Dignified Deicide

By Johan de Haan --

From time to time I can be found lending a skeptical ear to the presiding preacher in the Protestant Church in which I was baptized. Having spent many years abroad and without special affinity to the Church in question my sporadic attendance, whilst entirely unreligious, does provide me with useful insights into the prevailing theology of the faithful leadership as well as repeated revelations concerning the inconsistency of biblical teachings. In many ways it constitutes a paradoxical departure from my early youth when the requisitions of childhood dictated my attendance and observance of the claims and rituals of the Church and its representatives.

The vincible virtues of religious traditions are present aplenty at these gathers reflecting both the social benefits of weekly commune as well as the goodwill of congregants in their desire to tender kind deeds and benefits to each other and society at large. Yet this veneer of social values is quickly eroded in the face of the insistence of the attendees of such gatherings to include the revelation of the word of god by a chosen from amongst them. In the past weeks these presentations have been self absorbed with fascination of two historical events, or rather one historical event and another alleged occurrence contained within the contents of the Christian Bible.

On the one hand there has been a celebration of liberation from the force of Nazism that swept Europe during the course of the Second World War, and the cessation of the anti-Semitic policies that darkened its tenure. Unfortunately, by almost godly coincidence, the end of a force of human evil in the world coincides with the Church’s biblical remembrance of the death of an eccentric Jewish preacher at the hands of those most offended by Nazi influence and German occupation, the Jews.

For all the modernity and secular coffee talk, the substance of pastoral lectures invariable orbits that oft repeated phrase in Matthew 27:25, allegedly uttered by the Jews in condemnation of themselves and their offspring, calling for the death of one Jesus of Nazareth:

- All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" -

As a child the logical immorality of this phrase struck me in that even then I failed to understand how any parent could tender such a selfish offering and more importantly, how an all powerful creator could take such words seriously. In retrospect, the purpose of the gospels, of convincing and converting the heathen, as well as the identity of the authors and the time when they were written, as purely human endeavors, makes understanding this phrase a question of sociology not historical truth, however, the raw power of the manner in which the church has used and abused this single sentence resonates with me to this day.

The force of influence that is the endorsement of the charge of deicide against the Jews as a people, is reflected in the anti-Semitism of the very patriarchs who stood at the helm of the reformation and the emergence of the greater protestant church in Northern and Western Europe. Martin Luther, indoctrinated, ignorant and ill-informed as he was reserved some of his most distasteful literary contributions to the nation of god, saying of the Jews:

"If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country" and "we must drive them out like mad dogs."

Calm and moderate in comparison, Calvin nevertheless was not want of similar outbursts of anger, hate and criticism, claiming for example:

"I have had much conversation with many Jews: I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness—nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew."

Within the context of the position of the Protestant Church Fathers as set out, one can revisit the contents of the theological claims to which I was privy these weeks. Within the setting of social commune, tea and biscuits and an air of celebration, it would indeed, as so many seem to do, be tempting to ignore the repetition of such opinions, revised as they may be, in the sermons in modern Churches, as indeed it was in the one I attended.

For despite the secular facade that enshrined it the preacher claimed that the suffering of the Jews, both in the centuries that followed their self indictment, the holocaust that marked their oppression and the continued turmoil of the Jewish state, 'were evidence for the close relationship between God and the Jews, and the continued conflict between the Lord and his people'. I take care to note that this translated rendition of a non-verbatim memory should be recognized as such, however, it quite accurately reflects the position taken. The preacher in question was at pains to note that nothing in the bible is a mandate for action against the Jews themselves, but merely a reminder that as a Christian one must observe and note the influence of God in the life of the Jew.

A cursory glance at the history of anti-Semitism in Europe reveals the fallacy in this argument. Indeed, the role of Christianity in the oppression and abuse of the Jewish people underscores two undisputable facts: firstly that all the “punishments” inflicted have a very human origin and secondly that the origin lies squarely at the feet of Christianity. The peak of persecution, inflicted in the last century, was one premised on the divine warrant, endorsed by both Catholicism and the Reformation, arising from the mythical charge of deicide against the Jewish people based on the exchange as cited in Matthew. Few realize that the official stamp of endorsement by the Catholic Church was only retracted during the Second Vatican Counsel in 1965 and that Lutheran Churches in both Europe and American have only taken an official stand repudiating the long standing tradition in the last 10 years.

The danger, for which we all must guard, is the ability of primitive, ignorant and bigoted Christian teachings and traditions to survive the cull of secular reasoning behind the shimmer of tea and scones, within the crevices of what remains of institutional Christianity. Much akin to a dormant virus, the mere stimulation of such ideas by indoctrination, poor education, populism and the acceptance of the concept of divine truth, however diluted, is sufficient to reawaken the vicious fundamentals of accepting the truth of any form of theism, however benign and however mild.

Filed Under: Johan de Haan , Rants