picks up the Bible and says, "hold on, there's something new here ... I must tell the world ...", to which I would add, " ... and gather followers, particularly young female ones and rich ones and let them share my unique paranoia".

The Bible does not work like that and, thankfully, these days the vast majority of Christians are sensible and only take out of the the Bible the messages that were originally put into it.