Nice to see we're returning to "traditional values":

Poll: More Now Believe Jews Killed Jesus

The percentage of Americans who believe Jews were responsible for killing Jesus has grown in recent years, although it remains a view held by a minority of people, according to a poll released Friday.

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found 26 percent of respondents believe Jews were to blame for the Crucifixion, up from 19 percent in ABC News poll in 1997.

The greatest increase was among young people and blacks.

Thirty-four percent of those under age 30 now believe Jews were responsible, compared to 10 percent in 1997, the Pew Center said. And 42 percent of blacks hold that view, compared to 21 percent seven years ago....

--Newsday/AP

At the Pew Center site, there's more:

The increasing sense among some groups that Jews were responsible for Christ's death comes amid controversy over the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ." A relatively large proportion of people who have seen the movie (36%) feel Jews were responsible for Christ's death. However, this is also the case among people who plan to see the movie (29%), suggesting people who are drawn to this movie may be predisposed to this opinion more than others....

I could blame this on Mel, but notice that people who plan to see the movie but haven't gotten around to it feel that Jews killed Christ in greater numbers than those who aren't interested in the movie. So I think something else is going on.

Remember what Mel Gibson said when people complained about elements of his movie that might inspire anti-Semitism: He said he was just taking elements right out of the Bible. And he has a point. "His blood be on us, and on our children" is straight from the Bible. The Bible says Jewish crowds demanded Christ's death.

The contemporary Catholic Church (with which Gibson is at odds) says that depictions of Christ's suffering and death should deemphasize Bible passages that suggest Jews are evil and are the culprits in Christ's death (see, e.g., this and this). Mainline Protestant churches also reject the notion that Jews killed Christ.

My sense is that a lot of fundamentalist preachers aren't so careful. And they may not even be anti-Semitic -- they may just believe that "every word of the Bible must be taken literally." So if Jews in Matthew 27:25 say, "His blood be on us, and on our children," well, that's the word of God, isn't it?

The influence of fundamentalist, politically conservative Christians is growing steadily in America. It's primarily white, but I think there's a lot more communication between white churches and black churches than there used to be. And there's a lot of Christian conservative outreach to kids.

All this is just educated guessing. But I think this is a counterculture in development.