William Nicholls, CHRISTIAN ANTISEMITISM: A History of Hate, (London: Jason Aronson Inc., 1993).
Don Lewis, The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
The Christian Tradition is a child of the much older Jewish Tradition, and as a youthful Christianity challenged and broke from its parent heritage, varied reactions and responses have been the order of the centuries. Many have been the books written on the Christian relationship to Judaism, but two tomes have emerged in the last twenty years that embody and reflect opposite views of the Christian attitude towards Judaism.
Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate takes a decided position on the issue. Nicholls unpacks, slowly and meticulously, the long and negative attitude that can be found within Christianity towards the Jews. There is no doubt that Nicholls is on a mission, and his task is unrelenting.
The large book is divided into three parts: Part I (‘Before the Myth’) goes straight to the origins of the problem. ‘Jesus the Jew: Founder of Christianity?’, ‘Jesus the Jew: Rejected by his People?’ and ‘Jesus the Jew: Crucified Messiah?’ raises all sorts of troubling questions about how the early Christians interpreted Jesus. Nicholls argues, though, that an interpretive form emerged in the early church that stripped Jesus of his distinctive Jewishness and set the stage for an antisemitic ethos. There is no doubt that Nicholls is raising some important and often ignored points, but there is also the danger that he is overstating his argument to justify his agenda and thesis.
Part II (‘The Growth of the Myth’) begins with the Biblical phase but lingers much longer on the Christian attitude towards the Jews up to and including the Reformation. ‘Paul and the Beginning of Christianity’, ‘The True Israel: Battle for the Bible’, ‘Jews in a Christian World’, ‘Popular Paranoia’ and ‘Inquisition and Reformation: The Turning of the Tide?’ build up the argument, in a exegetical, theological and historic manner, about the ongoing negative attitude that Christendom took towards the Jews. Again, Nicholls does a superb job of bringing to the fore a litany of woes, in thought, word and deed, of Christian justifications of treating the Jews in a less than charitable manner. The evidence is piled higher and higher and the conclusions cannot be missed. A thoughtful student of history might agree with the facts brought forward by Nicholls, but was such a tradition only a history of hate, or is there more evidence within Christianity that reflects a more positive attitude towards the Jews? Obviously there is, but Nicholls’ commitment to the Christian anti-Semitic argument brooks no opposition.
Part III (‘The Myth Secularized’) treks ever on from the Reformation period of the 16th century to the 20th century. ‘The Napoleonic Bargain: Frenchman of the Mosaic Persuasion’, ‘Secular Antisemitism’, ‘The Churches in the Twentieth Century’, ‘Antisemitisms Old and New’ and ‘Ending Antisemitism?’ continues to tell the gruesome tale that is pressed in on the reader more each page. An Appendix, ‘The Three Accounts of Peter’s Acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah’ brings the book to a controversial conclusion.
There is a convincing power at work in Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate that needs to be heard and heeded. It is tragic and immoral when a nation or people are viewed and treated in a negative manner. Nicholls, to his exacting credit, has highlighted the dilemma for Christianity and done it well. But, a couple of questions need to be raised by way of conclusion. Is there more to Christianity (‘Before the Myth’, ‘The Growth of the Myth’ and ‘The Myth Secularized’) than Nicholls has argued? Is there little or no evidence of a more embracing and welcoming attitude by Christians towards the Jews than anti-Semitism and a history of hate? Needless to say, there is more to the tale than Nicholls has told. Also, the way Nicholls has placed the Jews in a victim role elicits sympathy, and this can make the reader wary of criticizing Jews in the present tense. Few are those who want to be labelled anti-Semitic in a post-Holocaust era. I will return to this issue later.
The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland is, at one level, although not explicitly so, a searching and historically accurate rebuttal to Nichols Christian Antisemitism. Lewis makes it abundantly clear that within the English evangelical tradition there was a positive attitude towards the Jews (as God’s chosen people) and a commitment to the Jewish nation to support them in their desire to return to Palestine. This turn from a ‘teaching of contempt’ to a ‘teaching of esteem’ had various levels to it, but there is no doubt that an anti-Semitic streak was muted and was less pronounced within the evangelical clan. Lewis is most interested in unpacking the English evangelical ethos that led to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and he does a superb job in tracking and tracing the evangelical family tree that leads to Shaftesbury, Lord Shaftesbury’s pivotal role in support of the Jews and a Jewish homeland and the many evangelicals that worked with Balfour to bring forth the Declaration.
The Origins of Christian Zionism is divided into four thematic and historic parts. Part I (‘The Rise of British Evangelical Interest in the Jews’) is discussed in three sections: ‘The Restoration of the Jews in Protestant Thought’, ‘Pietism, Clapham, and the Jews’ and ‘Evangelicalism, Prophecy and the Jews’. Part I prepares the historic way and highlights the important antecedents to Shaftesbury.
