Christianity, Tragedy, and Holocaust Literature

Christianity, Tragedy, and Holocaust Literature PDF Author: Michael R. Steele
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Discusses the relationship (or the lack of one) between Holocaust literature and theories of tragedy, and examines Christianity's influence on tragedy and tragic theory, as well as the impact of Christianity on the reading of Holocaust literature. Focuses, especially, on the incongruence between Western tragic literature and the literature of atrocity (the Holocaust). Delineates five key components of the theories of tragedy - e.g. necessity, destiny; redemptive knowledge; suffering, innocence, guilt; human affirmation; characteristics of the tragic hero - and raises questions regarding their applicability to Holocaust literature, focusing on works by Elie Wiesel, Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Kosinski, and Rolf Hochhuth. Notes that tragedy is an integral part of the West's cultural and philosophical history; it is also imbued with Christian theological views of transcendence. Christianity's claims regarding its supersession of Judaism helped prepare the conditions that were necessary for Jews to become the victims of the Nazis. Therefore, Christians must reassess their theological views in order to confront the Holocaust and its literature.

Christianity, Tragedy, and Holocaust Literature

Christianity, Tragedy, and Holocaust Literature PDF Author: Michael R. Steele
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book

Book Description
Discusses the relationship (or the lack of one) between Holocaust literature and theories of tragedy, and examines Christianity's influence on tragedy and tragic theory, as well as the impact of Christianity on the reading of Holocaust literature. Focuses, especially, on the incongruence between Western tragic literature and the literature of atrocity (the Holocaust). Delineates five key components of the theories of tragedy - e.g. necessity, destiny; redemptive knowledge; suffering, innocence, guilt; human affirmation; characteristics of the tragic hero - and raises questions regarding their applicability to Holocaust literature, focusing on works by Elie Wiesel, Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Kosinski, and Rolf Hochhuth. Notes that tragedy is an integral part of the West's cultural and philosophical history; it is also imbued with Christian theological views of transcendence. Christianity's claims regarding its supersession of Judaism helped prepare the conditions that were necessary for Jews to become the victims of the Nazis. Therefore, Christians must reassess their theological views in order to confront the Holocaust and its literature.

Holocaust and Church Struggle

Holocaust and Church Struggle PDF Author: Hubert G. Locke
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761803751
Category : Anti-Nazi movement
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description


Christianity, The Other, and The Holocaust

Christianity, The Other, and The Holocaust PDF Author: Michael R. Steele
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 9780313306457
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
According to the author, Christianity offers a powerful system of rewards and incentives to create cultural uniformity. Those who do not join in this cultural uniformity become anathematized, oppressed, marginalized, and ultimately removed from the Christian circle of moral obligation. Using culture studies as a framework for analysis, Steele investigates the ways in which Christianity created cultural conditions based on a theology of violence and the use of sacred violence to foster behaviors that would lead to the involvement of millions of perpetrators and bystanders during the many instances of extreme violence used against the Other over the centuries. As the original Disconfirming Other in the Christian cultural world, Jews often served as the primary target. Thus, there was a system of definitions, rewards, incentives, and victims already in place when the Nazis came to power. Calling for a re-evaluation of the cultural practices and values that have developed within Christianity over time, this important new book helps account for the phenomenon of the Nazi perpetrators and bystanders during the Holocaust. Framing the Holocaust as a late but logical development in a long series of violent responses by Christianity to the Other—those who stand outside the Christian world, either by geographical accident, religious tradition, or some other factor—the author attempts to show how the Holocaust, while not a specifically Christian event, was nevertheless sanctioned and conditioned by other events in the history of Christianity. Using culture studies to frame his analysis, Steele focuses on historical antecedents that help account for the apathy of bystanders and point to the preexistence of a moral framework supporting and empowering the perpetrators of the Holocaust. This unique perspective concludes that the Nazis invented almost nothing with regard to the Shoah, and that, instead, a long-standing insistence on cultural hegemony played a much bigger role in the attempted destruction of the Jewish community.

Christ, Faith, and the Holocaust

Christ, Faith, and the Holocaust PDF Author: Richard Terrell
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1449709117
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
How did the Holocaust take place in a nation of rich Christian history and cultural achievement? What ideasspiritual and intellectualcontributed to the nightmare of Adolf Hitlers Third Reich? What theological forces contributed to the confused witness of the Christian churches? How do Christians respond to the accusation that the Christian faith itself, even its own Scriptures, contributed to this modern tragedy? What can Christians today learn from those who did, in fact, stand in the evil day? In Christ, Faith, and the Holocaust, Richard Terrell responds to these haunting questions in a work of cultural apologetics that takes up the challenges and accusations that Christianity itself was a major cause of Nazisms destructive path. Here, the Nazi movement is exposed as a virulently anti-Christian spirituality, rooted in idolatrous doctrines that took every advantage of distorted theology and emotional pietism that had evolved in German thought and church life. Here you will find the drama and importance of ideas and stories of personal witness that will sharpen the contemporary Christians sense of discernment in the arena of spiritual warfare.

