OpEd: The Church Needs to Fight Antisemitism

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — Despite decades of dialogue aimed at better Christian-Jewish relations, the surge in antisemitism has exposed how shallow much of that progress was. Too many Christians remain indifferent, and some even fuel the fire. It is grotesque that certain ministers still blame Jews for COVID-19 or repeat ancient blood libels in modern dress.

While these voices are not the majority, the silence of mainline denominations—especially the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, and others—speaks louder than words.

In 1996 I was walking across the campus of San Francisco Theological Seminary with Professor Walt Davis, then its Dean. He stopped, turned to me—a Jew—and personally apologized for his church’s silence and indifference during the Holocaust, and for the postwar efforts to exploit traumatized survivors for conversion. When he asked what true repentance would look like, I told him plainly: the Presbyterian Church must become one of the loudest voices against every form of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism.

Tragically, in the years since, the loudest voices in parts of the PC (USA) have moved in the opposite direction. The 2014 General Assembly decision to divest from companies doing business with Israel, followed by repeated overtures that traffic in dual-loyalty tropes and “crucifixion” imagery applied to Gaza, have made the anti-Zionist fringe the new center in some quarters. Many faithful Presbyterians are horrified, but the machinery of the denomination has been captured.

After the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, one Presbyterian layperson wrote to me:

“Though we ourselves may not have taught anti-Jewish theology, we confess before God and our Jewish sisters and brothers how the Christian church has caused and excused hatred through false narratives and supersessionism. Even if we are not directly at fault, we bear responsibility to repair what has been broken. The God of Jesus Christ is the God of Israel—yesterday, today, forever. Reconciliation, not replacement, is our calling.

“Charles Spurgeon’s 19th-century sermon on Cain’s question—’Am I my brother’s keeper?’—still burns:

“I put it to the consciences of many silent Christians… How can you be clear from guilt in this matter? Do not say, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ for I shall have to give you a horrible answer if you do. I shall have to say, ‘No, you are not your brother’s keeper, but you are your brother’s killer.’”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer hurled the same accusation at passive German Lutherans: “Where is Abel your brother?” and “Speak up for those who cannot speak” (Prov 31:8). His refusal to be silent cost him his life.

Jesus left an even sharper time-capsule for 21st-century theologians in Matthew 25:31–46. When he identifies himself with “the least of these my brethren” (literally “my brothers”), he speaks as a Jew to Jews about Jews. To claim that passage while remaining silent—or worse, complicit—when Jewish students hide their Stars of David, when synagogues need armed guards, when “globalize the intifada” is shouted in our streets, is to crucify him afresh.

The toxic root is supersessionism—the idea that the Church has replaced or “fulfilled and annulled” Israel. Until mainline denominations explicitly repudiate replacement theology in their confessions and catechisms (not just in press releases), they will keep producing activists who think demonizing the Jewish state is prophetic witness.

Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). Good hearted Christians believe God joined the Church to Israel by an everlasting covenant. However, the perfidious doctrine of supersessionism is the original sin of tearing that apart. The hour is late. The Church must finally decide whether it will be Abel’s keeper—or once again his killer by silence. May God grant us courage to choose rightly, before the next synagogue is attacked.

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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista.