Christianity is actually a religion of hate not love . Its bad fruit proves that it is a bad tree, even according to Jesus’ own criteria (see Matt. 7:15–20; Luke 6:43–45).

Years ago, some Orthodox rabbis told me that I didn’t know what real Judaism was. Could it be that you don’t know what real Christianity is? The fruit that has been produced through the coming of Jesus into the world—in the lives of his true followers—has been wonderful and extraordinary. Anyway, your reasoning about Christianity being a bad tree is faulty. Let me explain.

When I was in graduate school at New York University, I met and interacted with students and professors from many religious backgrounds, and since then, as I have traveled around the world telling people the good news about Jesus the Messiah, I have spoken with even more people representing a wide range of spiritual beliefs, including Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and animists.

To this day, when I discuss religion with people who are educated in what they believe, I always ask them what their religion really teaches. In other words, I say, “I have heard that you believe such and such. Is this true?” And then they explain, “Yes, that is correct,” or, “No, that is a common misconception.” Whenever it is possible, I ask them to support their statements with citations from their holy books. This way I can learn what they really believe (and not just what someone told me they believe), and I can more effectively share my beliefs with them. Wouldn’t you agree this is a fair approach?

In the same way, when it comes to what Christianity really teaches and what ideals it actually expresses, we must go back to the words of Jesus and his followers as recorded in the New Testament. That alone is authoritative for those professing to be his disciples today.

“But,” you say, “there is often a big difference between what a religious book says and what the followers of that religion do.”

That’s a good point—but it doesn’t change my argument. First, when the so-called followers of a religion fail to adhere to the clear teaching and standards of that religion, then they are rightly branded hypocrites. But their hypocrisy certainly doesn’t detract from the truth of the religion itself.

Second, in a religion such as Islam there are, in fact, explicit passages in the Koran and the early Muslim traditions that advocate physical violence and war in order to propagate the faith. This stands in complete contrast to the teaching of the New Testament, which categorically rejects the use of force in order to propagate the faith. Therefore, when Muslims launch a holy war to spread Islam, they are often being true to their faith; when Christians do such a thing, they are always denying their faith.

Third, we Jews rightly react when an anti-Semite uses the Talmud to prove that the rabbis advocated such perversions as, for example, having sex with children. ⁸⁰ We point out that the only way anyone could come to such a conclusion would be through the complete misuse of the Talmud, and we are zealous to defend the real meaning and intent of the Talmudic scholars. In the same way, when Christianity is mischaracterized (in this case, branded a religion of hate), it is necessary to go back to the New Testament sources and see what they really say.

Fourth, the overall fruit produced by true faith in Jesus breeds anything but hate. (I’ll say more about this last point in a moment.)

Let’s first review what Jesus and his followers taught regarding treatment of those who oppose the faith, attitudes to one’s enemies, and the use of force to spread the faith. As we saw before (2.4), Yeshua pronounced blessings on the meek and on the peacemakers, praising those who joyfully endured persecution and insult for his sake, instructing his followers to love their enemies, to pray for those who persecuted them and do good to those who hated them. This is what he taught:

Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” lend to “sinners,” expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Luke 6:31–37

“But no one lives like this!” you say. “Followers of Jesus are anything but loving.”

Really? How many hundreds (or thousands, or millions) of them do you know personally? How many Messianic Jews do you know who survived the Holocaust and forgave the very Nazis who killed or tortured their own parents, spouses, or siblings? I know some, and the love they have comes from Jesus the Messiah, without whom they would have been consumed with hatred and bitterness. How many Christian missionaries do you know who have had family members or friends killed by hostile members of another faith, only to give their own lives to reach such people? I know such people, and the fire that fuels their compassion is the fire of the Messiah’s love. ⁸¹

Let me give you just two examples that demonstrate the powerful, life-transforming effect of the message of the good news of the Messiah, examples that show how God’s love for us—expressed through Yeshua—in turn produces supernatural love for others. And remember, these are merely two examples out of millions, and I mean that with no exaggeration.

Consider the stories of Sergeant Jacob DeShazer and Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, mortal enemies during World War II. DeShazer, an American, was downed in Japan during a bombing raid. Fuchida led the infamous Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Both were soldiers at heart, and killing was their business during the war. But God had other plans.

