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A strange moment in religious history

By Jonathan Poletti

On May 1st, the Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill banning anti-Semitic speech. Did they just ban the Christian sacred text?

I’m looking into the strange case of the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” which seeks to classify a range of commentary on Jews and Israel as hate speech. Provided examples include “claims of Jews killing Jesus…”

The Bible makes this claim. Did Republicans just ban it?

Conservative Christians seem sure the bill bans the Bible.

Matt Gaetz, the Southern Baptist firebrand from Florida, voted against the bill, posting to X: “The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”

After the bill passed, the headline tore through Christian America:

“House passes bill to define alleging Jewish involvement in Christ’s crucifixion as antisemitism, with 320–91 majority.”

Charlie Kirk, the Republican activist, asked: “Did the House of Representatives just make parts of the Bible illegal?”

“Yes,” replied Tucker Carlson. “The New Testament.”

Republicans started posting Bible verses as acts of civil disobedience.

The bill isn’t in effect yet, but they were already trying to break it. One Republican Christian posts the text of John 18:12–27, the narrative of the trial of Jesus, and adds: “Arrest me.”

Other pointed out other New Testament passages that might become legally ‘anti-Semitic’, including 1 Thessalonians 2:14–15, in which Paul says that Jews “killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets.”

It might be a trick to argue that such passages are not anti-Semitic, since Christians have often read them this way. Indeed, the Bible could seem exactly what the Antisemitism Awareness Act set out to ban.

I’m trying to assess this situation.

Republicans took control of the House in 2022, and after an intense fight for the Speaker of the House, an Evangelical Christian from Louisiana named Mike Johnson was elected to the job.

Any fears he would try to enact his religious agenda on the country seems, so far, to have been unfounded. Indeed, he passed a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Lawler, a Catholic, that apparently bans the Bible.

Rep. Lawler disagrees with this view. He posts on X: “Calling all Jews Christ killers is a form of antisemitism. Believing in the gospel is not.”

But that is not what the bill says. Merely referring to “Jews killing Jesus” seems to satisfy the requirements for hate speech.

But Christians against the bill must now place their faith in Democrats.

Will Chuck Schumer kill it in the Senate? This becomes an interesting chapter in religious history. Senator Schumer is the highest ranking Jewish official in America, and also in American history.

Will the Jewish senator kill the “Antisemitism Awareness Act”? Or will he ban the Christian Bible?

If Senator Schumer allows the bill to pass, then Christians have a further recourse. Perhaps President Biden will veto it.

He’s a Christian…so maybe he will?

Indeed, President Biden has often discussed being Catholic. When he speaks publicly I have often been struck by the effort to frame him like a Medieval saint, with a kind of ‘halo’ provided by a painting of George Washington in the background.

So perhaps this Catholic will not allow the Bible to be banned?

If President Biden does sign the Antisemitism Awareness Act into law, it will be a remarkable moment in which Protestants and Catholics and Jews agreed to ban the Bible. That never happened before.

Could the Supreme Court overturn the ban?

If the Antisemitism Awareness Act is signed into law, that becomes the focus. Maybe SCOTUS will find the bill unconstitutional, and overturn it.

There seems a reasonable hope this might occur. All members of the Supreme Court are Christian, except for Elena Kagan, who is Jewish.

So the Christian religion will then be deciding once again if its own scripture should be banned.

Maybe the Bible will then be saved?

That is, Christian lawyers might cite the secular First Amendment, and the Bible will become legal again.

Or maybe a representative of the House will clarify that the Christian hadn’t intended to ban Christian speech.

They’d only meant to ban Muslim speech! 🔶

Source: https://medium.com/belover/republicans-in-congress-just-voted-to-ban-the-bible-1c817378c348