God and Humanity in Auschwitz

by Dietrich, Donald J.

• ISBN13: 9781560001478
• ISBN10: 156000147X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-01-01
• Publisher: Transaction Pub

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Donald J. Dietrich is chairman of the Department of Theology at Boston College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
Christian Antisemitism and European Civilization	p. 15
Early Christian Antisemitism	p. 17
Modern Theologians on Early Antisemitism	p. 22
Medieval and Modern Antisemitism	p. 34
Antisemitism and the Christian Faith-Experience	p. 47
Institutional Catholic Attitudes to Judaism and the Jewish People	p. 61
The Modern Catholic Church and Antisemitism prior to John Paul II	p. 63
John Paul II and the Church's Ambivalent Positions	p. 78
Catholic Institutional Identity and Antisemitism	p. 89
Scripture and Contextual Antisemitism	p. 99
Scriptures as Products of Living Communities	p. 103
Continuity or Discontinuity in the Scriptures	p. 109
Proleptic Christology	p. 115
Theology and the Christian-Jewish Dialogue: The Spectrum of Issues	p. 125
Christian Theology and Judaism	p. 126
Christian Identity and the Jewish Revelatory Experience	p. 133
The Formation of Christian Identity	p. 145
Christology and Antisemitism	p. 159
Discontinuity and Covenants	p. 162
Rethinking the Discontinuity Thesis	p. 165
The Christ-event and Human Dignity	p. 177
The Single Covenant and the Eclipse of Fulfillment	p. 182
Pluralism and Complementarity	p. 187
Jewish Faith After the Holocaust: The God-of-History	p. 199
Richard Rubenstein	p. 201
Emil Fackenheim	p. 209
Ignaz Maybaum	p. 212
Eliezer Berkovits	p. 214
Humanity and God as the Architects of Society	p. 217
Political Theology and Foundational Values	p. 227
The Event and Authentic Theology	p. 231
Praxis and Theory	p. 236
Action as Concretized Knowledge	p. 243
Theory-Praxis and its Potential Impact	p. 248
The Holocaust and Modernity	p. 259
The Holocaust and Nazi Germany	p. 260
The Holocaust and the Psychosocial Dynamics of a Normal Society	p. 266
The Development of Prosocial Values	p. 282
Conclusion	p. 291
Bibliography	p. 309
Index	p. 351
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.