Introduction

Most conservative Christians justly despise critical race theory (CRT). They see its spider-like tendencies to prey upon naïve citizens, inject them with emotional toxins, and consume their attention. They recognize the danger it poses and know that the only answer for legitimate past grievances is forgiveness offered in the gospel. But CRT has many disguises. The same outlook and the same devilish tendencies are present in another form of CRT that’s been around for thousands of years: antisemitism.

Antisemitism tries to understand society by sorting people into groups and assigning corporate guilt to the individuals in those groups. It assesses and challenges the way “the Jews” damage society and exert undue power. It argues that the Jews have malevolently destroyed the culture of Western Civilization. The focus is on the Jews while minimizing the individual. The focus is on power while minimizing other relational responsibilities, like love, humility, and the golden rule. The focus is on that conspiring cabal of Jews gathered in every nation, secretly reading the Talmud and controlling society by influencing commercial, cultural, political, and financial interests. Every piece of evidence that might refute the antisemitic theory is transformed into further evidence of how deep and comprehensive the problem is.

Antisemitism is a particular way that non-Jews regard Jews. While phantom antisemitism—the impulse to see Jew hate where it isn’t—is a real thing, that doesn’t mean antisemitism is a fake thing.[1] For some, their antisemitism is derived from a “Christian” understanding of America’s ills and that the cure is naming the enemy, which they regard as the Jews. Some Christians try to make the Scriptures support the persecution of Jews, just like they once tried to make the Scriptures support racial segregation. Because the history of the world is marked by several Jewish diasporas, Jewish refugees have integrated into other lands and nations, where they have found themselves as the scapegoat for the latest societal deficiency.

One example of antisemitism in the Bible is the Esther story, which took place in approximately the fifth century B.C. The trouble for the Jews centers on Haman, the prime minister for King Xerxes. Haman requires all the officials to kneel in Xerxes' presence. Mordecai, a Jew, refuses to do so. Haman responds by initiating a pogrom against the Jews, arguing that the Jews do not obey the king’s laws. Haman encourages Xerxes to blame the Jews for their failure to conquer Greece and issue an edict of annihilation. Xerxes then learns of Mordecai’s role in foiling an assassination plot. Queen Esther reveals her own Jewish identity and Xerxes countermands the edict.

We may be far removed from the days of Haman, but the lure of antisemitism remains. In the early twentieth century, antisemitism manifested by forging texts. For example, in 1903, anti-Jewish militants composed a forged text of holy cunning known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The book supposedly documents the Jewish plot to conquer and exploit the Gentile world. Even though it's all fake, antisemites still see an international Jewish conspiracy around every corner. During the early twentieth century, similar conspiracy theories circulated through the West. When the German army collapsed in Oct-Nov of 1918, German leaders started telling themselves that the only reason they lost was because they had been stabbed in the back by German socialists and Jews. This was referred to as the Dolchstoss. After the war, the stab-in-the-back myth fueled a resurgence of the Protocols.[2] The tendency to believe concocted stories has been an ongoing feature of antisemitism, as evidenced by the failed effort to blame 9/11 on the Mossad.

Recent events explain why people join the conspiracy. The American people have lost trust in American institutions because of the connivances surrounding COVID, elections, the Steele Dossier, selective prosecution of former presidents, Russia gate, etc. Because the ruling elites now tell lies in open daylight, and everyone knows they are lying, and they still get away with it, that has created gullibility for conspiracies. And since Jews have a disproportionate amount of money, power, and control in media and finance, some otherwise good folks are lured into the familiar scapegoat pattern.

Some thinkers try to do an end-run around the charge of antisemitism by saying they don’t oppose a.) the Jewish religion, or b.) all ethnic Jews. Instead, they only oppose “the Jews who are conspiring for power” or “the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.” This clever dodge appears to exonerate right-wing critical race theorists from charges of racism, but bearing false witness is still bearing false witness, no matter how many much whitewash is used.

The Problem of Antisemitism

The first moral lesson for how one person should treat another is the golden rule, which is not some quaint saying only for children. It came from Jesus himself, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 7:12). How would you like the antisemitic playbook run on you? Look at the widespread wickedness spread by white people! Stalin, Lenin, Darwin, Russell, Sanger, Manson, Rousseau, Hume, Maskell, McVeigh, Capone, Bundy, Gacy, Dawkins, Clinton. The catalog of sins is wide and deep and has led to the destruction of culture. The whites, such as these, are strategically placed at the highest level of government, entertainment, education, and commerce. How can you deny these existential threats!?