The story begins in a prison camp and a five-foot-wide cell where DeShazer was kept after being shot down by the Japanese.

He was treated with the most horrible forms of cruelty. He developed an intense hatred for his Japanese guards. All he wanted was to get his hands on one of their throats to squeeze the life out of him. But they continued to torture him. Day by day his hatred grew until it became a veritable mountain. He lived for only one reason, and that was to seek revenge on his torturers.

One day a Bible was brought into the prison. It was passed around and finally came to DeShazer. He read it. He devoured it eagerly! And he came across the words of Jesus, who said [as he was being crucified!], “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34a). The love of Christ melted that mountain of hatred inside of Jacob DeShazer and filled him with the joy of Jesus Christ. He said, “My heart was full of joy. I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.” Soon after that a guard slammed the cell door on DeShazer’s bare foot and began kicking him at the foot with hobnailed boots. DeShazer said nothing but thought of Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies.” That guard’s attitude changed substantially. ⁸²

Upon his release after the war, DeShazer had the opportunity to return to Japan, and he did, but not as a soldier. Rather, he went as a missionary, sharing the message of the Messiah’s love with the Japanese people. So wonderful was his story that it was printed as a tract in Japanese. But that was only the beginning:

One day a Japanese man who was disheartened, broken, dejected, and hopeless was given that tract by an American stranger. He read that tract, and his heart was touched. He sought out Christian missionaries and the Bible. He too was converted. His name was Captain Mitsuo Fuchida. He was the Japanese officer who spearheaded the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. The very man who had declared, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” [Japanese for “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”] gave his heart and life over to Jesus Christ. He, too, began to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people all over Japan and America. He even came back to Pearl Harbor on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attack with a gift in hand for the survivors: a Bible with Luke 23:34a inscribed in it (“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”). Fuchida asked for forgiveness, for he had acted a quarter century earlier in moral ignorance. ⁸³

This is the infectious power of the Messiah’s love! In fact, because examples such as these can so easily be multiplied, the Jewish objection I hear from those who work with true followers of Jesus around the world is generally the opposite objection of the one being raised here, namely, “It’s unnatural to turn the other cheek and love your enemies. Christianity doesn’t allow for a healthy expression of human emotion!” ⁸⁴

To the contrary, there is a wonderful, cleansing, liberating, God-ordained emotional release that comes through forgiveness and love. This divinely empowered, unconditional love helps explain why there is a direct correlation between the spread of true Christianity and dramatic increases in health care, education, and acts of kindness to the suffering and poor. There is no denying the profound, humanitarian effect that the gospel message has made around the world.

To this day, most major efforts in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and alleviating human suffering are financed and carried out by Christian organizations (see further vol. 2, 3.25). The true New Testament faith is a good tree, and that’s why it has produced so much good fruit.

How then do we explain the substantial amount of bad fruit that Christianity has produced through the centuries? Let’s take a minute to think this through, going back to Yeshua’s own words. In Luke 6:43–44, he taught, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.”

What does this mean? Well, it is possible that a good tree might produce some rotten fruit from time to time, but its overall fruit will be good. A bad tree, however, will never produce truly good fruit at all. If a tree has borne lots of good fruit through the years—even if there have been some “rotten apples” along the way—the bad fruit would be the obvious exception that proved the rule. It would actually stand out because it was so unusual. This is the case with Jesus the Messiah: His coming into the world has produced an almost indescribable amount of wonderful fruit in the lives of countless millions who have truly embraced him. The ugly things done by some of his followers stand out because they are so contrary to the example set by Yeshua and his disciples. As expressed in a recent book, there is a difference between Christianity (meaning the true expression of the Messianic faith) and Christendom (meaning the humanly organized structure that has often strayed from the faith). ⁸⁵

At this point I can hear someone saying, “Nonsense! You are just copping out with this ‘occasional bad fruit from a good tree’ argument.”

I’m prepared to answer your point. But remember this: We both agree that a truly bad tree will not produce truly good fruit, right? Keep this in mind as we analyze your argument.

It is often claimed that Christianity grew out of Judaism, and that the religion of Moses, the prophets, and the Rabbinic sages provided the soil out of which the religion of Jesus and the apostles grew. ⁸⁶ What then does that say about Judaism? According to the logic being used against us here, the Rabbinic Jewish tree must have been bad because it produced the bad fruit of Christianity!

