Father, Forgive Us: A Christian Response to the Church's Heritage of Jewish Persecution

This passionate but scholarly work takes a hard look at an aspect of history about which most Christians know nothing: the part Christians have played in Jewish persecution. Just as Arabs see the word "Christian" but hear "Crusade", Jews see "Christian" but hear "pogrom". Fred Wright, of CMJ, has mustered extensive evidence demonstrating the legacy of Christian persecution. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred 117AD) contended that Jews were in league with the devil. Other church fathers followed suit. Christian antisemitism continued through the medieval period, leading to Jewish ghettos across Europe. Successive popes endorsed horrific measures including the Spanish Inquisition. Luther demanded that Jews be exported to Palestine and their synagogues burned. The Holocaust took place in Christian Europe and was carried out mostly by baptised Christians. Wright shows how Christians laid the foundations upon which Nazis built their creed. He then demonstrates how modern anti-Zionism draws upon the same root of hostility, and outlines a theological response to the Holocaust. True healing begins when the past is acknowledged. Only thus can these generation-old barriers to the Messiah be overcome.