How could you gaze with glee
On your brother that day,
On his day of calamity!
How could you gloat
Over the people of Judah
On that day of ruin!
How could you loudly jeer
On a day of anguish!
How could you enter the gate of My people
On its day of disaster,
Gaze in glee with the others
On its misfortune
On its day of disaster,
And lay hands on its wealth
On its day of disaster!
How could you stand at the passes
To cut down its fugitives!
How could you betray those who fled
On that day of anguish!
As you did, so shall it be done to you;
Your conduct shall be requited.
Yea, against all nations
The day of the LORD is at hand.
Obadiah 1:12-15
Introduction
In this inquiry, I will examine one of the most painful and persistent challenges confronting the worldwide Christian community: the need to heal the damage to Christian identity and legitimacy after the Christian failure to defend their Jewish neighbors during the Nazi extermination program during the Holocaust.
The destruction of one third of the worldwide Jewish community was a catastrophe for Jews and Judaism, but it also left Christians confronted with what one theologian called an “agonizing crisis of conscience” and questions about “the intrinsic worth of the Christian faith itself.”
What kind of people would see the destruction and death of their neighbors as fulfilling a curse from God and fail to speak out in protest? What kind of religion would preach “love the neighbor as yourself” and define the neighbor as those from other cultures, such as the ancient Samaritans, yet submit to Nazi racism and domination?
As soon as the war ended, a number of prophetic voices challenged the Christian community to recognize its responsibility for creating a culture that made the Nazi Holocaust possible. One of
the most passionate was the voice of French historian Jules Isaac who accused the Church of a
“teaching of contempt” for Judaism and Jews.
For the past 60 years, the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have responded to his call in a range of pastoral statements repudiating anti- Judaism and antisemitism and seeking a mutual, respectful dialogue with the worldwide Jewish community.
The task of examining Christian doctrine and tradition has fallen to theologians who have worked to identify and reject the historically anti-Jewish Christian teachings and polemics and re-interpret traditional dogmas from a perspective of respect.
However, recently, this effort seems bogged down in internecine academic controversies and has become disconnected from changing world events, such as the conflict in the Middle East between the State of Israel and the Palestinians.
Most importantly, the post-Holocaust reinterpretation of traditional Christian doctrines has faced resistance from core Christian beliefs, raising the question: Can the effort to purge all rejection of Judaism from Christian doctrines go too far and sacrifice Christian identity? If so, this would present a serious challenge to greater progress in Christian post- Holocaust theology.
In this thesis, I will argue that the symptoms of an impasse in post-Holocaust Christian
theology are a reflection of the overly conceptual approach to the problem. With every passing
decade, the theological approach to Christian anti-Judaism and antisemitism has become more
and more misinterpreted as a problem of incorrect concepts.
The assumption is that with enough thought and discussion, the problem of anti-Jewish beliefs and attitudes can be solved through intellectual reformulations of Christian doctrines. Instead, I will propose that while, clearly, this re-thinking process is an important step, it is only a part of a larger, more important process, the process of a transforming a spirit of contempt for Judaism within Christianity into a spirit of respect.
As Jules Isaac noted, the real problem is not primarily intellectual, or doctrinal, but spiritual. I will suggest that the anti-Judaic doctrines in Christianity do not emanate primarily from incorrect concepts but from the spirit in which those concepts are interpreted, just as a defective lens distorts everything seen through it.
For Christianity, the lens though which it views Judaism has been distorted historically by a spirit of hatred and its more subtle manifestations of arrogance and self-sufficient superiority, what Jules Isaac so correctly named as contempt. Essential Christian doctrines and Jewish beliefs may be mutually exclusive, but it is the spiritual lens of contempt and superiority that has created their mutual antagonism historically.
Not only has this anti-Judaism blinded Christians to a proper understanding of Judaism as a religion and led to a racialized, ethnic antisemitism toward the Jewish community as a people, but it has also damaged Christianity. Until recently, the Christian antipathy toward Judaism has deflected the Church from turning a prophetic critique on itself, obscured the Jewish origins of Christianity and devalued the embodiment of the early Christian community in its historical reality.
Franz Rosenzweig critiqued what he saw as a Christian tendency to exaggerate the spiritual at the expense of the carnal as “a deification of the Spirit” or “a spiritualization of God.” Just as important, Christian complacency and arrogance has prevented Christians from facing their profound failure to obey the call of Jesus to love God and neighbor, even unto death, when it has counted the most.
If this spirit is healed and the lens repaired, a Christianity free of hateful anti Judaism and antisemitism will understand both Judaism and Christianity more deeply. Such a repair – tikkun olam in Hebrew — requires spiritual healing through teshuvah, the Hebrew word for repentance and a return to God. Teshuvah has the power to turn the very real differences in Christian and Jewish belief from intellectual swords into plowshares, from weapons into tools for deeper understanding and new energy.
As the Roman Catholic Church has recognized, much has been done but the necessary teshuvah must be “confirmed and deepened.” Finishing the process of teshuvah will allow Christians to hear the one God speak in two voices.
(This is an 8-page excerpt of the 128-page MA thesis.
For a copy of the complete thesis,
please email me at )