Dear Editor:
RE: Anti-Semitism common, Oct. 27.
Any hatred towards a group of people is wrong. The Bible says that we are all equal in the eyes of God and that we must treat others the way we would like to be treated. It’s a tall order, but that is how Jesus treated others and what he taught us in the Bible. There are a few things that we would like to counter as Bible-believing Protestant Christians:
Church doctrine that we have been taught does not include hatred toward Jews for Christ’s death. Jews and Christians have their differences; they are different religions, but that doesn’t mean there is hatred towards each other.
It would be inaccurate to say that Christians blame the Jews for Jesus’ death. Many of the Jews that called for Jesus’ death were converted to Christianity. These included the 12 disciples who were called by Jesus to follow him throughout his ministry. After Jesus’ death, two of those disciples wrote two of the gospels, Matthew and John. Mark, another gospel, was written by Mark from Peter’s firsthand account. Peter was another disciple of Jesus. Luke was written by a companion of Paul, who became a Christian and leader soon after Jesus’ death. These gospels were written with firsthand knowledge.
There are instances in history where Christians persecuted Jews, however, this was wrong. And there are also instances where Christians protected Jews – an example of this is our grandparents and great-grandparents who risked and lost their lives during the Second World War to hide Jews, as well as Corrie ten Boom and so many others.
We agree, nothing can be resolved with hate.
Reuben and Jannel Jonker,
Arthur