A Christian Response to Antisemitism

Antisemitism has become the hallmark of the tribalism of late postmodernity in the West.  Christians should never be Antisemitic.  They should accept Jews not on the West's new virtues of diversity, equity, and inclusion--which are actually the virtues out of which tribalism has emerged, and from this tribalism has emerged its Antisemitism.  The Christian attitude toward the Jews is, instead, stated in Romans 9-11, to which I shall briefly return at the end of this essay.

In the first chapter of my e-book, The Church and Western Tribalism (available on my blog’s bookshop), I describe Western tribalism in the following ways.

·       It vilifies and shames its enemies.

·       It holds to conclusions, anecdotally supported, about groups and is unwilling to reexamine them in light of other evidence.  In this, it opposes racism while being itself racist.

·       It is not an ethnic tribalism but a collection of tribal identities; it is constructed.

·       It deconstructs history and produces its own, self-justifying narrative to support its preferred virtues.

·       It has a technological and corporate sponsorship.

·       It manipulates facts and promotes falsehoods to serve subjective interests, and cynically calls this ‘my truth’.

·       It rejects free speech and prefers laws against hate speech, which allows those in power to label whatever it dislikes as hateful.  All speech is regarded as political.  Persons who do not acquiesce are denied, denounced, and removed.

·       Like fascism and communism, both forms of socialism, it opposes individualism and freedom of conscience.

·       It is, therefore, coercive, aggressive, and disciplinary.  People are to submit.

I point out that postmodernity inevitably ended up in tribalism.  It did so through social Marxism’s cancellation of Western culture and affirmation of identity politics and intersectionality.  Identity politics exists in the tension between equity (the hand on the scale of justice in favour of the marginalised and presumed victims of society) and the other two values of social Marxism of diversity and inclusion.  Fascists advanced their power in Germany by claiming victimhood at the hands of the Jews.  Communism advanced power in Russia by claiming that the bourgeoisie victimised the proletariat.  Where tribalism wins, it rejects diversity and inclusion by favouring of certain groups and excluding others. 

In the West, tribalism has increasingly attempted to develop its ‘truth’ through constructed narratives about victimised Muslims seeking refuge and inclusion.  'Diversity' affirms their inclusion in Western society not by assimilation but by full participation in the very liberal values that Islam undermines.  The excluded group, on the other hand, are the Jews.  The crime Jews are said to have committed is claiming a legitimate right to their ethnic home.  The very social Marxists who insist that ethnic groups like African tribes in Zimbabwe or South Africa or Native Americans should be given their ancestral lands oppose this for the Jews.  The very social Marxists who insist of reparations for some social group (distant descendants of African slaves) have no such sympathy for the people horrifically killed in Europe less than a century ago.

As Christians, though comprising people from all nations, we appreciate that God worked His plan of salvation through the Jews, His covenant people, the children of Abraham and Sarah.  There would be no Christian without this Jewish heritage.  Paul says,

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. ⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever (Romans 9.1-5, ESV).

The Christian attitude to the Jews is not just appreciative but also brotherly.  This does not mean that Christians consider their faith as a version of Jewish faith but as the fulfillment of Jewish faith.  The Church’s attitude towards those Jews who have not become Christians is not that of Western Tribalism but of a painful sorrow for their not seeing that their faith leads to Jesus, not away from Him. 

Christians are specifically told by Paul not to be arrogant towards the non-Christian Jews.  They should ‘remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you’ (Romans 11.18).  Paul also says that the Jews were not ‘cancelled’ but might be regrafted into the tree of God’s people if they exercise faith in Jesus Christ.  They, like any people, might find God’s kindness through faith in Christ our Saviour.  Finally, Paul holds out hope, based on Scripture, that, just as salvation came through the work of God with the Jews, so also, once many among the nations received the Word of salvation, it would reach Israel again.  Many Christians, therefore, believe Paul’s words in Romans 11.25-27 hold out a future hope that many Jews will one day come to faith in Jesus Christ and receive the salvation He brought.

As Paul saw many Jews reject this Gospel in his day, he was sorrowful and in anguish, appreciative and brotherly, humble and hopeful.  The Antisemitism of Western culture is a feature of its rejection of Christianity, and Christians may respond with the sentiments of Paul.  We do not cancel any people, not the Jews or anyone else, but offer the Gospel through which we have found salvation ourselves, a Gospel first proclaimed to the Jews and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Instead of tribalism’s racism and cancel culture, we offer the Gospel of God’s salvation for all in Him.