implicit anti-Semitism in liberal Christianity

And well-intentioned Christian liberals pipe up with a traditional Christian response, which I'll paraphrase.

"Well, those are the nasty and vengeful laws of the Old Testament. We Christians are inspired by the the loving message of Jesus Christ in the New Testament."

How bigoted! How condescending! There are tens of millions of people who follow the teachings of the Hebrew Bible but reject the revelation of Jesus. As Andar pointed out, Jews aren't any more likely than Christians to believe in an angry, vengeful God. Jesus' viewe of a loving God was an expression of an existing Jewish belief, not a radical contradiction to it--which is why Jesus himself said that there was no conflict between his vision of God and the strict Levitical laws.

To pretend that Christ and Christians are responsible for the image of a gentle, loving God is anti-Semitic, because it presents Jewish religion as being more violent and primitive then the enlightened Christian one. It's important for Jews and Christians to talk about their differences, but it is absolutely wrong for Christians to caricature Jewish beliefs and present them falsely.

Most of the people who talk like this are also very concerned about being sensitive to Judaism, and so it's particularly sad that they use allow anti-Semitism to creep into their arguments. Be careful, and think about the implications of what you're saying.

1) Jesus is the Messiah -- take it or leave it this is what separates the christians from the jews on the most basic level (there are of course cultural separations but im going home soon so im not going into that) -- if you're christian, you beleive that Jews are wrong in thinking the messiah has not yet come.

2) Jesus' actual speech and teachings fly in the face of conventional Jewish teaching. Jesus spoke of the unimportance of ceremony as opposed to belief -- i.e. the following of the outward forms of a religion as opposed to the spirit of that religion (this is shown, among other places, with all that circumcision of the heart being more important than circumcision of the flesh buisness). Judaeism of the time, and still much of it is today, concerned with Tradition and ritual. The fact that some sects of Christianity have also become obsessed with Form over Substance is an accident of history and no fault of Jesus'.

All of this aside, however, I would watch how you use the word Anti-Semitism -- anti-semitism is often used in the context of being against the Jewish people rather than the Jewish theology and carries a fierce negative connotation ever since the second world war. It also implies an active hatred rather than a passive disbelief.