The ominous resurfacing of ‘Christian’ antisemitism

By Michael Brown, Op-ed Contributor Saturday, July 20, 2024

A Christian social media influencer with a large platform recently texted me after reading my 2021 book Christian Antisemitism: Confronting the Lies in Today’s Church. He was burdened and grieved by the contents of the book, saying to me, “This needs to be updated!” I responded, “That’s the problem. The book was an update to my previous book on ‘Christian’ antisemitism, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People.”

Now he was telling me that the update needed to be updated. That’s how rapidly this insidious spiritual disease is spreading again in the Church.

While I can’t demonstrate this statistically, I have been documenting it anecdotally, and it seems that the lid has been taken off and hidden views are now being shared openly.

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For example, after a recent debate on the ongoing election of Israel, I spotted this comment on X, speaking of the Jewish people: “The porn, trans and usury people? Imma go with Martin Luther.” The post also contained a screenshot of a vile, antisemitic Luther quote.

Yes, this is the same Luther who, in 1543, called for Jewish synagogues to be set on fire and places of business to be broken down and destroyed, for rabbis to be forbidden to teach on the penalty of death, for Jews to be rounded up in ghettos and deprived of jobs — and more.

Yet this individual wrote, “Imma go with Martin Luther”?

You might say, “He’s obviously just another loony antisemite.”

Perhaps so, but according to his profile, he is a “1689 Baptist,” meaning that he holds to the London Confession of 1689 and takes pride in his Baptist “orthodoxy.” He also states that he is a “Church history buff” and “Abortion abolitionist,” among other things.

So, he is an antisemite, for sure. But he is also a professing committed, Evangelical, pro-life Christian. You can be assured he is not alone.

When I responded to a video of a Lutheran pastor who shockingly downplayed Luther’s antisemitism, I made clear that this pastor had opened the door to more antisemitic sentiments. (The pastor’s name is Chris Rosebrough and the video was produced by American Gospel, known for their strongly anti-charismatic stands.) As predicted, those sentiments found expression on our YouTube channel, as professing Christians posted their comments in defense of Luther.

One wrote, “If Chris Rosebrough is correct and it was a deep theological concern, a love for Christ, a love for the church, and a desire to protect God's people from false teachers that drove Luther to speak the way he did about the Jews, then what Luther said pales in comparison with what the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write in Galatians 5:12: ‘I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!’”

He continued, “God and His people hate false teaching. It's a serious matter. And it calls for strong language. And it's loving to use strong language. Because we love God, we love His truth, and we love His people. And when His people are threatened by false teaching, God is angry and calls us to warn and denounce with strong language. Is this what Luther was doing?”

But of course! Luther was motivated by love, just like the Nazis who joyfully reprinted Luther’s Jew-hating screeds.

Another wrote, “Chris did a great job of explaining yes WITH historical context why Luther said what he said, and how Luther wasn’t aware that it was sin since it was the law of the Roman Catholic state that those who held to false religions were breaking the law. You chose to claim that Chris was being untruthful which is not true.”

Still another asked, “Has anyone here read parts of the Talmud?”

Yet another produced quotes allegedly from Harry Truman, comparing the Jews to Hitler and Stalin, then claiming that Albert Einstein (and “25+ other high-ranking Jewish intelligentsia”) made similar charges in a 1947 letter to the New York Times.

You can be assured that this viewer, too, claimed to be a Christian, referencing the need for the Jews to be saved.

On and on this drivel goes, with still another writing, “You’re bothered by what Luther said about the Jews but not bothered by what they have said and do say about your own savior? How about the fact that they spit on Christians in the streets of Israel? Oh wait. Dr Brown you’re not worried about that. You instead would rather make videos against the Christians who speak out about it.”

And this, about me: “... I believe loyalty to his people supercedes [sic] that of his wishy-washy Christian faith.”

Again, this is all quite anecdotal, but I could multiply quotes like these, all from alleged, committed Christians, almost ad infinitum. And I see them coming in increasing measure, be it from extremist Catholics or from those who weaponize the words “Christ is King” or from alleged charismatic prophets.

Even my theological opponent in the aforementioned recent debate, who denied that the Jewish people are in any sense “chosen,” quoted a number of standard New Testament texts that are misused by antisemites to claim that all Jews are children of the devil (John 8:44) and that all Jews who deny Jesus are not really Jews but are the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9; 3:9), among other passages. He also stated that Judaism is an “antichrist, blasphemous” religion, with some viewers offering their “amen” in the comments section.

In fact, it is becoming a mark of Christian orthodoxy to demonize the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. To fail to do so in the strongest, even vilest terms, is to raise questions about your own faith. What a contrast from Paul’s words about his own Jewish people who rejected Jesus as Messiah, stating that, “I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

The irony for me personally is that, as a Jewish believer in Jesus, I have been reaching out to my own people for almost 53 years since the moment I came to faith. And I have always affirmed, without hesitation, that Jesus-Yeshua is the only way to the Father and that Jews who reject Him, no matter how pious they may be, are still lost.

Yet because I affirm with Scripture that the Jewish people remain chosen (for a mission, without the guarantee of their salvation, as taught throughout the Bible), and because I unceasingly stand against antisemitic libels, that makes my own faith suspect in the eyes of the “orthodox” Christians. To add insult to injury, these Christian zealots fail to realize that one of the biggest reasons that Jewish people do not believe in Jesus is the conduct of the Church, which at times offered Jews baptism or death, among other horrors.

Unfortunately, it would not surprise me if this anti-Jewish rhetoric does not become much uglier in the days ahead, even to the point of threats and violence (along with calls for Jews to leave America).

As Christian researcher Aaron David Fruh wrote in the Jerusalem Poston July 20, 2023, “Today theological Antisemitism is flourishing in church pulpits and seminary lecterns. Replacement theology would lay dormant for several years after the Holocaust but has returned with vengeance. It would only be a matter of time before theological Antisemitism would merge with nationalism as it did in the 4th century under Constantine and as it did during the Holocaust under the Nazis.”

May God awaken His Church to denounce this foul plague and declare to the Jewish people and the world that these ugly voices do not represent Jesus or the Gospel. The matter is urgent.