Ridvan Aydemir, who likes to call himself “Apostate Prophet,” is an internet personality who, like many others, decided to base his entire career on militant atheism. However, Ridvan also capitalized greatly on his supposed “ex-Muslim” identity in order to give himself some added degree of clout. Indeed, it is well-acknowledged across the many different demographics that Muslims are the most resistant in relation to the various forms of secularization. As such, an “ex-Muslim” has infinitely more “symbolic value” than any old “ex-Christian” or “ex-Hindu.”

Well, it seems that he has now become some sort of “Serial Apostate Prophet” as Ridvan Aydemir recently announced that he has “apostatized” from atheism and converted to (Orthodox) Christianity:

Only time will tell if this move is nothing more than just the next grift. Since the growing “fatigue” of New Atheism, the newest way for someone to present themself as a Western civilization supremacist is for them to adopt a form of identitarian (but not necessarily religious) Christianity (refer also to the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali).

Ridvan, when he was just “Apostate Prophet,” used to love highlighting the illiberal aspects of Islam. With Christianity also being a premodern religion, however, it goes without saying that it too contains a plethora of illiberal teachings and views. One wonders if he will attack these elements of his new faith. Also, considering that this new “Serial Apostate Prophet” is still very much a zealous Zionist, we should probably take a look at the longstanding tradition of Christian antisemitism.

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Christian Antisemitism

Christian antisemitism has a very extensive history, and it finds its roots within the Gospels. For example, one of the most major antisemitic charges was that of “deicide,” i.e., the idea that Jews have “killed God” on the basis that, according to Trinitarian theology, Jesus (peace be upon him) is considered to be God.

Highly exalted is He — [far] above what they say! — and most high with the greatest sublimity. (Qur’an, 17:43)

Perhaps worse yet is what is found in Matthew 27:22–25, where the Jews are portrayed as not merely being OK with this supposed “deicide” but even accepting ownership of it outright and with great pride, to the extent that they gladly accept an eternal hereditary responsibility and culpability for all Jews for supposedly having shed the blood of Jesus (peace be upon him):

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.

 

They all answered, “Crucify him!”

 

“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

 

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

 

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

 

All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”

Of course, as Muslims, we know that Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) was not killed but was instead raised to the heavens alive and shall once again return.

Another contentious passage is that of John 8:44, which seems to associate Jews with Satan. This association went on to permeate medieval Europe, as demonstrated by Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg in his book, The Devil and the Jews (1943):

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

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These and many other such verses found in the Gospels would naturally cement antisemitism within the minds of the Christian laymen, as well as its most prominent theologians. It is the reason why many academics, both Christian and Jew, have written numerous books and articles on this very subject—especially since Christian antisemitism was linked to the Shoah or Holocaust, along with the annihilation of some 6 million Jews in Europe.

Among the Christian scholars who have written on this, we have the late “ecofeminist” Rosemary Radford Ruether, who authored Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (1975). Ruether starts off her book by showcasing how Christian antisemitism is indeed rooted in both the Gospels and the Pauline epistles. Despite being a Christian herself, she also debunks a popular Christian apologist deceit, i.e., that these attacks on Jews were aimed solely at the corrupt religious leaders and not the “average” Jew. Instead, the reality appears to be quite the contrary. She writes on page 89:

Some recent Christian apologists have argued that this meant only the “bad authorities,” not the “Jewish people” themselves […] any significant distinction between “leaders” and “people” does not hold even for this early period, for the “crowds” are ever fickle, and this is an “evil and adulterous generation.” By the time we reach the traditions which formed the usage of the word Jews in the New Testament tradition, this word has come to mean quite simply the “Jewish religious community”.

More intriguingly, Ruether examines the Church Fathers, generally considered to be the most important theologians of Christianity (active from the 1st to the 8th century, while reaching their peak in the 4th to the 5th century). It turns out that they had an entire “tradition” (the term she uses) of writing works that were “Adversos Judaeos,” i.e., “Against the Jews” (p.123):

The adversos Judaeos tradition was a literary tradition, the themes of which remain quite constant from the second to the sixth centuries.

