By Charles Gardner — 
A shocking new survey has revealed a significant proportion of young British Christians hold antisemitic views.
An independent academic study of more than 2,000 Christians of all ages across the UK also found that one-third believe Jewish people “still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust” – the Nazis’ systematic murder of six million Jews during World War II.
The groundbreaking study – the first of its kind in the UK – reveals that 33 percent of Brits aged 18-29 express support for Palestinians versus 19 percent for Israel.
Roughly one in six agreed that it’s “definitely not antisemitic to say that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist” while a similar number feel Jews are “responsible for most of the world’s wars”.
“Young Brits are significantly more likely to hold very negative opinions of Jews and Israel that older British Christians,” said researcher Dr Motti Inbari, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of North Carolina and a co-author of the national study, A Survey of British Christian Attitudes Towards the Israel-Palestine Conflict, funded by a coalition of groups opposing antisemitism.
“With antisemitism being openly celebrated, it’s important to understand why many British Christians, especially the young generation, still embrace old antisemitic Christian views,” he said.
The survey was conducted in December 2024, with a similar study carried out in the US in March 2024 revealing much stronger support for Israel, as indicated in my previous article, The Evangelical Factor, published earlier this week.
Statistical analysis of the data reveals that Christians who believe God’s biblical covenant with the Jewish people has ended or never existed, and support the accusation that Jews are responsible for the murder of Christ, are the most likely to hold antisemitic views.
Thirty-one per cent of British Christians in the sample endorsed the idea that the biblical covenant has ended and almost half believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
The survey backs up my contention repeatedly expressed over the years of both indifference and antagonism towards Israel within the churches, which is largely due to a lack of proper teaching from the pulpits, as a result of which Christians are grossly ignorant of the biblical and political issues involved, gullibly succumbing to social and other media bias instead.
I guess many pastors stay silent because they are anxious not to offend or cause division. But the gospel has always been an offense, and standing up for the Jews, from whom we inherit our precious faith, is part of it.
Why do you think Dietrich Bonhoefer and Corrie ten Boom suffered so much for their faith? It was because they stood up to those who were persecuting the Jews!
A proper study of the Bible as a whole, and the book of Romans in particular, should leave Christians in no doubt about the enormous debt we owe our Jewish forbears for the faith of Abraham.
A colleague has suggested that much of the problem is down to social media, which prompts me to quote St Paul’s famous line to the Roman Christians: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)
As to the big broadcasters, Al Jazeera, who accused Israel of genocide from the start of the Gaza War, were given a free pass to continue broadcasting by UK regulators, yet Russia Today was banned from so doing soon after the Ukraine invasion.
Moreover, politicians in general seem unwilling to join the dots – that the rise in antisemitism precisely parallels the increase in Muslim immigration (legal and otherwise).
But my main challenge is to the preachers. Stop being people-pleasers and take up your cross as an example to your congregations.
As Jesus put it to the woman at the well: “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22)
It goes to show how Christian youth pay more attention to social media than scripture.