Among those concerned to evangelise Jews and Muslims, there are a growing number who believe the church's approach must involve a formal, public expression of repentance or apology for the wrongs committed in the name of Christ in the past against Jews and Muslims. Is this correct?
For Muslims, the focus is on the effects of the Crusades of the 11th century, but for Jews, the history is longer and more complex. As a missionary to the Jews, I want to consider the issues within the Jewish framework, but the principles apply equally to the Muslim experience.
The Jews have known great suffering. This has a long history, but what is in the forefront of the minds of most Jews today is their experience in Europe over the last 1,500 years. It has been described as 'the longest hatred'; by which they mean the enmity between Christianity and the Jews. That is shocking. There is actually a nation on the face of the earth which sees Christianity as the agency primarily responsible for the sufferings and death of millions of its people. That this people should be the Jews is doubly appalling; as Hilaire Belloc put it: 'How odd of God to choose the Jews, but odder still for those who choose the Jewish God to persecute the Jews.'
