Abstract
Anti-Semitism is not limited to the Christian world, but that is where it has been at its most vicious and enduring, culminating in the Holocaust. How could this happen in a society that was the heir to 2,000 years of Christian values of loving your neighbour as yourself? Is that not only a terrible indictment of the perpetrators and bystanders, but also a stinging challenge to the integrity of Christianity itself? These are the painful questions that Peter Waddell confronts.
As is well known, the problem is that Jews are central to the Christian narrative, and in a highly negative way. It is not just the Jews of the first century who are responsible for the death of Jesus, but that guilt is apparently inherited by each succeeding generation (‘his blood be upon us and our children’, Matthew 27.25). Waddell attempts to navigate this poisonous legacy by pointing out that, while the influence of Augustine held sway, the role of Jews was merely to be miserable witnesses to the darkness inhabited by those who rejected Christ. It was only after the teachings of Aquinas took over that they became targets for extreme violence.
Waddell has no doubt, therefore, that, although the Church did not directly promote the Holocaust, it could not have happened without the culture of Christian anti-Semitism that had so infused European society. The vast majority of those who contributed to the Holocaust – be they schoolteachers, police, judges, train drivers, camp guards or killers – were baptized. How many times can we blame a few bad apples, and at what point do we have to say that the tree itself is rotten?
After such daring questions, Waddell heads in two separate directions. On the positive side, he rightly lauds the remarkable transformation caused by Nostra Aetate, whereby the Catholic Church, followed by others, reversed its teachings. Jews were seen as brothers, not enemies, while Judaism was viewed as having an ongoing vitality in God’s eyes. Waddell is entirely correct to suggest that this is a cause for rejoicing. He is on less solid ground, though, when he asks where was God in the Holocaust and why he did not intervene. He too easily adopts Eliezer Berkovits’ conclusion that the freedom God has given humanity means that God could not impose his will. But this ignores the many times when God is considered to have acted in human history, while it also undermines the prayers of millions of Christians asking for God’s intervention today. Should they be warned not to do so?
Waddell’s final chapter on whether Hitler could ever reach heaven is a fascinating excursus, but fails the test (posed by Irving Greenberg) that Waddell had endorsed at the very beginning of his book: ‘that no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children’ (p. 1). Silence, rather than theological gymnastics, would have been a better ending to an otherwise erudite and sensitive book.