The deicide charge the idea that the Jewish people bear collective guilt for the crime of killing Jesus Christ has been a common theme in Christian teaching for 2,000 years. The charge, false though it may be, is among the most durable of myths. It is also one that has had particularly tragic consequences, serving as it did as the principal theological motif inspiring anti-Jewish attitudes and actions over the centuries. This painful aspect of Jewish-Christian relations is again brought to light today by the release of the movie, The Passion of the Christ, filmmaker Mel Gibson's account of the last twelve hours of Jesus' life.

The charge took root early in the development of Christian theology. The continued existence of the Jews after Jesus' death was a thorn in the side of Christians. While the Christians were proclaiming that the messiah had arrived and that man could attain salvation through him, Jews, by their continued presence, were stubbornly giving counter-testimony that the messiah had not yet come, and that God's covenant with the Jews remained operative.

The Jewish rejection of Jesus as messiah became a defining point of the theology of the fledgling Christian church. Paul's admonition in the book of Romans to the contrary, it was maintained that, through their rejection, Jews had severed their covenant with God. In the first few centuries, the church came to define its character as something distinct from Judaism by denying its roots in the Jewish tradition. Soon, the rivalry hardened into a theological anti-Jewishness that, by the 3rd century, found its final expression in the charge of deicide. The foundation had been laid for the Christian view of Jews and Judaism for centuries to come.

Through subsequent years, the church buttressed this charge with selective and superficial readings of the gospel accounts of Jesus' trial and death, centering particularly on the cry of the crowd in Matthew 27:25, "His blood shall be on us and our children," and the book of John, the gospel text perhaps most open to anti-Jewish interpretations. At the same time, the apostle Paul's words in Romans 11 concerning the proper attitude of Gentiles toward Jews were ignored.

It is important to note that today most Christians and the governing bodies of most denominations have rejected the pernicious deicide charge. Most Protestant denominations have issued statements formally repudiating past church teachings on this issue, as has the Catholic Church, which began the process of reversing 1,700 years of anti-Jewish teaching with the historic declaration Nostra Aetata, issued during the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

Still, the charge that Jews killed Christ persists in some minds. That is why it is critical that Jews and Christians, who have done so much to reverse their often-acrimonious history, not allow the controversy surrounding a movie to undo the tremendous good that has been done in recent years. This moment in Jewish-Christian relations should be viewed, above all, as an opportunity for Christians to educate themselves on the past and to learn about Jewish sensitivities on this issue, with an eye toward redressing past wrongs committed against Jews and to fulfilling the words spoken by the apostle Paul: "...do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you." (Romans 11:18) And it behooves Jews to reach out wisely and sensitively to their Christian friends, recognizing that there may be no deliberate intent on their part to strike out against Jews. Such Christians may even be surprised to learn what many have failed to grasp why Jews are so deeply concerned with the implications and reverberations of this film.

What prompted the church's reassessment of its attitude toward the Jews?

A primary catalyst was the Nazi Holocaust, which shook the church to its very foundations and, along with the ensuing interfaith dialogue movement in the 1960s, triggered a thorough reappraisal of Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism.Christians came to the stark realization that the horrors of the Holocaust would have been unlikely, if not unthinkable, without the long historical precedent and fertile ground provided by centuries of Christian hostility toward Judaism. It should be sobering for any Christian to realize that Hitler himself, while anti-Christian, regarded the annihilation of the Jews as something that would complete what he felt Christianity had begun and essentially desired the elimination of the Jewish people. The ease with which he adapted elements of Christian tradition to his own evil purposes including, for example, his praising of the centuries-old passion play in the German city of Oberammergau as "a convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry" reveals the depth of anti-Semitism at the root of past Christian theology and action, and shows how such age old prejudices can be resurrected, adapted and applied with horrific results centuries later under totally different circumstances even in the modern world.

From the tragic and terrible events of the Holocaust came a realization on the part of Christians of the need for building a spirit of genuine healing and reconciliation with the Jews. Numerous declarations were issued calling upon Christians to expunge all vestiges of anti-Jewish sentiment from their literature, theology and liturgy. Wrong and unjust interpretations of Scripture, relating specifically to the deicide charge against Jews, as well as those vestiges referring to them as "Christ-killers," were challenged and revised. The result is that today, virtually all of the negative, classical stereotypes of Jews that at one time were pervasive among Christians, especially among Catholics in Europe, and central to the church's teachings, essentially have been eliminated from church doctrine and practice.

