If America’s original sin is slavery, the original sin of the church is anti-Judaism and antisemitism.

Before the New Testament was fully written. we see evidence of it… If you look at the passion accounts in the four Gospels in chronological order, you see Rome being made less and less the villain of the death of Jesus and the Jews more and more the villain…

Fast forward to the Middle Ages in Europe where virulent anti-Judaism and antisemitism were taught in the churches, which helped set the stage for the Holocaust…

In the passion plays, the Jews were portrayed as the evil “Christ-killers.”

…Anti-Jewish hatred persists. New York Times writer Michele Goldberg…[writes] about the alarming rise in antisemitism of late. The Anti-Defamation League reported last week that there were more anti-semitic incidents reported in 2021 than in any year since it it began tracking them more than 40 years ago…

The church has been slow to raise its voice against anti-Jewish hatred and slower to examine its 2,000 years of complicity in the violence against Jews and Judaism…

Martin Niemoller, the German pastor and theologian…is most famous for these words: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me “

These are still alarming words, most relevant in our day… But there is an important and hopeful thing to know about Niemoller: Earlier he was a Nazi, and he changed.

Every day we can choose for Christ and truth and love.

from “The Original Sin of the Church”