Enemies of Jesus Christ or Christianity

Basic Info

The prophetic message of Jesus’ teaching was twofold. On the one hand, Jesus taught that the people responsible for teaching the people how to keep the covenant with God were themselves not keeping the covenant; they were caught up in the details of the Law while forgetting the core of the Law: to love God and neighbor. On the other hand, Jesus was critical of the oppression wrought on the people by the Roman government and its tax collectors; in those days, none of the taxes collected went into retirement benefits or medical care for the masses. Thus Jesus made enemies among the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities. The antagonism between each of these groups and Jesus’ followers continued after Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection.

During Christian history, Christians have understood someone to be an enemy for diverse reasons. One could become an enemy of Christianity by wanting land that was in Christian hands, by being Jewish or Muslim, for holding ideas that were different from Christian ideas, for protesting Christian practices, for having Christian ideas that were different than other Christian ideas, for maintaining an ideology that disparages Christianity as superstitious and harmful to the populace, and so on.

Christians have dealt with their enemies in just as wide a variety of ways. Christians went to war if they could justify such an action. They put heretics to death if they would not recant their heretical beliefs. They destroyed religious objects of some non-Christians while integrating other aspects of these religions into Christianity. They persecuted groups of Christians whose Christianity was different from the dominant group’s Christianity. One Christian group might migrate away from another Christian group to escape persecution. Sometimes Christian groups have practiced underground, hidden from persecuting authorities for many years. Some Christians have even resorted to genocide to deal with their enemies.

Artists have both affirmed and challenged the way Christians have dealt with their enemies. When affirming the us-against-them position, they tend to depict the enemy as immoral, ignorant, evil, demonic, or Satanic. When challenging the Christian treatment of enemies, artists tend to use Christianity’s own tenets against it.

Historical Notes

In the decades after Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection, Roman oppression worsened and Christians were martyred routinely. When the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the early 300s, Roman oppression ended. From the 300s into the 600s, Christians in Europe had to fight off barbarian pagan invaders coming from the south and the north. In the 600s, the Prophet Muhammad united a large number of tribes under one religion (Islam). By 750 it was a force to be reckoned for Europe as it expanded its holdings. In addition, Muslims began to colonize North Africa and Spain. When the Muslims demolished the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in 1009, Christian leaders across Western Europe saw this as an attack on Christianity. By the end of the 11^th century, the 1^st Crusade was launched to take back control of the Holy Land. 

Anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jewish people) has often been deeply entrenched in Christianity. Christian art has not been immune from this disease. Artworks depicting Jewish people in New Testament stories often depict them as evil or ignorant. But in Old Testament stories, Christian artists tend to treat Jewish people with respect, considering them the ancestors of Christians.

In Western Europe, from the 12^th century through the 16^th, Christian leaders were determined to fight any threats to the faith. Anyone who wasn’t Christian became an enemy as a source of heresy, or thought contrary to Christian thought. Thus Jews, Muslims, witches, pagans, and Christians who had new ideas about Christianity were tried and punished in a series of inquisitions. In the early 16^th century, opponents of some of the abuses that had crept into Catholicism protested the unethical practices and called for reform. This was the start of the Protestant Reformation.

This in turn started a round of wars between Catholic countries and Protestant countries, each vying for more power over more land and more people. Protestant art portrays Catholics as the enemy of Christianity, and Catholic art portrays Protestants as the enemy of Christianity.

At about the same time, explorers were discovering and conquering the New World. Missionaries were not far behind the explorers / conquerors. From their perspective, the native peoples of the Americas offered Christianity the opportunity to create a new utopian Christianity, far away from the corrupt Christianity of Europe. These missionaries saw enemies in both the sloppy corrupt Christianity of the soldiers and merchants from Europe and in the pagan religions of the native peoples.

Wars are mostly fought over who controls which territory and which group of people. Religion is used as an ideological hook to garner support. The religious issue then becomes the face of the war when the real issue is power and territory. Both sides in both World Wars used religion to bolster their own side’s stance. 

In the 20^th century, Christians in Soviet Bloc countries faced persecution as do Christians in countries ruled by other totalitarian regimes today. 

What to Look For

• The physical appearance of the enemies (faces, bodies, skin, eyes, etc.)
• The attitudes or emotional states of the enemies (expressions, postures, gestures, etc.)
• Unifying features of the enemies (clothing, facial expression, etc.)
• Differences among the enemies (hair, clothing, facial expression, etc.)
• Violence or other vices evident in the enemies (greed, lust, anger, envy, laziness, gluttony, pride, etc.)
• Evidence of any particular affiliation in the enemies (uniforms, flags, etc.)

Questions to Focus a General Interpretation

Does the artwork focus on the identity of the enemies of Christ or Christianity, what they do to Christ or Christians, or what Christians do to them?

Does the artist use physical features to distinguish the enemies from the friends? Is the symbolism still obvious in our own day?

Questions to Guide a Personal Interpretation

Are there traits depicted in these enemies that seem not so bad in our day? What is the relationship between cultural norms and the definition of sin? Are there traits depicted in the enemies that you recognize in yourself? Do you think you should try to change these traits?

Questions to Suggest a Historical Interpretation



Does the artwork explicitly link the enemies of Christ or Christianity with any particular oppressors or enemies of the artist’s time and place?