Can Church Leaders Reverse 2,000 Years of Anti-Jewish Hate?

In 2024, western nations are becoming increasingly dangerous places for Jews to dwell.

Last weekend, a Brooklyn man was arrested after allegedly stabbing a Jewish man near a synagogue. The victim said the assailant yelled, “Free Palestine” before the attack. Since October 7th, violent anti-Israel protests have sprung up throughout the United States, and skyrocketing attacks across Europe have Jews asking, once again, whether they are safe anywhere in the world.

This summer, I visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which reinforced the reality that violence against the world’s Jews has always started with words.

Today, dangerous antisemitic rhetoric is not isolated to only skinheads, propagandized college students and radical professors, but includes misinformed Christians standing on centuries of anti-Jewish tradition who have not correctly studied their Bible or understood the nature of the Savior they claim to follow.

Centuries-old demonization that chased Jews across continents still thrives inside some religious circles today, birthed from the writings of early Church fathers centuries ago. During the Holocaust, far too many Christian leaders chose silence. Now is the time for God-fearing Christians to reverse 2,000 years of dehumanizing teachings by these early Church fathers toward the people whom scripture calls the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8). 

Most people are aware of the brutality inflicted on Jews over the past millennia, including the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, pogroms, and the Holocaust, but few realize the connection between such cruelty and antisemitic writings of early church fathers. 

Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.), one of the earliest and most influential apologists for the Christian faith, wrote about his disdain for Jewish religious practices, stating:

“The custom of circumcising the flesh, handed down from Abraham, was given to you as a distinguishing mark, to set you off from other nations and from us Christians. The purpose of this was that you and only you might suffer the afflictions that are now justly yours; that only your land be desolated, and your cities ruined by fire, that the fruits of your land be eaten by strangers before your very eyes; that not one of you be permitted to enter your city of Jerusalem.”

One must wonder whether Jesus and his 12 apostles — all of whom would have been circumcised — would have reserved the same severe judgment regarding these practices as that of their religious successor.

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.), described as the most important theologian and biblical scholar of the early Greek church wrote that “the city where Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election.”  

Origen was one of the earliest proponents of replacement theology, which asserts that the Christian church replaced the Jews despite the everlasting covenant God made with them (Genesis 12 and 13, Deuteronomy 29, 2 Samuel 7, Jeremiah 31). His writings about Israel and the Jews would heavily influence the attitude of subsequent influential church writings.

Antisemitism in the early church took off in the third century A.D. when Constantine (circa 280 – 337 A.D.) Christianized the Roman empire, calling Judaism an “evil and perverse sect” and warning against having anything to do with the “adversaries” of Christians, stating, “we no mor [sic] have anything in common with these parasites and murderers of our Lord.” 

Soon, the Jews were determined by many to embody the enemy of the Church and suffered increasing hatred by subsequent church fathers such as John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.) who claimed, “The synagogue is worse than a brothel,” comparing it to “a den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts” and “the cavern of devils.” He concluded his tirade, stating, “As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.”

Augustine of Hippo (354-443 A.D.), the envoy of replacement theology, said, “Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people: their understanding of Scripture is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Savior, for through their fathers they have killed Christ.” And while it seems that in his later years, Augustine’s attitude toward the Jews softened, his accusations that the Jews were responsible for deicide proliferated among Christians and remains a popular charge among far-right antisemites today.

Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome. The list of Jew-hating religious writers stretches on and on.

Perhaps one of the most infamous antisemite in all of church history was the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546 A.D) who penned On the Jews and Their Lies, quoted by Adolf Hitler to convince Lutheran Germans that his genocidal attempts to rid Germany, and eventually the world, of Jews was indeed God-ordained.

Luther’s unbridled antisemitism paved the way for ensuing Reformation leaders and led to “the anti-Jewish hatred of the masses,” according to Dr. Miriam Bodian of the University of Texas, Austin.

Defective interpretation of scripture and ignorance about God’s never-ending love for and commitment to the Jews created a recurring hell on earth for an entire people and led to their horrific persecution during the Crusades, Black Death, Spanish Inquisition, Holocaust and beyond. And while some Christian leaders boldly resisted the crushing wave of anti-Jewish hatred, history reveals that the majority chose the path of least resistance. 

Today’s Church must seize the opportunity to reverse the damage caused by its role in the spread of anti-Jewish hatred over the past two millennia.

While 2,000 years of antisemitic doctrine provides great amounts of material to sift through, American pastors also have 2,000 years of historical perspective to lean on, which should embolden them to stand on the right side of history.

In light of that extensive history, as well as the prophetic regathering of the Jewish people after thousands of years dispersed across the globe, today of all days, Christian clergy should raise their voices against the violent attacks, calls for genocide and grotesque treatment of the very people group who embody the vine of the Christian faith (Romans 11). 

Now is the Church’s opportunity to reverse 2,000 years of anti-Jewish hate.