Of course, you would say, “Not at all! In fact, it is because Jesus and his followers broke away from their good Jewish roots that they produced such bad fruit.” Well, aside from the fact that Yeshua and his followers did not break away from their biblical Jewish roots, you must realize that you have just stated to me my very argument to you. Christianity has produced bad fruit only when those who professed to follow Jesus the Messiah broke away from their good, New Testament roots.

According to your logic, since Christianity grew out of Jewish soil, and since Christianity has produced some bad fruit, then Judaism must be a bad tree since it produced the bad fruit of Christianity. The logic is clearly faulty.

I could also ask you what fruit the Torah has produced in the lives of our people during the last thirty-five hundred years. You might say, “That’s easy to answer! It has produced the fruit of righteous living, integrity, devotion to God, and respect for the earth and for humanity as a whole.”

Not quite! These things hold true only for those who have adhered to the words of Torah. For those who rejected the law—and that applies to the great majority of our people who have been born since the Torah was given—the Torah has produced unspeakable suffering for our people, beginning with the death of three thousand Israelites just days after Moses received the Commandments on Mount Sinai (see Exodus 32), and resulting in the deaths of one entire generation in the wilderness less than forty years later (see Numbers 13–14). This is because we rejected the words of the Torah.

Once again, the way to judge a tree is to see what fruit is produced by those who hold to its principles and live out its ideals. Just as it would be unfair to judge traditional Judaism by the actions of a religious Jew such as Baruch Goldstein, who massacred thirty praying Muslims at Hebron (although he is considered to be a hero and holy martyr by many ultra-Orthodox Jews living in Israel today) or by an irreligious Jew such as Karl Marx, whose writings helped birth the modern monstrosity called communism, so also it would be unfair to judge Jesus or the New Testament faith as a whole by the actions and words of those who sometimes served as leaders in the church while rejecting the teachings of Jesus, the very foundation of the church.

“But I still don’t understand why so many Christian leaders have been such virulent anti-Semites. This doesn’t make any sense, and to me, it calls into question your whole point here. If the Christian tree is good, it should surely have borne good fruit in terms of loving—not hating and persecuting—our people. Obviously, you judge a tree by the general pattern of the kind of fruit it produces.”

Actually, I agree with your premises here. This time, it is your facts that are wrong. Of course, it is true that there has been somewhat of a double whammy when it comes to the question of the church and the Jews. On the one hand, we Jews have suffered for our sins for the last two thousand years, sins that include our continued rejection of Jesus the Messiah. On the other hand, we have suffered for the church’s sins, namely, their attacking us and discriminating against us because we didn’t believe their message. This affair is so ugly that it breathes the very spirit of a satanic conspiracy, and I will devote the next three questions to the subject of “Christian anti-Semitism” (see 2.6–2.8).

The reason, however, that I differ with your facts is simply because true Christianity is often marked by philo-Semitism (that is, special love for the Jewish people) as opposed to anti-Semitism (for more on this, see especially, 2.7). In other words, during the Holocaust, the true followers of Jesus were not the Ukrainian S.S. officers whose belts read, “In God we trust,” nor were they the Polish priests who urged their parishioners to expose and betray their Jewish friends and co-workers. No. They were the so-called “righteous Gentiles” who risked their lives to protect and save their Jewish neighbors, people like the ten Boom family in Holland, made famous through the movie The Hiding Place. ⁸⁷

The fact that the true followers of Jesus have always been a relatively small remnant—in contrast with the larger numbers represented by Christendom as a whole—should occasion no surprise, since there was only a faithful remnant of Israelites during the biblical period, and there has only been a faithful remnant since then, even according to Orthodox Jews. Even today, as the message of the good news of the Messiah spreads around the world (see above, 2.2), true believers in Yeshua represent only a portion of those who call themselves Christian, a portion, I might add, that is often persecuted and mistreated.