Part II (‘Shaftesbury and the Jews’) is the meat and potatoes of the book, and there is much to be gleaned from this informative section about 19th century English evangelicals and their attitude towards the Jews. Shaftesbury is the lead actor in the drama, and each section makes it clear how and why this is the case. ‘Shaftesbury: The New Recruit’, ‘Christian Europe in the House of Islam: Political, Cultural, and Religious Factors Leading to European Interest in the Near East in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, ‘Shaftesbury’s Attitude to the Jews and to Palestine’ and ‘Protecting God’s Ancient People and Preparing for Their Restoration’ fill in all sorts of details and needful facts about the increasing nearness of many 19th century English evangelicals and the Jews. Needless to say, the English evangelicals were not all agreed on how, in a positive way, they should engage the Jews, but there was a general sense that a largesse and bounty should be showered upon them.
Part III (‘Evangelicals and Pietists Together: The Mission to Jews and Palestine’) picks up on earlier threads of discussion and binds them together in a tighter strand. German pietists and English evangelicals of the 19th century shared a common commitment to the Jewish cause at an exegetical, theological, organizational and political level, and there were practical implications of such affinities. ‘British Evangelical and German Pietist Missions in Palestine in the 1820s’, ‘A British Consul in Jerusalem’, ‘An Anglican Church in Jerusalem for the Unwelcome Intruders in the Home of Islam’, ‘The Jerusalem Bishopric’ and ‘Prussia’s Turn: The Episcopate of Samuel Gobat’ make it abundantly clear how the ecclesial wheels turned in Germany and England to create support for the Jews in Palestine.
Part IV brings the tale into the final stages of the tome’s underlying thematic and chronological thesis (‘Shaftesbury’s Final Years’). Part IV is the shortest section in the book, and its purpose is to follow the inevitable trail ‘Toward the Balfour Declaration’ and how English evangelicals were front and centre in this process.
The Origins of Christian Zionism ends in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, and there is no doubt that Lewis has filled in many a historic gap in his incisive overview, and it is a must read for those interested in the topic. The book ends with the complex nature of evangelicals and the Jews, but there is no doubt the Jews are seen as God’s favoured and chosen people and must be hedged in for being so.
It is most intriguing that although Nicholls and Lewis begin from different places and interpret the Christian attitude to the Jews in almost opposite ways, both books end with a position that Christians should support the Jews, their return to Palestine and, although not explicitly so, the Jewish State. Nicholls and Lewis make no serious mention of the Palestinians
(Christian or Muslim) and the serious human rights violations enacted by the Jewish State on the Palestinians. Lewis cannot be blamed for this for the simple reason his book ends in 1917, but there were splits within the Jewish Zionist movement at this time. Herzl and tribe defined Zionism in a hawkish and political manner, whereas the spiritual-cultural Zionism of Martin Buber and Judah Magnes were much more inclined to consider the Arabs and Palestinians exploited plight. Why did early 20th century Christian Zionists not incline their listening ear to those like Martin Buber and Judah Magnes?
This is a gap and lack in Lewis’ descriptive overview of the English evangelical tradition and the Jews, and such a missing of evidence had serious implications in the evangelical interpretation of the Bible and application of it for both the Balfour Declaration and all that followed afterwards.
We can ask, by way of conclusion, two demanding questions of Nicholls and Lewis? First, why, when the prophetic is discussed, are the rigorous ethical demands of the Hebrew prophets ignored? The Jewish prophets constantly critiqued their own people, and the bulk of the Hebrew Bible is prophetic. When the ethical prophetic element is denied or ignored, it is quite easy to slip into a position in which the prophetic is defined as a call for the Jews to return to Israel, and no criticisms of the Jews (and the state of Israel is allowed). Why did the English evangelicals ignore this aspect of the prophetic? Second, why did both Nicholls and Lewis ignore the fact that within 20th century Judaism there is a hotly contested notion of Zionism?
Why were Ahad Ha-Am, Martin Buber and Judah Magnes ignored? It is in the humanitarian and dissent tradition within 20th century Judaism that we can see the white heat of the Biblical prophetic vision the clearest and cleanest. It is this classical prophetic Jewish vision, when applied to the present, that can offer the means to raise serious questions about the Jews and the Jewish state. When this tradition is muted, the Jewish question often becomes a sort of romantic hagiography for both evangelicals and those, like Nicholls, that are doing their best to avoid the charge of anti-Semitism.
Do read Christian Antisemitism and The Origins of Christian Zionism for both insight and illumination on the Christian-Jewish question, but do read both books with an eye to the deeper and worrisome implications of the conclusions for Christians-Jews and Palestinians.
Ron Dart
I think the focus in Lewis' book is the development of a foreign nationalism within Brit foreign policy, much of it born of fiction, George Elliot for example. The landing of the Brit/Prod bishop from the battleship HMS Devastation into Palestine so Britain could finally compete in the region with Orth'x Russia and Catholic France brings to light the foothold that the West would appreciate due to this navel event. Funny to see the walls of Derry now brought to Jerusalem.
Posted by: Matt McLaughlin | July 30, 2011 at 10:24 PM
accurate information is very useful, but as you point out, it is the whole truth we are in need of.
thank you for this.
Posted by: jan | December 02, 2010 at 06:15 PM