Authors: Donald Dietrich
ISBN-13: 9781412808583, ISBN-10: 1412808588
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Date Published: September 2008
Edition: (Non-applicable)
God and Humanity in Auschwitz synthesizes the findings of research developed over the last thirty years on the rise of antisemitism in our civilization. Dietrich sees the Holocaust as a case study of how prejudice has been theologically enculturated. He suggests how it may be controlled by reducing aggressive energy before it becomes overwhelming. Dietrich studies the recent responses of Christian theologians to the Holocaust and the Jewish theological response to questions concerning God's covenant with Israel, which were provoked by Auschwitz. Social science has dealt with the psychosocial dynamics that have supported genocide and helps explain how ordinary persons can produce extraordinary evil. Dietrich shows how this research, combined with the theological analyses, can help reconfigure theology itself. Such an approach may serve to help dissolve antisemitism, to aid in constructing such positive values as respect for human dignity, and to point the way to restricting future outbreaks of genocide. God and Humanity in Auschwitz surveys which religious factors created a climate that permitted the Holocaust. It also illuminates what social science has to tell us about developing a strategy that, when institutionally implemented, can channel our energies away from sanctioned murder toward a more compassionate society. It is an essential resource for theologians, sociologists, historians, and political theorists.
A frank analysis and synthesis of recent findings, both Jewish and Christian, on a still very sensitive issue. The author, a Catholic theologian, views the Holocaust as a case study of theologically inspired anti-Semitism, and its implications for Christians and Christianity. With all the tools of the social sciences, he deftly demonstrates how ordinary people can produce extraordinary evil.
Acknowledgments | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | Christian Antisemitism and European Civilization | 15 |
Early Christian Antisemitism | 17 | |
Modern Theologians on Early Antisemitism | 22 | |
Medieval and Modern Antisemitism | 34 | |
Antisemitism and the Christian Faith-Experience | 47 | |
2 | Institutional Catholic Attitudes to Judaism and the Jewish People | 61 |
The Modern Catholic Church and Antisemitism prior to John Paul II | 63 | |
John Paul II and the Church's Ambivalent Positions | 78 | |
Catholic Institutional Identity and Antisemitism | 89 | |
3 | Scripture and Contextual Antisemitism | 99 |
Scriptures as Products of Living Communities | 103 | |
Continuity or Discontinuity in the Scriptures | 109 | |
Proleptic Christology | 115 | |
4 | Theology and the Christian-Jewish Dialogue: The Spectrum of Issues | 125 |
Christian Theology and Judaism | 126 | |
Christian Identity and the Jewish Revelatory Experience | 133 | |
The Formation of Christian Identity | 145 | |
5 | Christology and Antisemitism | 159 |
Discontinuity and Covenants | 162 | |
Rethinking the Discontinuity Thesis | 165 | |
The Christ-event and Human Dignity | 177 | |
The Single Covenant and the Eclipse of Fulfillment | 182 | |
Pluralism and Complementarity | 187 | |
6 | Jewish Faith After the Holocaust: The God-of-History | 199 |
Richard Rubenstein | 201 | |
Emil Fackenheim | 209 | |
Ignaz Maybaum | 212 | |
Eliezer Berkovits | 214 | |
Humanity and God as the Architects of Society | 217 | |
7 | Political Theology and Foundational Values | 227 |
The Event and Authentic Theology | 231 | |
Praxis and Theory | 236 | |
Action as Concretized Knowledge | 243 | |
Theory-Praxis and its Potential Impact | 248 | |
8 | The Holocaust and Modernity | 259 |
The Holocaust and Nazi Germany | 260 | |
The Holocaust and the Psychosocial Dynamics of a Normal Society | 266 | |
The Development of Prosocial Values | 282 | |
9 | Conclusion | 291 |
Bibliography | 309 | |
Index | 351 |