In any case, the wonderful fruit produced by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah continues to flood the world, and because of him, to this very day, terrorists are laying down their weapons, serial killers in prison are finding a new way of life, idol worshipers are turning to the one true God, drug addicts and alcoholics are being set free from their addictions, child abusers are changing their ways, prostitutes are no longer plying their trade, and broken families are being restored. ⁸⁸ It is because of Jesus that countless medical missionaries continue to labor sacrificially in the midst of horrific conditions, massive shipments of food continue to be sent to the poor and needy, and schools and hospitals continue to be erected. Why? Because Yeshua’s followers really care!

Of course, Christianity is not the only world religion active in these ways, but it is certainly the world leader, inspired as it is by the very example of its founder, ⁸⁹ the one who not only spoke about love but demonstrated it as well:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

1 John 3:16–18

The tree is very good, and therefore, the fruit is very good. Why don’t you find out for yourself? As the psalmist wrote many centuries ago: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Ps. 34:8).

⁸⁰ See, e.g., the seriously flawed work of Christian author Gary North, The Judeo-Christian Tradition (Tyler, Tex.: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), esp. 86–88 (or more broadly, 73–130); North’s work is generally of a much higher caliber than what is reflected here, and I do not intend here to classify him as an anti-Semite. Cf. also James McKeever, Claim Your Birthright (Medford, Ore.: Omega Publications, 1989), 265–79; McKeever’s work, too, is generally of a much better quality than that found in the volume cited. Most deplorable of all—and completely devoid of sound scholarship—is Theodore Winston Pike, Israel: Our Duty … Our Dilemma (Oregon City, Ore.: Big Sky Press, 1984), 20–105, 296–324. For a summary, see Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 68–69, with references on 199–200 and 235–36.

⁸¹ I have made reference to Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand (1.13). Sabina met and forgave—with many tears—the Nazi murderer of her family, shortly after he had repented of his sins and received mercy from God through Jesus the Messiah. For a classic example of a godly woman who returned to reach out to the very people who killed her husband, living among them for years and bringing them to faith in Jesus, see Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor, rev. ed. (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1986). Elisabeth’s husband, Jim Elliot, along with four other missionaries, was killed by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956.

⁸² D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? The Positive Impact of Christianity in History (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 196–97

⁸³ Ibid., 197

⁸⁴ See vol. 3, 5.19.

⁸⁵ See Kennedy and Newcombe, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, 209–11 (part of a very honest, self-critical chapter entitled “The Sins of the Church,” 205–23).

⁸⁶ Of course, it is more accurate to say that both the Messianic Jewish and traditional Jewish faiths developed out of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are thus siblings, which is actually the title of a recent book by Rabbi Hayim Goren Perelmuter, Siblings: Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity at Their Beginnings (New York: Paulist, 1989). He correctly observes (ibid., 16) that “Both Rabbinic Judaism, the form in which Judaism survived the destruction of State and Temple by the Romans, and Christianity were shaped at approximately the same time.” See also Hershel Shanks, ed., Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of the Origins and Early Development (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992), and note Ellis Rivkin, “A Jew Looks at the New Testament,” in idem, What Crucified Jesus? Messianism, Pharisaism, and the Development of Christianity (New York: UAHC Press, 1997), 133–51, who sees Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity as “mutations” (divinely accepted, at that) of the religion of Israel, although still recognizing Judaism as the mother and Christianity as the daughter (ibid., 3). In any case, for the present, I’ll accept at face value the generalization that Christianity arose out of Judaism.

⁸⁷ See Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, The Hiding Place (Old Tappan, N.J.: Chosen, 1977); more broadly, see the excellent summary in Rausch, Legacy of Hatred, 147–54.

⁸⁸ The most dramatic conversion story of which I am aware is that of David Berkowitz, the notorious Son of Sam serial killer, who, along with a group of Satanists, terrorized New York City in 1977. We have documented this gripping account, which displays the amazing mercy and grace of God, in a video entitled “Son of Sam, Son of Hope” (ICN Ministries, 1998).

⁸⁹ In contrast with this, one can point to Shiite Islam, consistently more violent than the much larger Sunni branch, following in the footsteps of its turbulent origins. Thus, the violence that marked the founding of Shiite Islam has been perpetuated through the centuries.

Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 1: General and historical objections. (109). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

Christianity is actually a religion of hate not love . Its bad fruit proves that it is a bad tree, even according to Jesus’ own criteria (see Matt. 7:15–20; Luke 6:43–45).