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Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Roots of Christian Antisemitism

My second paper on the relations between Christians and Jews starts like this:
After the Church parted ways with Judaism and became predominantly gentile in constituency, it quickly forgot its Jewish roots in spite of Paul's injunction of Ro 11:17-24. Christian antisemitism has echoed throughout church history with grave consequences as Christians have atrociously persecuted Jews in the name of Christ. This paper seeks to identify the roots of Christian antisemitism amongst the second century Church Fathers. This is not an evaluation of their theology per se, but an account of antisemitic sentiment within historical orthodox Christianity, even by the Church's greatest ancient theologians.
For the whole paper, click here.

The Judeo-Christian Schism

Click here for my first essay in a series on Christian-Jewish relations over the past 2000 years. Here's the introduction:
The heartbreaking history of the Church's relation to the Jewish people is a story of a disagreement growing into a dispute, division, and ultimately divorce. Without assessing the merit of particular theologies, this paper examines the schism between Christianity and Judaism in the first hundred years of the Church's existence (from c30 to 135) – its causes and course. Consequences will be explored in later papers.