As Jews in Munich, Germany gathered Friday evening for Shabbat prayers, an anti-Semitic crowd commenced a march right by their synagogue. It sounds like an incident from 1935, but it happened just last Friday. Yet last weekend’s incident had a different instigating motive from the Nazi horror, because the intimidating crowd was not pro-Germany but pro-Hamas. Native Germans also gathered at the synagogue, but they showed up to protect it, creating a vivid clash of worldviews.

The pro-Hamas march was organized by a German activist group “Palaestina Spricht” (Palestine Speaks) under the innocuous-sounding slogan, “Stop the Genocide. Free Palestine.” But the roughly 750 marchers soon displayed a more malicious motivation through their chants: “Death to the IDF,” “Zionists are fascists, child murderers, and racists,” and “There is only one state: Palestine.” Incredibly, anti-Semitic speakers claimed the Israeli hostages were “war criminals,” while praising Hamas, the side that has actually committed war crimes.

The march’s anti-Semitic poison came as no surprise. Palestine Speaks is the sort of “anti-Zionist” group that shows their opposition to the nation-state of Israel by harassing Jews living abroad. Recently, they mobilized street protests to prevent an Israeli chef from opening a restaurant in Berlin. When the opening was postponed, they “welcome[d] the news of this postponement” but added that they “will only accept permanent closure.” Palestine Speaks is monitored by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Verfassungsschutz, which translates to “the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”

The anti-Semitic street presence at Sabbath sunset did not go unnoticed by residents of Munich. Several hundred residents assembled outside the synagogue in a human chain, physically separating the anti-Semitic marchers from the synagogue. Perhaps shamed by this public display of support for protecting Jews, the Munich Police Department later deployed 150 officers to protect the synagogue, as well as checkpoints and mounted units.

At a counter-rally, Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch criticized the city for allowing the pro-Hamas march to take place, in that place, at that time. When asked why the march was allowed, the city of Munich responded that there was not a sufficient indication of risk to issue a ban. Even without the protections of America’s First Amendment, the rights of speech and assembly still enjoy some freedom in Germany.

One commentator reported that “hundreds of Christians … formed a human chain” around the synagogue “to protect it from an Islamist demonstration that aimed to intimidate the local Jewish community.” As simple and evocative as that narrative is, there is scant evidence to show that the entire crowd that protected the synagogue was motivated by Christian beliefs.

Christians certainly had a presence outside the synagogue. “Standing by the side of our Jewish brothers and sisters is the least we can do,” said a nun named Sister Gisela, who stood outside the synagogue wearing a yellow hostage pin. Former regional bishop Susanne Breit-Kessler of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria spoke at the counter-rally. And Bernhard Liess, dean of the Evangelical Lutheran District of Munich, wrote on Instagram, “Why a pro-Palestinian demonstration with loud anti-Israel slogans must pass by the Munich Jakob Synagogue precisely on Friday evening at the start of the Shabbat services remains a nuisance and incomprehensible.”

Yet the synagogue’s protective cordon also featured members of non-religious or even progressive groups, including the anti-racism group “Munich is Colorful” and members of “Grandmothers Against the Right.”

In fairness to the commentator, the point he was trying to make is a legitimate one: there is a sharp contrast between Christianity and Islam on the issue of religious liberty. “Religion of peace” claims notwithstanding, Islam has often advanced at the point of the sword. Certainly, the violent intolerance toward Jews shown by Iran, its terrorist proxies, and their Islamist enablers in the West illustrate the ongoing preference for compulsion among a significant portion of the Islamic world.

On the other hand is Christianity, which represents a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36). The Lord Jesus Christ taught that, even if an enemy sowed weeds among his wheat (a parable for unbelievers mixed-in with true believers), his servants must not remove them, “lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.” Instead, Jesus told them to wait for a perfect separation in the final judgment (Matthew 13:24-30).

This is appropriate to the nature of Christian faith, which is an internal reality brought about when someone’s mind and conscience are convinced of the reality of their sin and the efficacy of Jesus’s saving work. Such faith cannot be coerced. It must be arrived at freely.

Thus, Christianity introduced the notion of religious liberty into the world. It is true that some non-Christians now share an ideal of religious liberty, but the doctrine and its foundation remain essentially Christian. If non-religious Germans are willing to defend a Jewish congregation from an anti-Semitic mob, they learned to value those impulses from their nation’s Christian heritage. A Christian vision of religious liberty is true and aligned with human nature; therefore, it is compelling and persuasive.

In “Liberty for All: Defending Everyone’s Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age,” Baptist ethicist Andrew Walker follows other thinkers in grounding this ethic in the Noahic covenant (Genesis 9:1-7). The Noahic covenant contains rules for the preservation of human life, human industry, and human procreation, which apply to all members of post-Flood humanity, as mediated by God-instituted government, he reasons. Notably absent from this covenant is any restriction on worship, which he takes to mean that human governments are not competent to judge someone’s relationship with God. Only God can judge the heart, for he is “the judge of all” (Genesis 18:25; Hebrews 12:23).

By contrast, Islam — and most other worldly systems — have no qualms about forcing their worldview upon others, nor about harassing those who, like Jews, believe differently. These worldly systems threaten religious freedom, not only in Germany but even in America, where adherents of a totalitarian, progressive ideology seek to jettison the Christian ballast that has stabilized America for the past two-and-a-half centuries.

To preserve our religious freedom, Christians ought to pray, as Paul urged Timothy, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2). When worldly systems restrain themselves from imposing on the conscience of others, it promotes the common good of religious freedom — not only for Christians, but also those who believe differently — even those we hope will come to faith in Jesus Christ, freely and not from coercion.