“I Believe the Children Are the Future” - But Who Are the True Children of Israel? An Exegesis of Mt.21:1 - 17

A paper written for Dr. Bruce Beck, at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary, for his class on the Gospel of Matthew. Establishes that Jesus and Matthew were using the distinction between parents and children from the exodus, and applying it to the parents and children of Jesus’ day. This has significance for the accusation that Matthew is anti-Semitic.

Qumran: A Proto-Christian Sect and What It Means for Jewish-Christian Relations Today

Slides of a presentation given December 4, 2021 to the Reconstruction 2021 class. The presentation examines the relationship between the Church and Israel. We begin with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community, who saw themselves as a fulfillment of Israel inviting the rest of Israel to join them. This hinges on a view of the Sinai covenant as an analogy to medical treatment, where God’s role in the sanctuary played the role of a dialysis machine.

The Chiastic Structure of the Pentateuch

Notes on how the Pentateuch possesses a chiastic literary structure. This structure is vital to observe when studying and teaching the Pentateuch. The center of the Pentateuch is the story of Moses ascending Mount Sinai, stabilizing the covenant, and returning with his face shining with divine light. Moses stabilized the Sinai covenant. Yet the Pentateuch already saw the need for a "new Moses" who would not simply stabilize the Sinai covenant, but circumcise the human heart, and invest God's glory into the human face -- in fact, all of human nature.

Wikipedia, Individuals and Groups Assisting Jews During the Holocaust (Wikipedia article)

Wikipedia, Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens (Wikipedia article) whose actions and advocacy saved thousands of Jews during WW2

Wikipedia, Council of Jews and Christians (Wikipedia article) a voluntary organization in Britain working against anti-Semitism

Sir Nicholas Winton, Man Who Rescued Nearly 700 Holocaust Victims Finds Himself in an Audience Comprised Entirely by Those He Saved. BBC, 1988. Winton was not a professing Christian but his is a noteworthy story.

International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, Research on Angelo Roncalli’s Humanitarian Actions. International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, 2000 and 2001. Three reports detailing the activities of then Papal Nuncio Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII.

Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany. Regency History | Amazon page, Jun 2005. "How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews from the Nazis" and review by Wikipedia, The Myth of Hitler's Pope (Wikipedia article)

Brian Rosner, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy - A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich. Centre for Public Christianity, May 12, 2011.

Michael Ignatieff, One Country Saved Its Jews. Were They Just Better People? The Surprising Truth about Denmark in the Holocaust. New Republic, Dec 14, 2013.

Tim Townsend, Mission at Nuremburg: An Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis. Religion and Politics, Apr 23, 2014.

Madison Park, How the Philippines Saved 1,200 Jews During the Holocaust. CNN, Feb 3, 2015.

Stephen Yolland, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. blog, Feb 23, 2015. German Christian students resisting Hitler and Nazism, getting caught, and executed

Irene Archos, Mother Maria of Paris Says "Oxi!" to the Nazi Mass Murder Machine. Pravoslavie, Mar 11, 2015.

David Gelernter, Why Should a Jew Care Whether Christianity Lives or Dies? First Things, Mar 24, 2015.

Andrew Higgins, WWII Hero Credits Luck and Chance in Foiling Hitler’s Nuclear Ambitions. New York Times, Nov 20, 2015.

Robert D. McFadden, Nicholas Winton, Rescuer of 669 Children From Holocaust, Dies at 106. New York Times, Jul 1, 2015.

Catholic News Agency, Heroic Virtue of Ukrainian Bishop Who Sheltered Hundreds of Jews Recognized. Catholic News Agency, Jul 17, 2015.

John Sandinopoulos, The NO of Greek Clergy in 1940. Mystagogy blog, Oct 28, 2015.

Ishaan Tharoor, What Americans Thought of Jewish Refugees on the Eve of World War II. Washington Post, Nov 17, 2015. A sad counterexample.

Daniel A. Gross, The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies. Smithsonian Magazine, Nov 18, 2015. A sad counterexample.

Carol Kuruvilla, Japanese Schindler Who Saved 6,000 Lives During World War II Finally Gets a Movie. Huffington Post, Jan 19, 2016. Re: Chiune Sugihara who converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity in the 1920's and took the baptismal name Sergei Pavelovich.

David Swanson, Top 12 Reasons the Good War Was Bad: Hiroshima in Context. Washingtons blog, May 24, 2016.

Newsner, Woman Hides Thousands of Children in Coffins - Then She's Arrested and Her Dark Secret Emerges. Newsner, Dec 17, 2016.

