By Aaron David Fruh
One of the great truths about human history was given to us from the philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He’s right, of course. When we reject the lessons (often painful ones) from the past, they continue to fester. Anti-Jewish thought has repeated itself so consistently throughout Christian history you would think we would have learned the lesson by now: Anti-Judaism brings Christianity to the edge of darkness.
One lesson Christianity (in many quarters) has failed to learn is the darkness unleashed upon the world through a second-century anti-Judaic heretic named Marcion. There were three streams of thought in Marcion’s doctrine: 1) Christianity needed to disconnect from the Old Testament Jewish scriptures because not only did they lack authority they were also offensive culturally. 2) The God of the Old Testament Jewish nation of Israel was different than the God described in the New Testament. 3) The third stream of Marcion’s belief was a sinister jealousy toward the Jewish founders of the faith that spawned a commitment to erase all Jewish values, Jewish ethics and Jewish roots from Christianity. This is the one part of Marcion’s heresy even many of the church father’s embraced.
Like a cancerous tumor that cannot live without oxygen, Marcionism is the oxygen of anti-Semitism. As goes the church so goes the nation. When clergy preach that it’s time to unplug from the Jewish foundation of the Christian faith it paints anti-Semitism as an acceptable norm within the social fabric.
The heresy of Marcion metastasized once again in pre-Holocaust German Protestantism under the leadership of liberal theologian Adolf Von Harnack. Harnack was attempting to unhitch Christianity from Jewish values and morals of the Old Testament by making Christianity more socially acceptable. Interestingly, the Nazis embraced Harnack’s views and called their new approach “Positive Christianity.”
The willingness of German Christians – both Catholic and Protestant – to embrace Marcionism, reject the Jews and the God of the Jews, not only theologically but physically through legalized genocide of Jewish men, wome, and children without mercy, brought Germany to the edge of darkness spiritually. Blaise Pascal was right when he said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Today less than 5 percent of Germans would profess to an experience of faith in Christ. Keep in mind that prior to the Holocaust, Germany was one of the leading evangelical countries in the world. Many of the sacred hymns of the church flowed from German writers, and the nation also produced some of the greatest theologians in history – men like Carl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Sadly, it seems we have yet to learn the lessons from what happened to the German church after they rejected their Jewish foundations.
In his excellent article, “The Specter of Marcion (Why God and the Jews are a Package Deal),” Brad East writes about the resurgence of Marcionism in our generation and how rejecting the Jewishness of Christianity always leads to spiritual and moral darkness:
“… the temptation to anti-Judaism comes in different forms, for different reasons, across the ideological spectrum. In all cases, it is a temptation to be resisted. In fact, it is the oldest and most virulent temptation in the church’s history. … You cannot have Abraham’s God without Abraham’s children. Reject the latter, and you lose the former.” (Commonwealmagazine.org, Feb. 13, 2019)
Recently, one of America’s most popular Christian leaders embraced some of the core beliefs of Marcion. Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta (the second-largest church in America, numbering over 30,000 adherents), is encouraging his followers to “unhitch” their faith from “Jewish scriptures” and from a scripturally Jewish “worldview and value system.” In his book “Irresistible,” Pastor Andy embraces Marcion’s rejection of God’s covenant with Israel: “This (Israel) was his nation. The nation God had raised up from one man for one purpose – to bless the world. But that chapter was drawing to a close. God’s covenant with the nation had served its purpose. It was no longer needed. …”
Stanley encourages a continued severing of ties with the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith when he states in “Irresistible,” “(Paul) knew the legalism, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and exclusivity that characterized ancient Judaism would eventually seep into and erode the beauty, simplicity, and appeal of the ekklesia of Jesus.” He also says, “… careless mixing and matching of old and new covenant values and imperatives” is what makes “the current version of our faith unnecessarily resistable.” Like Marcion and Harnack before him, Stanley believes the Jewish value system of the Old Testament is culturally offensive and must be removed from Christianity in order to make it more culturally acceptable. Stanley proclaims, “Participants in the new covenant are not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their Bibles. … the Ten Commandments are from the old covenant.”
We must not forget that Western law was built on the foundation of a Jewish ethical and moral worldview. Paul the Jewish apostle proclaimed the wisdom of the Jewish scriptures when he said to Timothy, “…from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). To sever ties with our Jewish elder brothers and the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament is to destroy our very foundations. I agree with what Catholic Bishop Edward Flannery once said, “It was Judaism that brought the concept of a God-given universal moral law into the world … the Jew carries the burden of God in history (and) for this has never been forgiven.”
It’s time to heal the 1,900-year-old self-inflicted festering wound caused to the soul of Christianity when it severed itself from the nourishing sap of the olive tree, Israel. Here are five reasons why:
- Because the restoration of the church depends on it (Acts 3:19-21).
- Because the moral ethic and value system of Jesus was rooted in Jewish thought, Jewish scriptures and Jewish culture.
- Because holding onto a jealous contempt toward the Jewish people has proven to be fruitless and perilous to the faith of Christians.
- Because a growing remnant of Christian believers desire to know that their spiritual roots go deeper than some of the anti-Judaic church fathers who willingly and systematically severed them from the Jewish heart of the faith.
- Because Paul’s instruction in Romans 11:17-22 was a somber commandment, not an optional suggestion.
The great Jewish sage Hillel once said, “If not now, when?” The time has come for us to challenge the ugly evils of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. If we do not, I fear a long season of darkness awaits Christianity.
Aaron David Fruh is president of Israel Team Advocates International (israelteam.org). He is the author of three books, including “Two Minute Warning: Why it’s Time to Honor Jewish People Before the Clock Runs Out,” a book he co-authored with Coach Bill McCartney from Promise Keepers.
