Among those concerned to evangelise Jews and Muslims, there are a growing number who believe the church's approach must involve a formal, public expression of repentance or apology for the wrongs committed in the name of Christ in the past against Jews and Muslims. Is this correct?
For Muslims, the focus is on the effects of the Crusades of the 11th century, but for Jews, the history is longer and more complex. As a missionary to the Jews, I want to consider the issues within the Jewish framework, but the principles apply equally to the Muslim experience.
The Jews have known great suffering. This has a long history, but what is in the forefront of the minds of most Jews today is their experience in Europe over the last 1,500 years. It has been described as 'the longest hatred'; by which they mean the enmity between Christianity and the Jews. That is shocking. There is actually a nation on the face of the earth which sees Christianity as the agency primarily responsible for the sufferings and death of millions of its people. That this people should be the Jews is doubly appalling; as Hilaire Belloc put it: 'How odd of God to choose the Jews, but odder still for those who choose the Jewish God to persecute the Jews.'
Differing responses
No doubt the first reaction of many is: 'Well, such people weren't really Christians.' That must be true of the vast majority who have harboured or expressed anti-Semitic feelings, but the fact remains that true Christians are called by the same name. Whether we like it or not, we are identified with them. How do we respond?
The superficial response is for a Christian to declare he or she is innocent in the whole matter and therefore it has little or nothing to do with him. But would we accept such a response from a relative of the person guilty of vandalising our home? We would expect a concerned reaction of some sort because of his association with the guilty party. Similarly, we cannot adopt a detached view of the effect on the Jews of their mistreatment by people who are called by the same name as us.
At the other end of the scale would be the response of repentance for the sins of others. A recent edition of the BBC1 'Everyman' programme recorded a group of Christians expressing feelings of repentance for Christendom's behaviour towards the Jews in the presence of a Jewish Rabbi. Such an approach raises important issues. To repent because of the sins of others called Christian implies there is such a thing as collective guilt; but Scripture denies this, other than in the case of our relationship to Adam (Deuteronomy 24.16; Ezekiel 18.20). I wonder if any of the Christians on that programme would agree that the Jews are collectively guilty of Jesus's crucifixion because some of their leaders initiated it? I doubt it somehow. I also wonder if they considered how hurtful their approach could be to Christians who, in the name of Jesus, suffered to save Jews from persecution, or to many others who suffered bereavement in opposing tyrannies which have persecuted Jews, in World War II for example?
Another objection to the idea of repenting for the sins of others arises from the fact that repentance involves a change of mind. A person who has never been anti-Semitic can hardly repent of it, and to speak of having a change of mind on behalf of another is nonsense.
Daniel's prayer
However, there is an apparent difficulty here. Godly men like Daniel identified with the sins of their people, confessing them and repenting of them (Daniel 9.4-19). Should we not therefore do the same? We can only say yes if there is a genuine sense in which the people concerned can be called our people. Daniel was a member of the covenant people then, and as they suffered God's judgment he suffered with them. It was impossible for him to divorce his own personal sins from their experience and so he identified with them in confession. In New Testament times, sin in the covenant community is dealt with at a local church level (Revelation 1,2). That is because the responsibility of the members for each other can be a practical one. If there is sin in a church, then the sinner is guilty and the others are responsible to act against it; they sin if they fail to do so. Anti-Semitism would be one such sin. We do not read anywhere in the NT of the sins of one church, say Corinth, being charged on any other church.
It is possible to extend this responsibility for acting against sin to a group of churches when they have bound themselves in some form of disciplined fellowship. However, it cannot be extended to Christendom as a whole because, as that term is commonly understood, it is an entity which has no spiritual or practical reality. Therefore I would say that the response of repentance can only be expected of a Christian if he or she has been personally anti-Semitic, or of a Christian church if it is failing to deal with anti-Semitism in its own midst.
Another way
There is another possible response, one of both sorrow and shame. Sorrow should be stirred in us from a feeling of common human compassion because the Jews have suffered so much. There should also be shame, because of the association we have with 'Christian' anti-Semitism. This may be more difficult to understand or accept. Does not shame imply guilt and therefore take us back to the need for personal repentance? That is frequently the case, but Scripture has examples of the experience of shame where there is no personal failure in the one feeling it. For example, in Ezra 9.5,6 we read of Ezra's shame at the marriages taking place between Israel's leaders and Canaanite women.
Maybe an illustration would be helpful to show the contrast between this response of shame for the actions of others and that of repentance. If English football supporters go on the rampage while abroad and lives are lost, we may see a threefold response from within the English community: repentance, apology and shame. The ones who repent in such a situation are those who were violent, and also any who expressed hatred so as to inflame feelings. Who should apologise? Leaders of some description will do so because there is a sense of identity and responsibility which demands it. They will also condemn the evil. Who feels sorrow and shame? All the English should do so to a degree,. because we strive for integrity and we feel that somehow the nation has failed. No one suggests that we are all personally responsible, but we feel that, somehow, somewhere, something has gone wrong in our national life. In a similar way, whether we like it or not, we are identified with all who call themselves Christian and with the influence of Christianity in world history.
Clarification
Finally, it needs to be considered how this should be expressed. For most Christians, it is enough that they are conscious of these failures, both in history and today, that they are humbled by them, and that when the issue is raised by a Jewish person then they are ready to condemn such behaviour and to express sorrow and shame that such things have happened in the name of Jesus. However, some clarifying remarks are also necessary. For example, it should be explained that the vast majority of those who have expressed anti-Semitic feelings were not true Christians, and that none who were physically violent against them could have been followers of Jesus. It should also be made clear that none of this alters the fact that he is the Messiah and the Saviour of sinners.
Are there ever any circumstances in which repentance or apology, shame and sorrow should be expressed form-ally and publicly? I believe there are. All the possibilities cannot be covered here, but a general point can be stated. When hostility to Jews has been publicly and officially encouraged in a community, and a publicly recognised church or church body in that community has either kept silent or even approved such official anti-Semitism, then some form of public statement is surely necessary.
However, the idea of well-meaning individual Christians or even churches formally and publicly expressing general feelings of regret on behalf of Christendom, or on behalf of church groups who have not authorised them or with whom they have no formal connection, is out of place, possibly presumptuous, and must ultimately be unsatisfactory to the offended.
The sufferings of the Jews at the hands of people called Christians is a major issue for Christians and churches because the Jews are a people with whom we have a unique relationship. I have no doubt that church bodies should have an official statement of their attitude. Does yours? What is your own personal attitude? Do you feel some degree of sorrow and also shame? Those who are beloved of God should be beloved of us, and we should be grieved that there have been times when the Jews have seen Christianity as their worst enemy.
Paul Morris
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