Medieval Antisemitism Is Creeping Back Into the Church

There is a startling resurgence of crusader-era anti-Jewish tropes in political Christian circles.

How Christian is this?

A ripe example of this phenomenon is Candace Owen’s latest rant in which she proclaimed she would

literally rather…saw off my own foot than support Israel ever again…Never supporting that demonic nation again… I am Catholic, I believe in real demons, and Netanyahu is very clearly a demon.

Criticizing Israel, its policies, or its leaders is not antisemitic. What is, however, is broadcasting to millions of people that the world’s only Jewish State is inherently of the devil.

As shocking as it sounds in 2025, casting Jewish people as satanic isn’t new. In her rant against Netanyahu, Candace Owens tapped into one of the world’s oldest antisemitic themes that has resulted in the violent persecution of Jews for centuries.

Throughout history, Jews are scapegoated into whatever society hates most. When Christianity was dominant in medieval Europe, Jews were accused of killing Christian children and using their blood to make matzah ball soup. This outrageous lie emboldened and encouraged Christians to hunt down, maim, and even kill Jewish community members. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther encouraged Christians to burn down Synagogues, threaten rabbis with death, and drive the Jewish people out of their country.

These are some of the darkest chapters in Christianity’s history. To prevent them from happening again, it’s imperative that Christians recognize and call out these narratives in our culture today. 

An unhealthy attitude

Religion is making a welcome comeback, particularly among young people. While this resurgence of faith will have many positive effects on American culture, it also means society will be more susceptible to fear anyone who is purportedly against God. Christian Tik Tok creators have begun using out of context lines from the Talmud (which is a series of debates and commentaries from Rabbis and not a definitive theology for Judaism) that seem to proposition the Jewish people as fundamentally anti-Christian. Others are trying to paint modern Israel as attempting to manipulate devout American Christians into supporting an anti-Jesus Jewish State.

As Jews have been historically scapegoated to be whatever society deems most undesirable, we must be more vigilant than ever to oppose blanket statements that marginalize Israel.  We saw in the middle ages how this thinking resulted in the abuse of Jewish people. We saw it in Germany, not even 100 years ago. 

The Nazis copied Martin Luther

While the Nazi Party had a complicated relationship with the Church, Germany was a Christian country throughout WWI and WWII, during which time antisemitism was widespread in the German Church. In fact, the Nazi propaganda machine frequently cited or echoed antisemitic sentiments from Luther’s works such as “On the Jews and Their Lies” when justifying atrocities against Europe’s Jewish population. Joseph Goebbels, Chief Propagandist of the Nazi Party, fostered the narrative that by removing the Jews from German society, Hitler was fulfilling Martin Luther’s call to save Christian Germany from Jewish corruption. Hitler and other Nazi officials cited Luther’s teachings in speeches and party publications such as Der Stürmer. 

This deliberate campaign to convince the Germans that their Jewish neighbors were a centuries-old threat gradually normalized blood libel and Jew hatred. This normalization made it easier for Hitler’s dark agenda to go unnoticed by the predominantly Christian German society.

Candace Owens, with her 5.6 million Instagram followers (that is ⅓ of the amount of Jewish people on the entire planet), has made her name as a young, Christian conservative. Her podcast is consistently ranked among the highest on the charts, and a central focus of that podcast is negative conspiracies involving Jewish people. It is obsessive and excessive, and though her catchphrase for it all is “just asking questions,” there is definitely a more sinister motive.

Christians must reject these medieval tropes

This is evident in the way she uses the name of God to attack people and their beliefs, particularly Jews, hurling the phrase “Christ is King” like a weapon. Christians are called to be like Christ, loving their neighbors. Yet Owens uses this ultimate truth claim like a trump card to excuse — and even verify — a slew of personal invectives against her opponent. When Candace Owens finished a rant on X at Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro with that phrase, she was implying that Ben is a Jewish person and therefore less than her. The unwritten purport that could have followed was “Christ is King, you {insert insult} Jew”. 

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene repeated the same pattern in an X argument with Jewish podcast host Mark Levin. After calling him a psychopath and calling for his firing, she continued, “You can read about Jesus in Isaiah 53:5-12. Jesus will return one day and those that did not recognize him will mourn.” 

Christians should be proud of our faith. But that pride should not equate to condescending to or despising others. Centuries of Christian persecution of Jews is difficult to reconcile, but if we do not recognize patterns and intentionally correct them, the Church could once again be the catalyst for tragedy.

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This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.