Where was God in the Holocaust?

[palmera]

The Holocaust changed forever the realities of Judaism and Christianity. The complicity of Christians (during the Holocaust 98% of Germans were Christian) in the destruction of the European Jews forever changed Jewish and Christian relations to each other, and to God. Some theologians and Biblical scholars have argued that to be a Christian post-Shoa is to be sensitive to the reality of the Holocaust and to temper responses to God, scripture, and humanity with acknowledgement of Christian responsibility in the Holocaust. So let's get to the task!

Q: Where was God in the Holocaust?
Q: How does God's implicity/absence in the face of millions of innocent Jewish women, men, and CHILDREN affect your response to God?
Q: Has the Holocaust effected your views on God?
Q: Do you think the Holocaust should have any bearing on how Christians think about God and humanity?

[palmera]

A second question for those willing to look, perhaps to poll, but not willing to respond:

Doesn't it seem fitting that the rampant denial shown by most Christians regarding all matters of the Holocaust (beyond the fact that it happened) is manifested here in the utter lack of responses to this most sensitive issue?

So many here in this forum are willing to talk about homosexuality, abortion, evolution, but not about the most important occurrence in the 20th century, and in Judaism and Christianity over the past two thousand years.

What kind of Christians- nay, what kind of HUMANS are we to sit by and let such an important diologue fall by the wayside?

[youngborean]

I'll take the bait here. I have thought about this a lot being a Christian and losing a lot of my extended family in the Holocaust. The national Christian state of Germany that you presented is an artificial demographic to me. It is a reflection of the danger in viewing Christianity from a source outside of the Bible (luther). Although Hitler admired Luther for his nationalism I do not believe that he was truly a Christian even though he claimed to be on. Many people have suggested that Hitler was into Nordic Mythology and some sort of paganism, citing his being a staunch vegetarian and Ruduloph Hess's love for this type of religion. That being said, many so-called Christians have misinterpreted the new Testament into an anti-Jewish mandate. All of these interpretation are completely against the teachings of the New Testament, so my answer is that God was against the Holocaust completely. Man disobeyed God to an extreme case and sought to erase God's remnant of his chosen people thereby nullifying God's promise to keep them. God, on the other hand, did keep them and restored them all over the world. In his Grace, God did not let evil prevail. Now Christians can see God's grace to his people and trust that God will also keep them.

[palmera]

Thank you for your response. The complicity of the German Christians in the Holocaust is complex and profound. The Christians of whom I speak do not include Hitler, but rather the hundreds of thousands who sat by during the slaughtering of millions of Jews and the Christian church in Germany, both Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran) that did nothing.
One problem I have is the claim that God was against the Holocaust and did not let evil prevail. In what way did God stand against the Holocaust? Where was God in the slaughtering of 1 million Jewish children? How did the deaths of 6 million Jews manifest God's covenant to his chosen people? In what way can a Christian sensitive to the horror of the Shoa "see God's grace to his people?" As one who also lost relatives in the Holocaust I can only wonder about others for whom time and distance make it possible for such idealized, romantic discourse of God's promise and God's grace. Where was the grace of God in the choking of hundreds of naked Jewish bodies in the gas chambers? Was God within the boils of living Jewish bodies while they were burning in the concentration camps? It is images like these that come to mind that make it impossible to to speak of God's grace, especially in such general terms.
Let's struggle with this. The Holocaust is an issue worth grappling with, wrestling with, and turning over in our minds and souls.

[harvey1]

Q: Where was God in the Holocaust?

God is ever-present and ever-knowing, so I don't see God as being somewhere else during the Holocaust.

Q: How does God's implicity/absence in the face of millions of innocent Jewish women, men, and CHILDREN affect your response to God?

It makes me thankful that there is any happiness at all in our world, and I thank God for whatever trickle of hope that God's existence can offer for humanity. We need every bit because the future looks much more grim than the Holocaust.

Q: Has the Holocaust effected your views on God?

Not specifically the Holocaust per se. I think everyone has their own personal experiences of tragedy and dismay at the cruelty of life. However, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Rowandan 1994 genocide, etc., are all painful reminders of how cruel our world can be. It sort of makes you lose hope in human survival, doesn't it?

Q: Do you think the Holocaust should have any bearing on how Christians think about God and humanity?

Yes, I think it should. It should tell us that God should be identified as a boundary condition to the world. The horrible things that occur in the world is not God sitting by doing nothing, rather it is God existing "out there" where over time the boundary conditions that are imposed on the world gradually steer the world toward a better one. But, make no mistake, the world can become a very grim place real quick (e.g., nuclear war, Ebola outbreaks, etc.), those conditions can easily exist within the boundaries that God's existence imposes on the world.

As Jesus said, "my Kingdom is not of this world." Christians must look to a New Heavens and a New Earth for a just world where the former world and the permissable actions allowed by God will have been replaced by a new world where the boundary conditions bring about a just and heavenly world, not the hellish one of today.

