Anti-Christian, no. Anti anti-Jewish? Yes

If a Jew points out anti-Judaism at the scriptural heart of Christianity, does that describe that Jew “anti-Christian”? If a Jew takes Martin Luther to task for proscribing death for Jews, destroying the homes of Jews, our holy books, does that describe an anti-Christian Jew? If I call the Vatican policy based on its own words anti-Jewish does that mean I am anti-Catholic? A short while ago a Christian participant new to my blog Antisemitism and Jewish Survival raised that question to another Christian, long-time participant. My response follows.

Inheritor88: 

Sometimes I wonder if DT has an open mind towards counter opinions as regarding liberal theologian’s take on the gospels.”

DT: Obviously I do not speak for Suddyday or john zimmerman. For myself I often express gratitude for Christian supporters of Israel, of Jews. In particular I preface my discussion of the Holocaust by acknowledging the support of many Christians in risking life and limb in protecting Jews from Auschwitz. What is not always obvious to an occasional reader is that having acknowledged that individual Christians, even communities of Christians can and do deviate, even “disown” traditional Christian scriptural anti-Judaism their impact on Jewish survival for the past two-thousand years and continuing is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. It is not individual Christians, etc, that I describe as anti-Jewish and antisemitic; it is not those who by sympathy and individual heroism stand with the Jewish People today and in the past. It is the pathology of Christendom’s Jewish Problem, rooted in scripture and developed over centuries of theological “explanation” that led to the Holocaust, will lead to the next until the final solution is finally achieved. Nor, despite the above, do I accuse Christianity-as-religion. Christian anti-Judaism and its obvious consequences in deny that religions claims to be “loving” and “forgiving,” etc are self-evident aspirations, something someday for the indefinite future: aspiration. And so long as scripture remains anti-Jewish at heart (only deliberate misreading of, for but one example, Matthew 27:25, can read those words as anything but anti-Jewish); so long as, in the words of Ruether “anti-Judaism is the left hand of Christology” exists so will Christianity, at heart, be anti-Jewish and fail in such claims as “religion of love,” etc. But this is a problem for “Christianity” to work out. I merely point it out. And point out that the tens of millions of Jews over the century murdered its result. It is the impact, past and future of the Jewish Problem on Jewish survival, Inheritor, that is my purpose. The question of my my sensitivity to nuances in Christian belief misses the point.