Feedback | 30 August 2003

Comment on The Gospel according to Braveheart by Deal W. Hudson (23/08/2003)

My thanks to Mr. Hudson for a sober and fair review of this forthcoming film. It seems as if certain people at the Anti-Defamation League and in “progressive” Christian circles are so keen to avoid suggestions of “collective guilt” for Christ’s suffering and death that they posit in its stead an equally untenable perpetual and universal innocence for every Jewish person who has ever lived. The Gospels record that certain Jewish leaders incited a mob, and that the procurator acceded to the mob’s wishes. It is reasonable to conclude, if you grant that the story is true, that those individual Jews among the leaders and the mob are morally responsible for what they did, though the Gospel of Matthew ominously records the response of “all the people”: “His blood be on us and on our children.” (Mt. 27:25) As Mr. Hudson correctly notes, though, even this ought not to translate into some excuse for hatred. However, the fact that the ADL and Christian ecumenists are unwilling to face such aspects of the Gospel squarely and fairly undermines their credibility and their appeals for tolerance.

The ADL apparently resents the idea that even some individual Jews in history might have acted unjustly. This is strange, considering the frequency of such occurrences of unjust acts in the Old Testament that serve to testify to the waywardness of man and the continuing faithfulness of God towards His creatures in spite of our errors. That faithfulness is demonstrated obviously most completely in the Incarnation and the Redemption wrought by Christ. It is a shame that such a great and meaningful truth should be obscured by the pettiness of interest groups.