An honest reckoning

Christianity and Antisemitism

Christians carry a long and shameful history of antisemitism: the false charge that the Jewish people killed God, centuries of ghettos, expulsions, forced conversions, and pogroms, and a theology of contempt that helped prepare the ground the Holocaust grew in. This is one of the gravest failures on this record, and we will not soften it. It is also true that Christians hid and rescued Jews at the risk of their lives, and that the faith itself is rooted in Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, and antisemitism is a betrayal of him.

What happened

Within a few centuries of Jesus, Christian writers were teaching contempt for the Jewish people, and the slander took hold that Jews were collectively guilty of killing Christ. From that poison grew ghettos, forced badges, expulsions (England in 1290, Spain in 1492), forced conversions, and murderous pogroms fed by blood libels. In 1543 Martin Luther, the great reformer, published a tract, On the Jews and Their Lies, that called for burning synagogues and Jewish homes, seizing their books, and driving them out. Four centuries later the Nazis reprinted and exploited it. The long Christian teaching of contempt did not build the death camps, but it tilled the soil. This must be named without flinching.

The complexity, honestly

In the same darkness, Christians risked everything to save Jewish lives. The villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France sheltered thousands. Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jews in the Netherlands and paid for it in a concentration camp. Many of those honoured at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations acted out of Christian conviction. And in 1965 the Catholic Church, in Nostra Aetate, formally repudiated the deicide charge and condemned antisemitism. Christians were both the persecutors and, at grave cost, the rescuers.

What Jesus taught

Antisemitism is not a distortion of a footnote in Christianity; it is a betrayal of its foundation. Jesus was a Jew, born of a Jewish mother, raised in the Jewish Scriptures. He said salvation itself comes through the Jews, and from the cross he prayed forgiveness over those who killed him rather than curse them.

To hate the people of Jesus in the name of Jesus is to abandon everything he was and taught.

Frequently asked questions

Is Christianity responsible for antisemitism?

Christians carry a long and grievous share of it: the false deicide charge, ghettos, expulsions, pogroms, and a theology of contempt that helped prepare the ground for the Holocaust. Honesty also records the Christians who rescued Jews at great cost, and that antisemitism betrays the Jewish Jesus at the faith's core.

What did Martin Luther say about the Jews?

In his 1543 tract On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther called for burning synagogues and Jewish homes, seizing their books, and expelling them. The Nazis later reprinted and exploited it. It is a real and inexcusable part of the record, named plainly here and not defended.

Did Christians ever help Jewish people?

Yes. The village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon sheltered thousands, Corrie ten Boom's family hid Jews and suffered in a camp for it, and many Righteous Among the Nations acted from Christian faith. In 1965 the Catholic Church formally repudiated the deicide charge in Nostra Aetate.