I wish I were a Jew. The more I study the situation, the more I wish to
be a Jew. I have found fault with the Jews, from the Christian point of
view, and I would like to turn around and fire a few broadsides into my
delinquent Christian friends from the Hebrew standpoint. Not that I would
condemn Jesusism, but to show the Christian world how far they are off
the track of the meek and lowly Jesus, when he commanded his followers
with a new commandment. Did Jesus mean anything when he said: “A new
commandment I give unto you; that ye love one another; as I have loved
you, that ye also love one another.”
If I were a Jew I would ask my fellow Christians whether they believe
that Christ only loves them after the style and fashion of their love for
one another? I would ask them if these great navies and mighty armies
of armed men, trained to kill each other in new and improved style, are
imitations of Christ’s great love for men? Are England and Germany and
France and Russia and the United States and Spain and Italy and all the
South American republics loving each other as Christ loved the world?
If these are truly Christian nations, then the Jews must take it for
granted that they are imitating the love of Jesus, as ordered in the
“New Commandment.” If these so-called Christian nations are not obeying
the “New Commandment,” then they are not Christian nations, and their
pretense is sheer hypocrisy.
Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is poorly displayed in taxing
him to build navies for the purpose of killing a lot of other people
Christ loved and died for. Christ died to establish universal peace, but
to judge him through the work of those who pretend to be his followers,
he died for the purpose of ordaining priests and preachers to bless the
armies and navies of civilization.
As a boy I was taught to look upon the Jews as the rejecters, betrayers
and crucifiers of Christ, the man sent of God to establish peace and
good will. I was taught to look upon Judas Iscariot as the meanest of
all men—the man who pretended to love Jesus, but who betrayed him for
thirty pieces of silver. If I were a Jew, I would point to the Christian
churches, pretending to love the people as Christ loved them, but openly
turning the blessings of Christ from their natural channels of peace, to
blessing the armies and navies that go out to do violence. Judas only
betrayed Christ once, and was sorry for it, while the Christians betray
him every day in the year, and boast of it. They boast of their armies
and navies and sing their praises, feeling more secure in the ability of
their armed forces than they do in the love of their Christ.
Did the Jews do worse in rejecting Christ, then the Christians do in
accepting him, and then disobey the newest commandment that came from
his lips? They preach his gospel of peace and then organize for the
purpose of destroying peace. If the Christian church turned against
militarism, and abandoned the war departments in their efforts to enforce
commercialism and the extension of trade, the war-loving people would not
contribute their thirty pieces of silver.
If I were a Jew I would set up the character of Judas against the work of
the Christians in the betrayal of business.
Judas was part of the original plan—to establish a living example of the
perfidy attached to the work of treachery. Have the Christians profited
by the example? Have they not deceitfully handed the gospel of Christ
over to the enemies of peace? Have they loved one another similar to
the love Christ died for? Are the slums of our large cities examples of
Christ’s love for the lowly and the oppressed? Is the treatment of the
Jews in Christian Russia an example of “Love your neighbor as yourself?”
The more I think over the situation, the more I regret that I am not a
Jew.