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

Fred Wright takes a hard look at an aspect of history about which most Christians know nothing: the part Christians have played in Jewish persecution. He musters extensive evidence demonstrating the legacy of Christian persecution. The Holocaust took place in Christian Europe and was carried out mostly by baptised Christians. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred 117 CE) contended that Jews were in league with the devil. Other church fathers followed suit. Christian anti-Semitism continued through the medieval period, leading to Jewish ghettos across Europe. Luther demanded that Jews be exported to Palestine and their synagogues burned. Wright shows how Christians laid the foundations upon which Nazis built their creed. He explores modern anti-Zionism, 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.