BBC Select, Rise Of The Nazis | Episode 1. BBC Select, Oct 14, 2021. Mentions the human rights lawyer Hans Litten, who was born Jewish but was baptized Lutheran, questioned Hitler for three hours to tie him and the Nazis to organized violence, and later found a conspiracy between the Nazi stormtroopers and local police.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft, The Ambiguity of Evil and Good: A Tale of Holocaust Rescue and Deportation in Bulgaria. Just Security, May 23, 2023. Rosensaft evaluates King Boris III’s narrative and remarks to show that he was indeed an antisemite. The King bowed to public outcries and pressure by Catholic and Orthodox and civil society leaders to not deport 48,000 Jews from “Old” Bulgaria. Notably:

“Meanwhile, two metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Stefan of Sofia and Kiril of Plovdiv, also got wind of the impending deportations and spoke out forcefully, both publicly and privately, against them. Kiril went so far as to threaten in a telegram to Boris that he would lie on the railroad tracks to prevent the trains from leaving.”

Chris Gehrz, The Bishop of the Resistance. The Pietist Schoolman, Oct 10, 2023. Norway’s Lutheran bishop Eivind Berggrav during World War II.

Henry Abramson, Jews and Finance in the Medieval Period (Jewish History Lab). Henry Abramson, May 2, 2021. Abramson highlights very important and sobering and regrettable dynamics of how Western European Christendom assigned Jews the role of moneylender with interest. This made the credit market possible but the backlash was focused against the Jews. This is one reason why community, public banking as opposed to private banking, is so important to a community. See also Cultural Origins, Why King Edward I Expelled the Jews from England in 1290. Cultural Origins, Oct 24, 2021. Sadly, only the royal power protected the Jews in England while also exploiting them; when Parliament gained power, Parliament expelled the Jews. See also Sam Aronow, Jews in Medieval England (1070 - 1290). Sam Aronow, Mar 19, 2021. Aronow gives more detail and ties political events in England to those happening on the Continent.

Hermann Göring, “God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany. How shall I give expression, O my Führer, to what is in our hearts? How shall I find words to express your deeds? Has there ever been a mortal as beloved as you, my Führer? Was there ever belief as strong as the belief in your mission. You were sent to us by God for Germany!” (Wikiquote, Hermann Göring, 1934)

Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Amazon book, 1996) "focusing on the 600,000 self-described 'German Christians,' who sought to expunge all Jewish elements from the Christian church. In a process that became more daring as Nazi plans for genocide unfolded, this group of Protestant lay people and clergy rejected the Old Testament, ousted people defined as non-Aryans from their congregations, denied the Jewish ancestry of Jesus, and removed Hebrew words like 'Hallelujah' from hymns. Bergen refutes the notion that the German Christians were a marginal group and demonstrates that members occupied key positions within the Protestant church even after their agenda was rejected by the Nazi leadership. Extending her analysis into the postwar period, Bergen shows how the German Christians were relatively easily reincorporated into mainstream church life after 1945. Throughout Twisted Cross, Bergen reveals the important role played by women and by the ideology of spiritual motherhood amid the German Christians' glorification of a 'manly' church."

Robert P. Erickson and Susannah Heschel, The Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Amazon book, Jan 5, 1999) a collection of essays on the Christian responses to the Nazi regime and program of extermination of the Jews

Gregory Paul, The Great Scandal: Christianity’s Role in the Rise of the Nazis (Church and State, Oct 11, 2003) an essential reading of the history between the Nazi party and both Catholic and Protestant groups within and without Germany. Meticulously footnoted. There are some stories of courageous resistance, but the overwhelming number of stories indicate complicity with, if not enthusiasm for, the Nazis.

Thomas Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford University Press, 2006) Many German theologians were “liberal” in the sense of how they viewed Scripture. And they had replaced Christian ideas/principles with secularized versions, or reduced Christianity down to cultural advance. So the impact of Christianity on civilization (sanctification) was secularized to simply "German culture." The advance of Christian truth about humanity and the planet was secularized to simply "German science and technology." Politically, we would call them “conservatives” and "nationalists" even though they were “liberal” on Scripture.

Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Amazon book, Oct 3, 2010) "During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center."

Nicholson Baker, Why I'm a Pacifist: The Dangerous Myth of the Good War. Harper's Magazine, May 2011. Before we blame God for the Holocaust, we need to read this article about the U.S. refusing to admit Jewish refugees, which is tragic considering the Protestant influences and leadership in the U.S.

Rainer Bucher, Hitler's Theology: A Study in Political Religion (Amazon book, Sep 2011)

Robert P. Ericksen, Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany (Cambridge University Press | Amazon, Feb 6, 2012) and pdf book of which Christopher R. Browning, professor of history at the University of North Carolina wrote, "Based on decades of his own research and complete mastery of both German- and English-language scholarship in the field, Robert Ericksen demonstrates convincingly how a critical mass of churchmen and academics in Germany enthusiastically embraced the Nazi regime and provided the rationalizations and adjustment of moral norms that permitted ordinary Germans to accept and even implement the regime’s brutal and murderous policies." Ericksen argues that enthusiasm for Hitler in churches and universities gave German statesmen permission to participate in the Nazi regime.