What she describes as “perhaps the most extraordinary theme” among the many negative tropes associated with the Jews found within the writings of the Church Fathers, is the following (p.128):

Perhaps the most extraordinary theme in this repertoire of sins is the charge that the Jews were infanticides and sacrificed their children to demons. Psalm 106:37 (a standard source for the patristic “catalogue of crimes”) was the basis for this idea. Chrysostom, in his sixth sermon, draws particularly on this and other sources to portray Old Testament people as inveterate debauchers and idolators who “sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.” Chrysostom repeatedly speaks of the Jews as “godless, idolators, pedicides, stoning the prophets and committing ten thousand horrors” (Or. C. Jud. 6, 2). In his fifth sermon, he also declares that they were cannibals, eating their own children (Or. C. Jud. 5, 6: Deut. 28:56 and Lam. 4:10).

John Chrysostom (from the 4th century) is one of the most respected theologians in the Christian tradition, across denominations. He is known in particular for his spirited prose and oratory skills, and he made some of the most antisemitic utterances you’ll ever come across. Ruether quotes some other sermons of his that are infused with very flowery language about all Jews, the likes of which you’d struggle to find in any classical Islamic literature (pp.178–179):

I know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of life worthy of respect at the present time. This is why I am hurrying to pull up this fatal notion by the roots… A place where a whore stands on display is a whorehouse. What is more, the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theater; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals… not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal… The Jews have no conception of [spiritual] things at all, but living for the lower nature, all agog for the here and now, no better disposed than pigs or goats, they live by the rule of debauchery and inordinate gluttony. Only one thing they understand: to gorge themselves and to get drunk. [Chry. Or. C. Jud. 1, 3, 4;PG 48, 847, 848]

 

The synagogue is not only a place of vice and impiety. It is a haunt of the demons. The very souls of Jews are haunts of demons. Wrongly do Christians look for healing from the Jews, for demons cannot heal, Or even if they do heal, they heal by the power of the Devil and not that of God. Better to die, than to be healed by demons and lose one’s soul (Chry. Or. C. Jud.I, 6-7; PG 48, 852-55).

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He wasn’t the only antisemitic Church Father either. Gabriel Wilensky wrote a book on the subject from the Jewish perspective, titled Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust (2010). Just the title itself is telling enough. Wilensky too decides to examine what the Church Fathers had to say. Here’s a pretty straightforward quote that he presents from Ambrose of Milan (4th century), who predates John Chrysostom by a few years and is particularly influential in the history of Western Christianity (p.98):

The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil. Their religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate them.

Wilensky eventually makes a direct link between Christian antisemitism and the Holocaust, demonstrating well the active support of the Christian clergy for the ideology of national-socialist Germany (and he provides numerous proofs of such an unholy union).

We could go on, presenting quotes upon quotes from Church Fathers, but the reader should get the general idea by now. Also, note that we are speaking only of the Church Fathers here, the very “elite” of Christian theology. We’d also be able to present far more if we weren’t to limit ourselves to them alone and instead included all of the Christian theologians or “saints” who have spoken negatively about the Jews.

Anyway, we are left with some interesting questions:

Will the “Serial Apostate Prophet,” the latest development in the comedy show that is Ridvan, be brave enough to take on the most influential theologians of his newfound religion and, more generally, will he critique all of the illiberal elements of Christianity?

Will he start refuting Judaism as a religion and its teachings about Jesus, non-Jews, etc., from the perspective of being a Christian?

Will he ever get over Islam, or will it continue to be his ultimate obsession that lives rent-free inside his head?

Will he now identify as an “ex-atheist” and dedicate much of his time towards attacking atheism and atheistic liberalism and secularism?

What do you think?

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