The topic of this month’s newsletter,
antisemitism, is the fault line that separates
Judaism and Christianity and creates a Grand
Canyon-sized chasm between Jewish people and
Jesus. Must this be? The highly sensitive and
difficult question we will address is whether or
not the message of Jesus that is conveyed
through the Gospels is intrinsically antisemitic.
This is a question that most Christians would
never even think to ask. But every Jewish person
knows that this assumption is one of the primary
underlying reasons for the rejection of
Christianity by Jewish people. Allow me to
explain further.
Jewish historian Solomon Grayzel wrote,
“The history of Judaism and Christianity is
DR. MITCH GLASER
PRESIDENT of
CHOSEN PEOPLE
MINISTRIES
written in blood and punctuated in violence.” It is understandable
why Jewish believers are reluctant to become involved with the
church. From childhood, we are taught that Christians (the people
in churches!) are the enemies of the Jewish people. The church
was supposedly the institution responsible for persecuting our
ancestors. Many of us find it painful to step inside a local church,
whatever the denomination. How can we enjoy the company of
those who inspired the murder and destruction of our people? Am
I exaggerating? Perhaps, but if you were brought up in a Jewish
home like mine, my words should at least ring with familiarity, if
not authenticity.
Is there any truth to the accusation that Christians persecuted
Jews? Of course there is! And I will not qualify that statement by
placing quotation marks around the word Christian. If I say that
all those who mistreated Jews were Christians in name only, I am
arrogantly dismissing early church leaders such as Origen,
Tertullian, and Augustine, not to mention Reformers such as John
Wycliffe and Martin Luther. Painful as I find it, I do not have the
authority to write these individuals out of history, much as I might
like to.
To deny the past would be foolish. To forgive these men
posthumously would be presumptuous because they never asked
for forgiveness. Yet, to think that they characterize what God
intended the church to be would be foolish and useless.1
I still remember when I was first considering the message of
Jesus. I was only 19 years old, living far away from home, where
I had been raised in what I call a non-practicing Orthodox Jewish
home. This might sound a bit odd, but many Jewish people are
raised in one of the various denominations of Judaism—
Orthodox, Conservative or Reform—and are not especially
religious. But, for what it’s worth, when I practiced Judaism I did
ANTISEMITISM
IN HISTORY*
740 BCE
Thousands resettled as
captives by Assyria
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism
475 BCE
Haman attempts genocide
against the Jews (Purim)
SPECIAL EDITION
Volume XXIV, Issue 8
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This newsletter is published monthly by
Chosen People Ministries. Visit us on the web at:
www.chosenpeople.com. Scripture is taken from the
New American Standard Bible Version.
All rights reserved. PRINTED IN THE USA.
/Timeline_of_antisemitism
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