[youngborean]

As one who also lost relatives in the Holocaust I can only wonder about others for whom time and distance make it possible for such idealized, romantic discourse of God's promise and God's grace.

I believe I maintained that the Holocaust was the product of man. Men disobeyed God and sent other men to the Gas Chambers. Men choose to enslave other men and murder, rape, etc. God has never advocated any of this. God could have let his people dissappear completely and left men to their own desires, which seem to be to collectively ignore God. But God allowed Hitler to be stopped, the and the Jews to be restored in Israel as a secondary outcome.

How did the deaths of 6 million Jews manifest God's covenant to his chosen people?

It doesn't. The restoration of the Jewish people after the Holocaust does.

It is images like these that come to mind that make it impossible to to speak of God's grace, especially in such general terms.

I agree. If I were to dwell on the horrible actions of evil men I could never see God's grace. That is why I am bound to look to Jesus to see God's grace. Then I am able to see God's grace even in the worst that men has to offer.

Hbr 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

You see the Gospel message could be interpreted the same way. Why was an innocent man crucified by evil men? God works in mysterious ways and he choose the Sacrifice of one man to be the salvation for all men. Maybe the trails and restoration of Israel will be the Salvation of all nations. In that Israel has learned of the horrors of men, and can teach the world that this behaviour should never happen again.

[palmera]

I'm not sure exactly how to respond, so I tread with trepidation. You juxtaposed the killing of Christ with the destruction of the European Jews in an effort to argue that God works in mysterious ways. This form of theodicy justifies the deaths of the Jews by saying that in the end, they were not completely wiped clean from the earth. How does one hold a belief in a God who would sacrifice His son for the redemption of the world, and yet "allow" his chosen to be slaughtered? This is a belief in an infinitely intimate, active, caring God when her/his actions benefit mankind, but a distant, passive, "allowing" God when her/his inaction results in the deaths of millions of innocents. Justifying the action/inaction of God by solely blaming the world of humanity when it comes to the Holocaust and worshipping God in the death of One whose death benefits the world stems from a tension within dominant Christian views post-Holocaust which hang from a thin cord of understanding trying to make sense of the mass-death by denying it, and denying God's complicity in it.

[youngborean]

Hello again,

I believe your trying to limit my position so it becomes easy for you to disagree with it. There is no justification for the position and actions of man in this great horror. There is a possiblity to move forward in a positive manner. I believe this can be done without blaming God. The will of man is unrelenting in its desire to do evil. God had no active participation in this, as you have correctly pointed out. Eventually he allowed Hitler to be stopped, and the state of Israel to be formed.

Justifying the action/inaction of God by solely blaming the world of humanity when it comes to the Holocaust and worshipping God in the death of One whose death benefits the world stems from a tension within dominant Christian views post-Holocaust which hang from a thin cord of understanding trying to make sense of the mass-death by denying it, and denying God's complicity in it.

I don't understand your point. Is it that saying that God didn't cause the Holocaust is denying that it happened. I personally don't believe in a God that forces men to be evil. I believe that men are evil and when left to their own desires will commit evil. There is never any justification for evil, God does not justify man's evil actions. However, he can provide redemption for them. Since God is in the business of redemption of man's sins, I provided the possibility that Israel might be the collective redemption for the world, like how Jesus is the personal redemption for sin. The diaspora has been the cause of 2000 years of persacution. For whatever reason(s) Jews have been killed since they have left Israel. Now, for the first time in 2000 years, Jews have sanctuary in a country of there own. This is a great redemption. Man's intentions has always been to destory Israel and, in effect, destroy God. But God has a way of taking man's evil intentions and turning them into good. God never Justified the Holocaust. Hitler lost, they world for a short time realized their evil ways and promoted a Jewish state.

[Lotan]

The diaspora has been the cause of 2000 years of persacution.

If you say so...
Seems like the implication of the Jewish people in Jesus' death in gospel of 'John' might have had something to do with it.
"For whatever reason(s)" indeed!

[youngborean]

If you say so...
Seems like the implication of the Jewish people in Jesus' death in gospel of 'John' might have had something to do with it.
"For whatever reason(s)" indeed!

In many instances this would have been justification for some people. But mostly it would be centered on racism. Having a group that isolates themselves and the masses portraying them as "the other" and labeling them inherently evil. The passages of the bible you suggest would have been an excuse, and an awful one. Because the bible also teaches that only Satan would have wanted Jesus to have lived. Internal dissention within the time of formative Judaism can hardly be considered inherently anti-semetic. It is the way that people have misunderstood and misused these texts. It is a theological mistake to think that Jesus's death was a bad thing, and anyone that would believe that and teach it is not a believer but a messenger of the devil according to Jesus.


Mat 16:21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.


Mat 16:22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.


Mat 16:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.