Who do Christians believe is responsible for Jesus' death?

New Testament accounts show that it was the Romans, the civil authorities at the time, who carried out Jesus' execution. The Jews, living as a religious community under oppressive Roman rule, had no power to carry out this sentence. In fact, crucifixion, the brutal method of his execution, was forbidden under Jewish law. It is significant that thousands of other Jews, in addition to Jesus, were accused of political insurrection and crucified by the Romans.

Moreover, while Jews indeed were present at Jesus' trial, there was also a "large crowd of the people" many if not most of whom, it is reasonable to assume, were Jews who mourned and lamented for him on the way to the cross. (Luke 23:27) This shows clearly that Jewish opinion of Jesus during his life was certainly not monolithic, and that it is therefore incorrect to place the blame for Jesus' death on the Jewish people. After all, Jesus himself, and all his disciples his followers as well as his betrayers were Jews! All efforts to place blame, however, amount to not much more than academic exercises that miss the more important point of the gospel story. Jesus himself said he came into the world to save sinners, a mission accomplished by his suffering and death upon the cross. He repeatedly predicts his betrayal and death at the hands of the authorities, and describes it to his disciples as the fulfillment of God's purpose. (Matthew 16:21, John 18:11) This is why most true Christians today hold that all humanity each of us individually through our sinfulness, not just one race or group of people bears responsibility for his death. Had we not been sinners, they reason, it would not have been necessary for him to redeem the world through his sacrifice on the cross. In the words of theologian Jacques Maritain, "Who killed Christ? The Jews? The Romans? I have killed Him...There is no other Christian answer, since He died voluntarily for my sins."

Why are Jews still concerned about the deicide charge?

Jews are concerned because they have historical reason to be concerned. For centuries, Christians alleged that "the Jews" as a "nation" not only rejected and crucified Jesus, but also assumed collective responsibility for his death, vowing, "His blood be on us and our children." (Matthew 27:25) Throughout the troubled history of Jewish-Christian relations, this charge has been used to justify all manner of oppression of Jews and has formed the theological context within which Christians understood all Jewish suffering. As Catholic thinker Edward Flannery pointed out in his book The Anguish of the Jews, "The deicide accusation...was (the) theological construct that provided the cornerstone of Christian anti-Semitism and laid the foundation upon which all subsequent anti-Semitism would one way or another build" (pp. 288).

While recent decades have seen much progress in Jewish-Christian relations, the deicide charge periodically rears its ugly head, and not just in the Arab press, where anti-Semitic utterances are daily occurrences. For instance, an infamous cartoon in the Italian newspaper La Stampa depicted a tank emblazoned with the Star of David approaching Jesus in the manger, who cries out, "Do you want to kill me once more?" Given the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the world today, it is no wonder that Jews and, indeed, all decent people remain vigilantly on guard against the re-emergence of the insidious myth that has caused such harm and persecution to Jews over the centuries.

Why should Christians be concerned about the deicide charge?

The biblical injunctions for Christians to love their neighbors, bless the Jewish people and affirm the Jewish roots of their faith give Christians a special responsibility to take seriously past injustices against the Jews, and to ensure that they do not occur again. Christian history reveals that the church has been indifferent, if not openly hostile, toward the plight of the Jews. For evidence, we need look no further than the last century, specifically the period leading up to World War II, when many, if not most, churches turned a blind eye to the suffering of Jews in Europe.

Paradoxically, it was during this time that we saw some of the most powerful affirmations by individual Christians of their biblically mandated duty to stand up for their Jewish brethren. Pastor Andre Trocme, spiritual leader of Christians in the French city of Le Chambon during the dark days of World War II, echoed Jesus' own words in John 10:11 when he said of the Jews who came to his town seeking safety from Nazi persecution, "These people came here for help and shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock." Corrie Ten Boom, the devout Christian whose home in Holland became a hiding place for Jews during the war, recognized that her faith compelled her to do something about the oppression of the Jews she saw going on around her, though it put her at great personal risk and would ultimately result in her imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp. And no one in modern times expressed the idea of Christian responsibility toward Jews more clearly and succinctly than German Evangelical Church Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis during World War II for his resistance to Hitler's regime: "Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants."

