Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate

Rating:
Summary: A milestone in Jewish-Christian relations
Review: Despite a somewhat inflammatory title, this volume is an extremely well-researched and thorough examination of the history of Christian attitudes toward Judaism and Jews.

William Nicholls begins his examination with an overview of current New Testament research, arguing that it is now clearer than ever before that Jesus himself was a faithful Jew who could not have intended to found the religion which Christianity later became. He then passes to later New Testament history and tries to get clear just what was involved in Paul's mission to non-Jews. (In all of the foregoing, I could pick nits about any number of comparatively minor points. But his overall approach is, in essence, that the historical Christian practice of evaluating the "Old Testament" according to the "New" must be reversed: the gospels and apostolic writings must be evaluated by the standards of the Torah and the other Jewish scriptures. Here I heartily concur, and this is not the place to elaborate my agreements or otherwise on specific issues.)

From there, Nicholls works forward through Christian history up to the present day, including medieval Europe, the Enlightenment, and of course the Holocaust. Again, he covers his topics with remarkable thoroughness and clarity.

Two notable features of Nicholls's presentation should be especially praised. First, he quite properly singles out Calvinism as a glowing exception to certain anti-Jewish trends within Christendom, and correctly attributes this fact in large measure to Calvinism's theology -- in particular to John Calvin's "third use" of biblical law, which is not terribly far from Judaism's first and only use of it. Second, he correctly assigns a great deal of antisemitism to the political Left and occasionally implies that this antisemitism is an outgrowth of "Enlightenment" anti-religious secularism generally. (And along the same lines, he expressly states his suspicions that "liberal" religion is driven more by its political agenda than by religious concerns.)

I would have liked to see this theme explored a bit more thoroughly. The fact is that the (classical) liberal commonwealth as we know it was, historically and theologically, an outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation and specifically of Calvinism, owing precisely to the latter's return to biblical principles that had been present in Judaism all along. This is precisely the reason why more or less Calvinistic societies have refrained from the persecution of Jews in particular and established religious liberty in general. It is also why more "modern" liberalism is opposed to classical liberalism just as surely as it is to Judeo-Christian religion. (Nicholls could have scored a few more points here as well by discussing Roman Catholicism's official opposition -- at the Magisterium level, not the Lord Acton level -- to capitalism, classical liberalism, and both religious and economic liberty.)

Which brings me to another point on which I wish Nicholls had been clearer. He has a great deal to say about Christian silence during the Holocaust and about the way Christian "myth" prepared secular society for antisemitism. But he does not have anything to say about Nazism itself as a deadly enemy not only of Judaism but of Christianity as well.

And one final quibble: Nicholls has written nearly five hundred pages on the topic of rapprochement between Judaism and a properly repentant Christianity _without one single mention of the Noahide laws_. He concludes his ruminations on the future of Christianity by musing about whether "the synagogue" can accept "the church," as though he is imagining a massive influx of converts to Judaism itself as every Christian in the world becomes a Jew. But Judaism requires no such conversion; Nicholls could profitably have inquired what Judaism _does_ require.

Generally, I think Nicholls overstates the need for theological agreement between Judaism and Christianity. Had he focused a bit more on Calvinism and therefore on why Calvinist societies are as friendly to Jews as such societies have historically been, he might have been less concerned with theology and more concerned with broad-level practical politics. We might then also have seen a bit more discussion of why the Left is _politically_ unable to accommodate Judaism -- and Christianity too, for that matter.

But I do not mean these points to take anything away from my praise for Nicholls's presentation. What he _does_ discuss is handled thoroughly and with tremendous intellectual honesty. This volume is very highly recommended to anyone interested in Jewish-Christian relations in particular and the foundations of the free and prosperous commonwealth in general.

Rating:
Summary: A deep and important book
Review: It's among the 10 books that most affected my life and my thinking.

Though brough up a Christian, I am a left-wing atheist, and could feel unconcerned by the issue. But this book made me realize how deeply christian logic is rooted in our civilisation, in our thoughts. The remarks about the parallels between Marxism and Christianism on this count were also very revealing to me; and explain a lot about the current left-wing antisemitism.

Rating:
Summary: Holocaust Couldn't Have Happened if Not for 2000 Yrs of Hate
Review: Professor Nicholls' detailed work traces the theological and historical development of Christianity over the last 2000 yrs. The former Anglican minister begins with Jesus' life, living as an observant Jew. The book continues with the Early Believers (not yet termed 'Christians'), into the 2nd Century when the movement ceased being a Jewish movement at all, and traces every era to modern times.
I was captivated by the author's lucid presentation of historical evidence, and his ability to show how Paul and later Christian theologians missed the mark of Jesus' real life and teachings. Prof. Nicholls explains how Jesus was a Rabbi who taught Judaism [e.g. the Kingdom of Heaven is within reach of the common man] to other Jews. Nicholls presents Jesus as a Jewish Rabbi who only taught to other Jews, and was not some kind of 'new Christian' who taught to Gentiles. Paul on the other hand conflicts with classical Judaism, teaching Gentiles can be 'grafted into Israel' [Romans 11] without requiring the Torah's obligations for converts (i.e. circumcision for men, dietary restrictions & acceptance of all Torah law as binding). This was presumably to gain more recruits who never would have agreed to adult surgery or making major dietary and lifestyle changes. The author shows that consequences of disobeying laws for converts, would in Paul's approach, be fixed upon Jesus' imminent return.
This book is a must for anybody who wants to truly understand the historical reasons why Christianity conflicts with its parent religion, and subsequently, vilifies Judaism in order to defend its agenda.
The author investigates every major era of the last 2000 years of Judeo-Christian history to prove his thesis that the Holocaust could not have happened had it not been for 2000 years of Christianity teaching that Jews are bad.