Father, Forgive Us: A Christian Response to the Church's Heritage of Jewish Persecution
This passionate but scholarly work takes a hard look at an aspect of history about which most Christians know nothing: the part Christians have played in Jewish persecution. Just as Arabs see the word "Christian" but hear "Crusade", Jews see "Christian" but hear "pogrom". Fred Wright, of CMJ, has mustered extensive evidence demonstrating the legacy of Christian persecution. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred 117AD) contended that Jews were in league with the devil. Other church fathers followed...
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This passionate but scholarly work takes a hard look at an aspect of history about which most Christians know nothing: the part Christians have played in Jewish persecution. Just as Arabs see the word "Christian" but hear "Crusade", Jews see "Christian" but hear "pogrom". Fred Wright, of CMJ, has mustered extensive evidence demonstrating the legacy of Christian persecution. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred 117AD) contended that Jews were in league with the devil. Other church fathers followed suit. Christian antisemitism continued through the medieval period, leading to Jewish ghettos across Europe. Successive popes endorsed horrific measures including the Spanish Inquisition. Luther demanded that Jews be exported to Palestine and their synagogues burned. The Holocaust took place in Christian Europe and was carried out mostly by baptised Christians. Wright shows how Christians laid the foundations upon which Nazis built their creed. He then demonstrates how modern anti-Zionism draws upon the same root of hostility, and outlines a theological response to the Holocaust. True healing begins when the past is acknowledged. Only thus can these generation-old barriers to the Messiah be overcome.
Preface7Introduction9Part 1Antisemitism171.Some Models for the Understanding of Antisemitism192.The Operation of Antisemitism343.Exterminatory Antisemitism464.Christian Responsibility675.Post-Modernism and the New Antisemitism956.Revisionism and Holocaust Denial: The New Historical Antisemitism1067.Is the New Testament Antisemitic?1198.Conclusions and Considerations143Part 2When Two Worlds Collide: Anti-Judaism and Anti-Israelism1639.The Jews Under Islam16510.The British Mandate18111.The Mufti of Jerusalem18912.Anti-Israelism213Part 3Responding to the Holocaust and Developing the Theology of Catastrophe23113.Can Theology Survive After Auschwitz?233AppendicesI.A liturgy for Yom Ha Shoah259II.Confession of Faith for Jewish Converts of the Church of Antioch266III.List of Jewish Opponents to Muhammad According to Ibn Ishaq267IV.The Pact of Umar269V.Arab Immigration 1922-43272Abbreviations274Glossary275Select Bibliography279
