I recently returned from the LeFrak Conference which was held at Seton Hill University in Greensburg Pennsylvania. Seton Hill houses the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education.
The keynote address was given by Dr. Michael Berenbaum, whose list of credentials and positions is endless. He addressed the issue of “The Memory of the Holocaust: Challenges to 21st Century Christians and Jews”. There were two challenges which stood out for me from the three or four he mentioned.
The first is the challenge being driven by the new religious fundamentalism in the world. It is being driven in both Roman Catholic and Protestant circles as those communions seek to recover the so-called ‘fundamentals’ of an earlier church without reflecting on the advances made in biblical and theological studies over the past 55 years. It appears, according to Berenbaum, that the attempts since 1945, in the shadow of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which sought to end the cycle of lack of respect, supersessionism and contempt in the Christian Church, have met head on with the attempts to recover the past.
The Roman Catholic Church led the way with Vatican II transforming the lack of respect, supersessionism and contempt into mutual respect and recognition. It did so through changes in the texts of the liturgy, the building of personal relationships and recognizing the personal and communal integrity of the Jewish faith. The effect of Vatican II upon the Protestant Churches cannot be minimized.
With the rise of religious fundamentalism – that is to say, more precisely, Biblicism, the learning and reflections since 1945 have taken several steps back, and a new era of lack of respect, supersessionism and contempt have swept the world, and more to the point, the United States.
What is meant by lack of respect, supersessionism and contempt?
The roots go back to the very beginnings of Christianity as the followers of Jesus became separated from the synagogue and what would lead to Judaism. Christians adopted the attitude in the Roman Empire (which was inherited from the empire under Alexander and his descendants) that Jews were unpatriotic, thought themselves special. These views arose out of a failure to understand or appreciate what Jews believed.
Christians in an attempt to disassociate themselves from Judaism after the rebellions of Jewish zealots of 66-70CE and 135 CE, began to develop a theological justification for the existence of the Church by claiming that the Church was the New Israel. They pointed out that their argument was logical given that the Jews suffered two staggering defeats and finally exile from Jerusalem which the Romans destroyed and renamed. The Church superseded Israel.
The issue of contempt follows from this claim of supersessionism as Christians denigrated Jewish teachings and writings and developed policies which held Jews in contempt.
The second challenge to 21st Century Christians and Jews concerns those of us who are alive now, are being taught now, reflecting now, in leadership now. We are the transitional generation. After Auschwitz the greatest challenge to people of faith is human rights, according to Berenbaum. Humans rights are central to all religious thinking and reflection. Human rights is a down to earth thing. That does not mean it will be without disagreement and argument.
Berenbaum laid out the thinking of the Roman Catholic – and by extension- the Protestant communions when it comes to how we frame our references in terms of rights. He traces it to Thomas Aquinas where the talk was of “duties” of and not rights of a person in society. This theological structure was incorporated into the state. Depending on a person’s position in society there were incumbent obligations. For example, lords to their King, serfs to their lord and so forth.
Under this kind of framework faith determined the rights. Adherence to the dominant church determined if one had rights. For example, Jews may have been accorded certain rights, but no Jewish person could own land. They could enter some professions but no others. “Toleration” was exercised only because of the possibility of conversion.
The breakdown of this system of thinking in the church began with the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic Wars, spreading through Europe. It continued with threat of Marxism captivating the hopes of workers and under John XXIII and Vatican II, was suppressed but not totally eliminated. Vatican II is the Roman Catholic reflection in the shadow of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Major Protestant groups were swept into the eddy with similar pronouncements and liturgical changes.
Only with the rise of the “evangelicals” – a classification given by the news media to the politically right wing churches – was it clear that in much of sectarian Protestantism, the idea of “faith” as a standard of acceptance was once again on the rise. The most radical case arising in Islam with the rise of religious terrorism in the Middle East and the world.
In one of the addresses following Berenbaum, the speaker asked the question: “Does what we believe change after Auschwitz?” But perhaps the question is: “Does HOW we believe change after Auschwitz?” as much as “WHY” we believe?
At the Triennial Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue sponsored by the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University, the presenters address the issue of religion and modernity. Donniel Hartmann pointed out the complexity with which people in modern times must deal. For people of faith this means raising the question of how I live as a person of faith amid all the complexities in which I live from day to day. The danger is always to become simplistic as if we could return to Eden and make everything okay, or follow the dictates of this or that religious text and everything would be “kosher”.
I believe that Christians – all people of faith – must examine what they believe and how they believe and express that believing in the shadow of Auschwitz. If we do not the lack of respect, the claims of supersessionism and the expression of contempt for the other may easily rise up somewhere against “the other”.
Pastor Chris Anderson, ret., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; co-chair SRCM