Religion in the Post-Auschwitz Dispensation

Get to know the thinking of the elite theologians of our time: "Christianity" referenced to Auschwitz rather than Calvary.

Theology after Auschwitz
A Provisional Program
By Franz Mussner

I ‘Theology after Auschwitz’1

Theology after Auschwitz cannot be identical with theology before Auschwitz. Theology after Auschwitz takes appalled cognizance of the terrible events of the Shoah. J. B. Metz states:2 “After all, one does not say that for Christians there are no other experiences of God than those of Auschwitz. Certainly! But if for us there is no God in Auschwitz, then where else shall we find him?” For Metz, therefore, the question is “if we Christians are prepared to grasp and bear in mind the catastrophe of Auschwitz and to accept it seriously as a challenge, as we are frequently called upon to do – and, of course, not only in respect of our German history and our German awareness of history, but also in respect of our Christianity and our Christian view of God, i.e., our theology. Furthermore, Fr.-W. Marquardt writes:3 “The existence of the Jewish witness to God is essential to Christian faith, if it is to proclaim the living God. And if after Auschwitz there is to be a task for theology at all, then it is to consider what we lack in God if we have lost Israel . . . An imperious cry of ‘Auschwitz never again’ poses a particular understanding of history. It does not permit a flight from history into what is essentially a misrepresentation of the historical facts of the faith, as is often represented in the name of Christ.”

What follows now, divided into ‘Exegesis after Auschwitz’ and ‘Systematology after Auschwitz,’ is the presentation of a program (if by no means exhaustive) which deals with those topics that need to be discussed in a ‘theology after Auschwitz.’

Full paper:

http://jcrelations.net/en/?item=771