Shadows of Auschwitz

Shadows of Auschwitz PDF Author: Harry J. Cargas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780940989610
Category : Holocaust (Christian theology)
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Reflections, together with 61 photographs, on the Holocaust as the greatest tragedy for Christians since the crucifixion, a tragedy in which Christianity may be said to have died.

The Holocaust and the Christian World

The Holocaust and the Christian World PDF Author: Carol Rittner
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : Christianity and antisemitism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Sixty-seven essays edited by Rittner (Holocaust studies, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey) confront Christian antisemitism, and various churches' responses during and after the Holocaust.

Fire in the Ashes

Fire in the Ashes PDF Author: David Patterson
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295803150
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Sixty years after it ended, the Holocaust continues to leave survivors and their descendants, as well as historians, philosophers, and theologians, pondering the enormity of that event. This book explores how inquiry about the Holocaust challenges understanding, especially its religious and ethical dimensions. Debates about God's relationship to evil are ancient, but the Holocaust complicated them in ways never before imagined. Its massive destruction left Jews and Christians searching among the ashes to determine what, if anything, could repair the damage done to tradition and to theology. Since the end of the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have increasingly sought to know how or even whether theological analysis and reflection can aid in comprehending its aftermath. Specifically, Jews and Christians, individually and collectively, find themselves more and more in the position of needing either to rethink theodicy -- typically understood as the vindication of divine justice in the face of evil -- or to abolish the concept altogether. Writing in a format that creates the feel of dialogue, the contributors to Fire in the Ashes confront these and other difficult questions about God and evil after the Holocaust. This book -- created out of shared concerns and a desire to investigate differences and disagreements between religious traditions and philosophical perspectives -- represents an effort to advance meaningful conversation between Jews and Christians and to encourage others to participate in similar inter- and intrafaith inquiries. The contributors to Fire in the Ashes are members of the Pastora Goldner Holocaust Symposium. Led since its founding in 1996 by Leonard Grob and Henry F. Knight, the symposium's Holocaust and genocide scholars -- a group that is interfaith, international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational -- meet biennially in Oxfordshire, England.

The Holocaust, the Church, and the Law of Unintended Consequences

The Holocaust, the Church, and the Law of Unintended Consequences PDF Author: Anthony J. Sciolino
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1938908635
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
“I admire greatly the way in which Deacon Sciolino has been able to absorb a vast amount of material and weave it into a coherent account of the R. C. Church vis-à-vis the Holocaust. ... Telling the story ‘from the inside’ has an especial relevance and importance.” —Rev. Hubert G. Locke, cofounder of the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches The image of Jews as “God-killers” and their refusal to convert to Christianity has fueled a long tradition of Christian intolerance, hatred, and violence. It is no surprise, then, that when Adolf Hitler advocated the elimination of Jews, he found willing allies within the Catholic Church and Christianity itself. In this study, author Anthony J. Sciolino, himself a Catholic, cuts into the heart of why the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole failed to stop the Holocaust. He demonstrates that Nazism’s racial anti-Semitism was rooted in Christian anti-Judaism. While tens of thousands of Christians risked their lives to save Jews, many more—including some members of the hierarchy—aided Hitler’s campaign with their silence or their participation. Sciolino’s solid research and comprehensive interpretation provide a cogent and powerful analysis of Christian doctrine and church history to help answer the question of what went wrong. He suggests that Christian tradition and teaching systematically excluded Jews from “the circle of Christian concern” and thus led to the tragedy of the Holocaust. From the origins of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and the controversial position of Pope Pius XII to the Catholic Church’s current endeavors to hold itself accountable for their role, The Holocaust, the Church, and the Law of Unintended Consequences offers a vital examination of one of history’s most disturbing issues. theholocaustandchurch.com

Holocaust Theology

Holocaust Theology PDF Author: Dan Cohn-Sherbok
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814716202
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Where was God during the Holocaust? And where has God been since? How has our religious belief been changed by the Shoah? For more than half a century, these questions have haunted both Jewish and Christian theologians. Holocaust Theology provides a panoramic survey of the writings of more than one hundred leading Jewish and Christian thinkers on these profound theological problems. Beginning with a general introduction to Holocaust theology and the religious challenge of the Holocaust, this sweeping collection brings together in one volume a coherent overview of the key theologies which have shaped responses to the Holocaust over the last several decades, including those addressing perplexing questions regarding Christian responsibility and culpability during the Nazi era. Each reading is preceded by a brief introduction. The volume will be invaluable to Rabbis and the clergy, students, scholars of the Holocaust and of religion, and all those troubled by the religious implications of the tragedy of the Holocaust. Contributors include Leo Baeck, Eugene Borowitz, Stephen Haynes, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Steven T. Katz, Primo Levi, Jacob Neusner, John Pawlikowski, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Jonathan Sarna, Paul Tillich, and Elie Wiesel.

The Holocaust and the Christian World

The Holocaust and the Christian World PDF Author: Carol Rittner
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Sixty-seven essays edited by Rittner (Holocaust studies, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey) confront Christian antisemitism, and various churches' responses during and after the Holocaust. Includes a Shoah chronology, reflection questions, bandw photos, a videography, and online resources. Published in conjunction with the Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial Centre, UK, and Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies, Jerusalem. c. Book News Inc.