 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
Letter to the Editor printed in Inside the Vatican (February, 2004) Dear Editor, Your thoughtful article covering the controversy over Gibson's The Passion closes by asking whether the opposition to the film which claims to be opposition to anti-Semitism may rather be "opposition to certain fundamental truths of the New Testament itself". Based on my own experience as a Jew prior to my conversion to the Catholic Church, I can only answer in the affirmative. Although true anti-Semitism does still exist today, it cannot be found in Catholic doctrine or among genuine Catholics. Unfortunately some fundamental Christian beliefs are sometimes unfairly accused of being anti-Semitism. One such is the belief that there is something intrinsically erroneous about Judaism. Yet this belief flows naturally from Christian dogma. If Jesus was the Messiah longed for and expected by the Jews, of course contemporary Judaism, in its assertion that the Jewish Messiah has not yet come, must be in fundamental error. It is no fairer for Jews on this basis to call Christians anti-Semitic than it would be for Christians to call Jews anti-Christian because Jews believe that Christians are in error about who Jesus was. Far from being "anti-Jewish", the Christian belief that the Jew Jesus was God incarnate is an exaltation, not a diminution, of the intrinsic dignity and importance of Judaism. Another related Christian belief which is subject to the false accusation of anti-Semitism is the Christian's desire to see Jews convert to Christianity. If "no one comes to the Father except through me"(Jn 14:6), if "unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life in you"(Jn 6:53), if "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God"(Jn 3:5) - all direct quotes from Jesus Himself -- then true charity towards Jews implies seeking, or at least praying for, their baptism and entry into the Church. When Christians simply create a situation in which Jews are exposed to Christian images they are at times accused of anti-Semitism. The fact that Jesus originally came preferentially for the Jews (Mt. 15:24), that their rejection of Him caused Him particular pain (Lk 13:34), and that He never ceases to "stand at the door and knock"(Rev. 3:20), results in the fact that the drive within a Jew to preserve his Jewish identity reacts with horror to being exposed to images or environments which might open the door a crack. Thus the attempt to strip the Christmas season of all Christian imagery. It is apparent that the "spirit of the Christmas season" puts most people, even non-Christians, in a joyful or ebullient mood. But why should the dreariest, darkest part of the year have such an effect? The mood which people feel is intrinsically, supernaturally related to the coming of Christ, to the joy of all Heaven at the event two thousand years ago and the echoing of that joy in its commemoration, in all of Heaven and among much of mankind, today. I remember myself, as a small child almost entirely ignorant of Christianity, feeling that spirit, that joy, and how it resulted in a longing for the Christ child - exactly as it was supposed to do. That is what lies behind, I would argue, the desire among some Jews that any genuinely religious Christmas images, such as crèches, be excised from public life. It is an attempt to isolate themselves, and their even more vulnerable children, from the potential infection of belief; of sensing the Lord knocking at the door of their hearts and opening the door a crack. And it also lies, I believe, behind the accusation of anti-Semitism against Gibson's movie. For it is not only the sweetness of our Lord's birth which has the power to draw hearts, but also the beauty and sweetness of the love which He showed us in being willing to undergo His Passion for our sakes. The sight of His suffering, of His gentleness ("like a lamb He was led to slaughter"), of His forgiveness ("Father, forgive them..") had the power to convert hardened hearts at the time, and still does today. Thus the root motivation of some Jewish groups' opposition to the Passion is not the fear that it will cause Christians to hate Jews, but that it will cause Jews to love Christ. That this motivation should be so twisted and misrepresented as to garb itself in the almost unassailable mantle of "anti-Semitism" is not surprising, given the cleverness of the one who most directly opposes Christ. But that Christians should be duped into going along with this reversal - that is, calling the greatest good which could befall any non-Christian, that of falling in love with Christ, anti-Semitism - is shocking and shameful, and a dereliction of the Christian's duty to show true love to all, especially to the Jews who brought us Christ, and an act for which the Christian will be called to account when he comes to judgment before that Jew Jesus. Roy Schoeman author, Salvation is from the Jews (Ignatius Press) |
||
