Abstract
Post-Shoah Christology is embedded in the unique relationship of Jews and Christians, especially Jesus’ Jewishness and the Jewish roots of Christianity, as well as Christian moral failures towards Jews before and during the Shoah. Essential for contemporary Christianity, a vibrant post-Shoah Christology confronts three main challenges, each demanding a different response. The first challenge is the reality that soon there will be no more first-generation witnesses to the Final Solution. Such is an inevitable challenge that has to be faced and prepared for. Religious pluralism is the second challenge, and includes a number of related threads, yet should ultimately be embraced. The third challenge is the (inevitable?) loss of memory, passion, and urgency, a willful forgetfulness by Christians towards the importance of the Jewish–Christian relationship, and especially, Christian failure in the Shoah. This challenge demands robust refutation and ongoing struggle. Before addressing these challenges, I will first further define and highlight the need for a post-Shoah Christology and will conclude this article with three general and three concrete hopes for a viable post-Shoah Christology.
Highlights
Genocide and ChristologyReligions 12: 407. https://doi.org/Almost 90 years after Hitler’s rise to power, in a predominantly Christian country, and the tepid response by a predominantly Christian Western World, the Shoah remains the main drive for Jewish–Christian dialogue
Post-Shoah Christology is embedded in the unique relationship of Jews and Christians, especially Jesus’ Jewishness and the Jewish roots of Christianity, as well as Christian moral failures towards Jews before and during the Shoah
The second challenge to a viable post-Shoah Christology is linked by seemingly disparate strands which are conceptually and practically related, and when joined, could counter a vibrant post-Shoah Christology
Summary
Almost 90 years after Hitler’s rise to power, in a predominantly Christian country, and the tepid response by a predominantly Christian Western World, the Shoah remains the main drive for Jewish–Christian dialogue. It is intended to remind and encourage Christians of the contemporary importance of these truths As this Christology is not just about the past, but essential for present and future Christianity, I see three main challenges to a vibrant post-Shoah Christology and each demands a different response. This will be an irreplaceable loss, especially as survivors have played an indelible role in calling many Christians to reassess their identity, responsibility, theological practices and doctrines, and need for deeper introspection. Such a forgetting and minimization could be linked to these first two challenges, but really exemplifies both the reason for a post-Shoah Christology, and more importantly, the existence of the Shoah itself It is rooted in the amnesia and denial that have followed numerous mass atrocities in the past, and sadly, in our ongoing present. I will conclude this article with three general and three concrete hopes for a viable post-Shoah Christology
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