Omar S. Haque, Julian De Freitas, Ivana Viani, Bradley Niederschulte, Harold J Bursztajn, Why Did So Many German Doctors Join the Nazy Party Early? (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Sep - Dec 2012) “During the Weimar Republic in the mid-twentieth century, more than half of all German physicians became early joiners of the Nazi Party, surpassing the party enrollments of all other professions. From early on, the German Medical Society played the most instrumental role in the Nazi medical program, beginning with the marginalization of Jewish physicians, proceeding to coerced "experimentation," "euthanization," and sterilization, and culminating in genocide via the medicalization of mass murder of Jews and others caricatured and demonized by Nazi ideology.”

Manfred Gailus, 1933 As a Protestant Experience and the “Day of Potsdam” (Contemporary Church History, Jun 2017) “the unique feature of the ecclesiastical and also highly politically symbolic ceremony of March 21, 1933, in the Potsdam Garrison Church was this: it was the only church in which Hitler himself gave a speech during the twelve-year Nazi regime.”

Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Amazon book, Oct 3, 2010) "During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center."

Stephen Waldron, What Was a Nazi Church Service Like? (Theology Corner, Jan 4, 2018) a fascinating historical overview

Alan Bean, When Churches Fail: The Abiding Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Friends of Justice, Nov 17, 2018) a Mennonite reflection on the rise of Nazi Germany and the capitulation of German Christians

America and the Holocaust: Deceit or Indifference (Shoah - The Memory of a Holocaust, Mar 24, 2019) a documentary movie, 85 minutes

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Amazon book, May 2020)

Mike Corder, Dutch Protestant Church Admits Failing Jews During World War II (Associated Press and Christianity Today, Nov 9, 2020) “Ceremony recalls “sinful history” during Nazi occupation and beyond.” This article links to Suzanne Burden, Meet the Dutch Christians Who Saved Their Jewish Neighbors from the Nazis (Christianity Today, Nov 23, 2015) “Diet Eman endured Hitler’s occupation separated from her fiance, Hein Sietsma. But apart, they served in the Dutch Underground—saving at least 60 Jews from certain death.”

D.L. Mayfield, The Good White Christian Women of Nazi Germany (The Christian Century, Mar 25, 2021)

Luisa Beck, Max Bearak, and Shinovene Immanuel, Germany Acknowledges Colonial Genocide in Namibia and Promises Development Projects (Washington Post, May 28, 2021) an important touch point, with historical context. See also Luisa Beck, Germany, A Model for Coming to Terms With Its Past, Still Struggles With Its Colonial Period (Washington Post, Jan 3, 2020)

“Germany’s government acknowledged Friday that it committed genocide during its colonial occupation of what is now Namibia and promised more than $1 billion in development projects in communities descended from victims… Germany refused direct reparations that victims’ descendants had lobbied for and said development projects would be carried out over the next 30 years. The acknowledgment came more than 100 years after the genocide — a stark contrast with the public recognition and deeply imbued sense of national shame around the Holocaust that has become part of Germany’s modern identity.”

BBC Select, Rise Of The Nazis | Episode 1 (BBC Select, Oct 14, 2021) picks up the story after the Nazi failed coup, and Hitler’s imprisonment. The Nazis nevertheless gained power because of their Stormtroopers’ street violence and intimidation. The political power-whisperers thought they could harness the Nazi Party in a coalition of rightward parties against the left (Social Democrats and Communists). The Nazis infiltrated institutions.

Samuel Loncar, Christianity’s Shadow Founder: Marcion, Anti-Judaism, and the Birth of Liberal Protestantism (Marginalia, Nov 19, 2021) examines the characteristics of the second century anti-judaic heretic Marcion of Rome, and the Protestant liberalism that originated in Germany with Friedrich Schleiermacher and his heirs. This indirectly raises the problem of the stability of language and meaning: Amputating the Old Testament from the New means that Christian faith becomes deeply unstable. If allowed to continue, the especially Lutheran — and more general Protestant — presuppositions about human nature, personhood, divine justice, and atonement could no longer be checked.

David de Jong, Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties. Mariner Books | Amazon page, Apr 2022. “A provocative group portrait of five industrialists who expanded their fortunes by colluding with Hitler and then, after World War II, walked away with minimal punishment and barely a dent in their bottom lines... In this meticulously researched book, Mr. de Jong, an investigative journalist and former reporter at Bloomberg News, compels us to confront the current-day legacy of these Nazi ties." See review by David Smith, ‘People Should Be More Aware’: The Business Dynasties Who Benefited from Nazis. The Guardian UK, May 18, 2022.

Andrew Meier, ‘The God-Damnedest Thing’: The Antisemitic Plot to Thwart U.S. Aid to Europe’s Jews and the Man Who Exposed It.  Politico, Sep 23, 2022.  “Henry Morgenthau used his close ties with Roosevelt to expose rampant antisemitism in the State Department that thwarted America’s efforts to provide refuge for Jews imperiled by Hitler.”