The Apostle Paul had a very different way of dealing with Israel. Paul’s consoling reflection begins with the fact that the Jews and Gentiles share the same human nature: made in the image of God yet fallen into sin. The Gospel is big enough to save Jews and Gentiles. “My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Rom. 10:1). “So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous” (Rom. 11:11). “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them” (Rom. 11:13-14). “For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain” (Acts 28:20). Then the Jews visited Paul and “From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (Acts 28:23). For the apostle Paul, the New Covenant universalizes rather than annihilates Israel. God will take Gentiles as priests and Levites (Is. 66:21). The Christian church is the true Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) and the true Jews are Jews inwardly (Rom. 2:29).

What is a Jew? Ancient Jews, rather than a distinct race, were multi-ethnic. It’s often pointed out that the Frankfurt School and all the villainy of twentieth-century cultural Marxism was Jewish. It’s true. Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Pollock, and Löwenthal were all Jewish. But they were also German. They are descendants of the Ashkenazi Jews from Central and Eastern Europe that descend from Turkic converts to the Abrahamic faith. There are also Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal. And of course, there are the Middle Eastern Jews. The majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi as are about half of Jews living in Israel. While attempts have been made to establish a DNA connection of all the Jews worldwide, we remember that Gentiles could be made Jews in the OT through circumcision. So, it’s not entirely a question of blood tests. Ishmael was left out of the covenant of promise while Rahab was included.

Conclusion

This entire topic is a reminder that political propaganda can infect the minds of earnest Christians and distort their perception (1 Tim. 6:20). See to it that no one takes you captive to fantasy and empty deceit, according to the manipulation of myth-making malevolence. It’s best to resist all this rubbish. Indeed, there is a conflict in the world, but not between Jews and non-Jews. It’s the rivalry between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. This is the way the world is divided up. That is the battle worth worrying about. If a Jewish person trusts in Christ, it doesn’t matter that his ancestors are Jewish. A lot of Jews have done evil things. So have a lot of non-Jews. Those who worship the Devil, whether in an Islamic desert or the halls of the Knesset, always water down this abomination. Yes, there are instances of Jews, in part and whole, behaving in ways that are completely inimical to Christ. When Jews act badly, their behavior is bad. The solution isn’t antisemitism. The solution is to repent and turn to Christ. Jews and Gentiles alike need a Savior and Jesus is the Messiah for the Christians and the Jews. The church’s job is to love in such a way as to make Israel jealous to be grafted back onto the tree.

Antisemitism is one of the best con jobs of the twentieth century played on traditional Christians. If our enemy can get us worked up over international banking, finding secret Jewish threads in world history, and blaming groups over whom we have no control, he has successfully neutralized our witness in God’s kingdom. The more we worry about those things, the more likely we are to spread the false gospel of antisemitism, and perhaps unknowingly catechize our kids in it as well.

The worst conspiracy ever hatched was when Jews and Gentiles conspired together to nail the Son of God to a cross in an attempt to preserve local power in Judea. The principalities and powers behind this conspiracy were doing something even worse – they were attempting to stop the arrival of the kingdom of God. All other conspiracies pale in comparison. Even if every supposed Jewish conspiracy since that time was true, the only answer is the one announced by Jesus on the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When men unleash their worst on God’s people, they are free to resist under the proper authorities (as the Jews did in Esther’s day), but the gospel frees us from the temptation to blame a group for our problems. Further, it allows us to love our enemies (regardless of their race) and shows them what forgiveness looks like. That’s the greatest weapon we have against the poisonous message of ethnic conflict.

https://gotaminute.podbean.com/e/conspiracy-theories/

[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/04/anti-semitism-without-anti-semites

[2] Philip Jenkins, The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade (HarperOne: New York, 2014), 207, 254, 280.

Matthew Carpenter is a husband, father, humanities teacher, and pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama. He has written for Front Porch Republic, The Imaginative Conservative, New Focus, and others publications.

Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the book The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality (Wipf and Stock).