Pope Benedict XVI made news this week by stating the obvious. By putting his official endorsement on the notion that the Jewish people as a whole were “not responsible” for the death of Jesus Christ, he apparently laid the smack to an excuse for Christians all over the world to stir up anti-Semitism.

Have you seen any Christians running around lately, excoriating the Jews for crucifying Christ?

Me neither. But the legacy media reports on this as if it were a serious controversy. We’ve heard this idiocy before. They drummed it up in 2004 when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ came out, because the movie accurately depicted the story of the Gospel, in which Jesus, who was Jewish, is crucified by the Romans with the approval of the religious authorities of the day, who were also Jewish.

The film was shocking and violent – because the events it brought to life from Scripture were shocking and violent – but the constant suggestions that it gave rise to anti-Semitism could have only come from a media that is completely ignorant about the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

And that’s the sort of media we had then and have now, which is why the pope’s statement is news at all.

Consider: There is no more basic tenet of the Christian faith than the crucial importance of Christ’s death and resurrection. Because he gave his life as the price for all sins, people have the opportunity to be reconciled to God. Because he himself was without sin, the grave could not hold him and he rose from the dead.

What exactly do the media think Christians are upset about? As horrible as Christ’s death was, without it, we would have no hope for redemption in God’s eyes. Do they think we are mad at Jewish people because we wish they had let Jesus live to a ripe old age and retire to write his memoirs?

It is certainly true that the Jewish people rejected Christ as messiah, but it is also true that they were (and are) God’s chosen people, and he has promised he has every intention of redeeming them. That is why, to this day, you will not find a more pro-Israel group of people in the United States than evangelical Christians. If God has not forsaken the Jews, and vows to protect Israel from her tormenters, how can we as Christians do any less?

The antagonists of Jews in today’s world are primarily non-Christian terrorists originating in the Middle East. The defenders of Jews are in the West, where Christianity has its greatest influence.

I am sure there are subsets of Christianity in which anti-Semitism is embraced. You can find ignorant people within any group. But these people are on the fringe, and they hold no sway within mainstream Christianity. Their attitudes are inconsistent with the basic tenets of God’s Word.

For the media to present this as a serious issue within Christianity is almost as ignorant as their description of the so-called Westboro Baptist Church as a “fundamentalist church,” which anyone with the slightest understanding of faith matters can see is nothing more than a cabal of attention-mongering jerks.

But this is no surprise. Most of the legacy media are so abysmally ignorant about matters of faith, they are really wasting their time and ours trying to cover the subject at all.

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