Sunday, September 17, 2023
I have been reading the book “Near Christianity: How Journeys along Jewish-Christian Borders Saved My Faith in God” by Anthony Le Donne.
I got the book from BookSale in a mall in Davao. What made me buy the book was the title of Chapter 3: “On the Border of Jesus and Genocide”. It talks about Anti-semitism and Christianity, and the contributions of Christianity on the persecution of Jews during the time of Hitler.
If ever the book which I am not going to write is written it must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom’s specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery. Large areas of “the World” will not hear us till we have publicly disowned much of our past.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
That quote is from the epigraph of that chapter.
I already have a little bit of idea about the contributions of Christianity to the Holocaust through some articles I found a few years back: for example, “Was Luther Anti-Semitic?” by Eric W. Gritsch, and “Baptists ‘humbled’ by failure to oppose Nazis” by David Roach. I bought the book to learn more about that.
One of the things I learned from the book is that there are Jews living today who do not like the generally negative things which are being said by Christians about the Pharisees.
And here is the reason why: In page 115-116 of the book, it says
Jesus and the Pharisees had a great deal in common. Far from being the hateful elitists or hypocrites of Christian imagination, the historical Pharisees, were among the most liberal readers of legal instruction and the most representative of common folk in Jesus’ day.
In their first-century context, Pharisees varied widely in a number of respects. But even when their general characteristics are summarized, they do not turn out to be all that different from Jesus. Jesus probably argues most often with the Pharisees because he has the most in common with them.
That positive characterization of the Pharisees is confirmed in another book in my reading list: “Accidental Pharisees” by Larry Osborne.
In page 23-24, it says
A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak at a friend’s church. I started by telling everyone how happy I was to be there. I then shared how their pastor had told me that his church was full of Pharisees.I told them that after spending a few days with the staff and key leaders, I had to agree…
I went on to explain that calling someone a Pharisee wasn’t always considered such a social faux pas. In fact, in Jesus’ day it would have been a great way to start a sermon. I was just a couple of thousand years too late.
In Jesus’ day, being called a Pharisee was a badge of honor. It was a compliment, not a slam.
That’s because first-century Pharisees excelled in everything we admire spiritually.
The Pharisees were held in such a high regard that both Jesus and the apostle Paul played the Pharisee card when they wanted to illustrate the highest levels of spiritual commitment. They knew their audience would be impresses.
