‘A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise’

By Angela Winter    

This mont h , on Holocaust Remembrance Day, our Jewish friends and neighbors memorialize those who died in the Nazi genocide. As Christians, we might ask if that has anything to do with us, and if it does, how might we show support to the Jewish community. To answer those questions, we will have to address the degree of Christian responsibility for the Nazi genocide.   

In the past, evangelicals discussing the Holocaust have tended to distance Christianity by noting that not all German Christians were complicit, or by emphasizing differences between Christian antisemitism and Nazi antisemitism. Both approaches contain a sliver of truth; at the same time, they serve to separate Christians from the hard truth that both Christian people and historic Christian theological antisemitism did help to make the Holocaust possible. Nearly all German Christians—including those who claimed a personal relationship with Jesus and read their Bibles daily—initially supported the Nazi regime. Though it is true some Christian clergy who at first approved anti-Jewish measures later protested when the deportations began, these protesters were few in number. Had you and I lived then, we would have been onlookers watching as our former neighbors were rounded up and killed. Statistically speaking, it is likely we would have been collaborators, not rescuers.   

This month then, as our Jewish friends and neighbors mourn, we might begin to demonstrate solidarity with them by educating ourselves about this painful history, and sharing what we learn with other Christians. Notable works which evaluate the complicity of the German Confessing Church include Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust by Victoria J. Barnett; Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust by Robert P. Ericksen and Susannah Heschel; and The Confessing Church, Conservative Elites, and the Nazi State by Shelley Baranowski. William S. Skiles’ analysis of Protestant sermons in Nazi Germany details the effects of the deicide charge in causing many pastors to justify antisemitism (“Preaching to Nazi Germany: The Confessing Church on National Socialism, the Jews, and the Question of Opposition”).   

True support also means a willingness to stand with, and suffer with, the Jewish people, who once again are under attack. Between 2015 and 2018, the U.S. saw a doubling of antisemitic incidents, including those by anti-Zionists whose obsessive hostility with the Jewish state increasingly morphs into hatred of all Jews. Not for the first time, Christian churches tend to stay silent. Genuine support for those in harm’s way would mean expressing solidarity in concrete ways.   

• As individuals we might, for example, wear the Star of David to show public support.  

• We can prepare ourselves to object any time we hear the plight of Palestinians being used to demonize all Israelis or all Jews.  

• As Christian congregations, we can send identifiable groups to the next Jewish march organized to counter antisemitism.   

• As pastors, we can consistently denounce antisemitism as a not only the racist evil that it is but a complete rejection of the biblical concept of God’s particular love for “the apple of his eye” (Zech 2:8).   

• Christian educators and clergy can teach a proper view of the Jewish people based on a careful reading of New Testament texts.