PASTORS OF
TODAY ― LEADERS OF TOMORROW?
Hugh Fogelman
The
mass genocide of millions of Jews all over Christian Europe required enormous
participation by huge numbers of people, both Catholic and Protestants. In
Christian seminaries there are still some who can remember the Holocaust; they
are teaching a new generation of pastors.
With the passing of each generation, the horrors of the Jewish
extermination program ― Hitler’s “Final Solution”― which spread
from one end of
Israel
has a special day set aside for the “Righteous Gentiles,” approximately 17,000
of known caring Catholics and Protestants, which Jews lump together calling
them all by the name of Christians. These were the known Righteous. There were, of course, many thousands of
others; so triple that number – a little over 50,000 “Righteous Christians” in
all of
Less
than four decades ago in Christian Europe, millions of people who considered
themselves to be Christians participated in Hitler’s “Final Solution” as
perpetrators, collaborators, or silent bystanders. This behavior is
comprehensible if one studies Christian history,
Presuming
that Jesus did exist, according to the New Testament (NT) story he would have been
a simple man who saw Jews slipping away from God and made himself a special
ambassador for God. Jesus would have spoken only Hebrew and the everyday
language – Aramaic. However, Paul and Matthew, being from
Jesus
and Paul seem to be at different ends of theology. Jesus preached for Jews to
follow God’s laws. Paul criticized God’s Law/Torah on his personal belief ONLY
― in “justification by faith, rather than works.” He preached that faith
in Jesus would provide God’s Grace, which was all anyone needed. Paul wrote
that there was no need to follow God’s Laws because they were too hard to
follow; that the Laws were “old and were to be replaced by his vision of Jesus
and God.” Hebrews 8:13, attributed
to Paul, exclaims this opinion:
By calling this covenant "new,"
he has made the
first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (New international Version –
NIV)
Paul’s theology, properly known as Pauline Christology, is a
created religion about Jesus, not Jesus’ religion. This dichotomy
is easily illustrated in the verses below:
Paul = You cannot follow the Law
anymore:
Christ is the
end of the law
so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4 NIV and 3:20-23; 4:14; 5:20; 8:3)
JESUS = I did not come to change the Law:
"Do not think that I have come to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill
them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and
earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will
by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
(Matthew 5:17-18)
The
last time I looked out of my window, heaven and earth have not disappeared.
Therefore” the Law” still stands; or maybe you think Jesus was a liar! As a
Christian, you have chosen Paul and not Jesus! As I said above Christianity is
“Pauline Christology;” a created religion about
Jesus, not Jesus’ religion
As
history has revealed, the mystery pagan religions that were rampant in the
Greek and Roman world at the time of the New Testament Jesus apparently became
the medium after which Christianity patterned itself. This is reflected, to a
large degree, in the divergence in the Christianity invented/created by the
early Church – between Jesus and Paul – which set the pattern for all future
Christian thought. It led to the beginning of the deification of Jesus, which
ultimately let to the Nicean Creed in the 4th Century.
The
Roman Emperor Constantine was steeped in paganism before he “politically”
converted to Christianity as a mechanism to solidify his vast empire.
Constantine and his council at
As
Christianity grew, the moral Jewish messages (i.e. Sermon on the Mount)
attributed to Jesus were lost as the “mystery” of his person became the prime
focus. The Church boldly staked its future on “spiritual theology” (knowing
that it could never be proven otherwise) rather than historical facts, of which
they had none! As Christianity became more Hellenized and separated from the
Law/Torah, it spread more rapidly ― after all Christian salvation was
easy, just “believe.” By the year 300 CE, the clergy had become a distinct
class organized on a hierarchical basis of deacons, presbyter, and bishops.
The war
of the Christian Church against the Jews began with the Church Fathers’
relentless attacks on those Jews who stubbornly refused to accept Jesus as
their savior. Despite the Christian belief that Jesus’ death was necessary and
predestined, they denounced the Jews as a “condemned race; those who killed god
― committed deicide.”
Because
of the growing power of the Church, Christian theology and the Church Fathers
were to become more and more obsessed with Jewish guilt. Origen echoed the
growing hostility and blasted the Jews in his sermons. Justin Martyr along with
Hippolytus was obsessed with the belief that the Jews were receiving and would
continue to receive God’s punishment for having murdered Jesus. The teachings
of the Fathers were handed down throughout succeeding generations in
Christendom.
As the
Church came into power in the 4th century, it turned on the
synagogues with even greater intensity. Jewish civil and religious status was
deteriorating, thanks to the influence the bishops had in the political arena. Laws
were passed denying Jews from entering various professions; denied them of all
civil honors; and their autonomy of worship was being threatened. Christians
felt that this growing evidence now supported their belief in divine
punishment. Chrysostom considered to be among the most beloved and admired in
Church history wrote:
“The Jews sacrifice their
children to Satan – they are worse than wild beasts. The synagogue is a
brothel, a den of scoundrels, the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults.
The Jews have fallen into a condition lower than the vilest animal. The Jews
had become a degenerate race because of their “odious assassination of Christ
for which crime there is no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon, and
for which they will always be a people without a nation, enduring a servitude
without end.”
At
another time Chrysostom was quoted as saying;
“I hate the Jews because
they violate the Law. I hate the synagogue because it has the Law and the
prophets. It is the duty of all Christians to hate the Jews.”
The
scary part of all this, besides of the slaughter of Jews throughout history by
Christians, Chrysostom’s Homilies were used in seminaries and schools for
centuries, as model sermons, with the result that his message of hate was then
passed on to succeeding generations of theologians.
In the
light of history, one can not help but wonder if the events of this last
century have had any impact on today’s Christian theology students who will be
tomorrow’s pastors and teachers? As the foundational teachings of the faith and
the writings of the Church Fathers and “great Christian theologians” are
studied, are they accepted uncritically as indisputable authority?
And to
what extent is the information of Jews and Judaism presented in inadequate,
biased, and distorted ways?
As
students graduate from Christian seminaries, will they go on to teach large
number of Christians who will be even less informed about what the Christian
bible and the early Church Leaders actually said and wrote about the Jews and
Judaism?
As
these new pastors stand in their pulpits, and as these new missionaries go out
onto the world and talk about “the Jews,” the Pharisees,” the crucifixion of
Jesus and the early Church, will these pastors and teachers no longer be
thinking about how the Holocaust came about? Will they remember the legion
of hate and murder by their predecessors, all in the name of Jesus?
Will
these new pastors and teachers continue the anti-Semitism – the Jew-bashing – that
was handed down to every Christian generation since the New Testament was
canonized in 397 CE?
Will it
ever end?
Copyright © 2004,
Hugh Fogelman.
All rights reserved.