|
THE THEOLOGICAL SOURCES OF CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM
"Bratton won't let you get away with the idea of separating secular anti-Semitism from its religious roots. He tells why in this historical account of Christian theology over against--and we mean over against, the Jew."
The execution of Jesus, carried out by the Romans and sanctioned by a few jealous priests in the Sanhedrin, has been the burden of the entire Jewish community for two thousand years. In The Crime of Christendom, Fred Gladstone Bratton, a congregational minister and university professor, has produced an attentive and comprehensive study of the doctrinal bases of Christian anti-Semitism as they have arisen, expanded, and functioned over the centuries. He traces the accepted traditions of hatred and persecution of the Jews through the major events of Christian history--the period of the New Testament, the formation of the medieval church, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, the French Enlightenment, and the involvements of the modern church.
Although anti-Semitism has branches in politics, business, education, and folklore, Bratton ably supports his statement that all manifestations of anti-Semitic prejudice are firmly grounded in church teachings. In each of the areas and examples that he treats, Bratton demonstrates how each of the areas and examples that he treats, Bratton demonstrates how formal religious belief, fostered and amplified by theologians (either deliberately or in comparative innocence), develops into a conscious attitude which, absorbed into society, is translated in turn into active hostility. His chapter on the history of anti-Semitism is implanted in the Christian mind.
Consideration of two of the most shocking modern incidents of anti-Semitism--the Dreyfus case and the Nazi holocaust--leads Bratton to conclude that the present benign air of self-congratulation in the traditional churches (ecumenism, proclamations relieving Jews of the guilt of Jesus' death, interfaith councils) is not enough. He warns that no significant improvement in breaking down anti-Semitism can be expected until the churches relinquish the old "tribal" religious attitudes and make basic changes in their orthodox Christolgoy. |
