Last month, a report claimed one third of British Christians had endorsed anti-semitic tropes. After looking at the available data, our editor suggested the problem may be confined to more nominal believers. In this response, researchers Motti Inabari and Kirill Bumin unveil more aspects of their work, which they say paints a more worrying picture
“Was Jesus Jewish?” We recently asked this question in a large survey among 2,000 British respondents who identified themselves either as practicing Christians or as having a Christian upbringing.
It would be reasonable to assume that such a basic question about the origin of their Messiah would receive an almost-universal consensus among Christians, but the actual results show a great deal of ignorance among the respondents: 52.5% agreed that Jesus was Jewish, 15.9% said “no,” and 31.6% said they don’t know how to respond.
Among a multitude of questions, we asked the survey respondents to rate their church attendance on a six-step scale, from “never” to “daily.” Only around 30% of those identifying as Christians attend church “at least once a week” or more frequently. When we observe how people who are engaged Christians and attend church every week respond to the question of whether Jesus was Jewish, the numbers improve: 65.4% agreed.
Our data seems to confirm that church attendance corresponds with greater knowledge of such fundamental biblical principles as the statement that Jesus was a Jew. This is certainly good news. But the fact that the majority of active churchgoers were able to identify Jesus as a Jew does not necessarily make them more favorable to Jews in general. We actually discovered that active British Christians hold higher levels of agreement with antisemitic tropes compared with “nominal” Christians, those who rarely read the Bible or go to church. There can be theological reasons for that, including a belief that the church replaced Jews with heavenly blessings or a belief that the Jews are responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Thus, the fact that most active churchgoers agree that Jesus was Jewish does not correspond automatically with warmer feelings toward Jews.
In the survey, we asked the respondents to respond to twelve antisemitic tropes, including “Jews have too much control over global affairs,” “Jews talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust,” “Jews have too much control over the British government,” and more.
those who attend church daily seem to be the ones who most likely to agree with one or more of the antisemitic tropes
Breakdown of the respondents according to their church attendance paints a damning picture. The percentage of the respondents who did not agree to any of these tropes was 28.4% overall, but compartmentalizing these results based on the frequency of church attendance shows that the more frequently British Christians attend church, the less likely they are to completely disavow these antisemitic statements. Thus, 35.4% of those who “never” go to church have not agreed with a single one of these twelve antisemitic tropes, while only 23.2% of those who go weekly and only 7.9% of those who attend church daily did not agree with any antisemitic tropes. There is – unfortunately – a linear relationship between church attendance and endorsement of antisemitism, with a larger number of British Christians agreeing that one or more of these antisemitic tropes is “probably true” for every step-level change in the frequency of the respondent’s church attendance. In sum, the numbers show that frequent church attendance, in and of itself, does not make one immune to antisemitism. Actually, those who attend church daily seem to be the ones who most likely to agree with one or more of the antisemitic tropes.
As human beings, our opinions are multilayered, and shaped by a complex interplay of personal experiences, cultural backgrounds, social influences, and evolving knowledge (both religious and secular), making our perspectives dynamic rather than singular or fixed. Church attendance or knowing that Jesus was Jewish are only two aspects of a multitude of factors that can influence opinions on antisemitism. Some factors reduce antisemitism, while others can increase it. For example, any positive influence of religiosity (frequency of church attendance and Bible readership) in reducing support for antisemitic tropes is completely dwarfed and negated by the impact of respondents’ beliefs that Jews crucified Jesus Christ and that God’s covenant with the Jews has either ended or never existed. Being exposed to both of those beliefs jointly increases the likelihood of antisemitism by 340%.
Thus, while it is tempting to encourage British Christians to attend religious services more frequently as a means to improve Christian-Jewish relations and perceptions, it is important to remember that frequent church attendance can reinforce very different types of religious beliefs. Only some of these beliefs can engender greater support for the Jewish people. Our analysis of the British Christian attitudes and beliefs leads us to conclude that certain fundamental religious beliefs – such as the belief in the Abrahamic Covenant and the Jewish election (that the Jewish people are “chosen” and have an eternal covenant with God) and a preference for more literalist reading of the Bible – are more important for developing positive views of the Jewish people than the frequency of church attendance. We hope that our survey will serve as a “canary in the coal mine” and as a catalyst for improving Christian education and uprooting harmful beliefs.
Dr. Motti Inbari is a Jewish studies professor at University of North Carolina at Pembroke, USA. Dr. Kirill Bumin is an Associate Dean of Metropolitan College and the Director of Summer Term at Boston University, USA. They are joint authors of Christian Zionism in the 21st Century: American Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel (Oxford University Press, 2024).
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