These and many other Christians acted in obedience to the Bible's words, reaffirmed by Jesus as the central teaching, to "love your neighbor as yourself." In fact, Christianity owes its very life to Judaism, to the realization that the branch of a tree cannot exist apart from its root. To say, then, that Christians need not be concerned about a potential resurgence of anti-Semitism brought about by the re-emergence of the deicide charge is to court disaster by denying both biblical mandates and the lessons of history.

What is the state of anti-Semitism around the world today?

The fact that anti-Semitism is not a prominent feature of public life in America should not divert our attention from the current resurgence of anti-Semitism elsewhere, particularly in Western Europe. What has been called "the longest and deepest hatred of human history" is, sadly, alive and well around the globe.

In France, for instance, the surge in anti-Semitic incidents in recent years including arson attacks against synagogues and Jewish schools and desecration of Jewish cemeteries has been so great that, according to a 2003 survey, more than one-quarter of French Jews were considering emigration. In May 2003, four terrorist bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, directed against Jewish institutions, killed dozens of people. Then, in November, scores were killed and hundreds more wounded after devastating car-bomb attacks against two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey. In an October 2003 speech that was met with a standing ovation from the assembled crowd at the Tenth Islamic Summit Conference, the Prime Minister of Malaysia declared, "Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, more than 900 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorists. And yet, in January 2004, one day before many European countries observed a day of remembrance for victims of the Holocaust, 35 percent of respondents to a poll conducted in nine European nations said Jews should stop "playing the victim" of the Holocaust.

Even the relative lack of violence against Jews in the United States does not indicate an absence of anti-Semitism. A quiet though virulent form of anti-Semitism has taken hold on our college campuses, where some academics engage in the worst form of moral equivalence by calling Palestinian suicide bombers "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" and the Israelis "Nazis." And in the wake of 9/11, multiple conspiracy theories in the "alternative" and left-leaning press charged Israel with responsibility for the attack on the World Trade Center.

All of this and much more suggests that now is not the time to let down our guard against anti-Semitism; if anything, it is an argument for renewed vigilance. A threat cannot be eliminated unless it first is taken seriously.

What is the potential of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to fan the flames of anti-Semitism around the world?

Just as the release of The Passion of the Christ is viewed by many Christians as a singular opportunity to spread their gospel of salvation to the world, so it presents an opportunity for enemies of the Jewish people around the world to spread their doctrine of hatred by reviving the age-old canard of Jews as "Christ-killers." We need to be very sensitive to the anti-Semitic possibilities such a movie can trigger, particularly in areas of the world where anti-Semitic sentiment and behavior already exist. Christians have a special responsibility to ensure that Jesus' death upon the cross the very act that Christians believe to be evidence of God's ultimate love for his creation (John 3:16) is not twisted to evil purposes, or used by the very diabolical forces they profess to oppose.

Still, it would be a mistake to exaggerate this film's potential for ill. In the entertainment industry, controversy often does more to put a movie in the public eye than does a carefully coordinated publicity campaign.

Long after the controversy over The Passion of the Christ has faded, anti-Semitism will persist. After we have spoken our piece concerning Mel Gibson's film and taken the opportunity to challenge misconceptions and right wrongs, particularly concerning the age-old deicide charge, it will be time to continue our educational and coalition-building efforts, presenting a positive, conciliatory message and advancing Christian-Jewish relations. We do not want to be debating the relative merits of a movie, nor its potential for stirring up anti-Semitism in the distant future, while today Islamic extremists plot synagogue bombings, and Jewish children are being attacked on the street, and members of the so-called intelligentsia are planting lies in the minds of our children about the nature of Israel's struggle for survival. As Jews and as Christians, we must confront the very real and imminent forces of anti-Semitism facing us today. And we must do this together.

Suggested Readings:

Yechiel Eckstein, How Firm a Foundation: A Gift of Jewish Wisdom for Christians and Jews, Paraclete Press, 1997.

Edward Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism,

Paulist Press, 1985.

Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin: Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism, Touchstone Books, 2003.

Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945. Bantam Books, 1991.