In this paper I will attempt to give an answer to the question “What are the implications of the Holocaust for Christian theology?”  There are a number of different perspectives from which this question might be asked, the most important of which is the point of view of the person who has survived the Holocaust and now wonders “Where was God when we needed Him?”  I do not consider myself worthy of addressing the survivor.  I can only consider through theory and conjecture what he or she knows from first-hand experience, and needless to say, it is one thing to read about suffering and quite another thing to be the one suffering.  I cannot imagine what I would think or how I would feel or react if I was to experience anything like Auschwitz.  Like most people, I would like to think that under those sort of extreme circumstances I would still do the “right” thing, even if it cost me my life, but I have no confidence in my own virtue.  If I had to get through anything like that on my own strength, I would fail miserably; of that I am sure.  I cannot imagine, for example, what it must have been like to see living children- babies!- fed to the flames, as Eli Wiesel horrifyingly recalled in the preface of Night (xiii-xiv).  So I wish to make it clear that I am not making any sort of judgments about the people in the camps who lost their faith or their scruples in the face of such horror. It is certainly not my place to judge anyone.  I must also add that I would never minimize their suffering by talking about it lightly, as if human suffering was just one more phenomenon to be studied scientifically and reduced to mere formulae.  It is therefore with the profoundest respect for the victims and their experiences that I undertake this project; certainly not as an expert in suffering, but as a Christian who is deeply troubled by the presence of evil and suffering in our world, and who wishes to see what answers are contained in the Bible to these important questions.

I shall therefore consider the points of view of some of the critics of Christianity and consider the implications of the Holocaust for the Christian church and for Christian theology in general. Since my aim is to see what God has to say for Himself about these matters, I will seek to ground my answers in the Bible.  If we look at the Bible, it quickly becomes clear that the problem of suffering and injustice is nothing new.  The call of Moses came at a time when the Jewish people were enslaved and grievously oppressed.  David, the only man in Scripture who was dubbed “a man after God’s own heart,” had several low points in his life, including several years of fleeing for his life from the murderous King Saul, to whom David had rendered only kindness. Elijah and Jeremiah, like many other prophets, were cruelly persecuted by wicked monarchs for proclaiming the word of the Lord.  In the Christian era, Paul wrote of his life, “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless… up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (1 Cor 4:11-12, N.I.V.).  And of course Jesus endured betrayal, abandonment, torture, and execution.  So the problem of suffering and injustice is as old as the Bible itself.  Therefore, let us define the questions more clearly and then see how the Bible answers them.

The first implication of the Holocaust that I wish to consider is that which concerns the church as the divinely appointed messenger of God’s grace and mercy.  Franklin Littell says, “The murder of six million Jews by baptized Christians, from whom membership in good standing was not (and has not yet been) withdrawn, raises the most insistent questions about Christianity” (2). Littell also says,

If the churches had used the means of spiritual governance at their disposal to call the Nazi leaders to repentance, to return to minimal Christian standards, if the Nazi elite had been excommunicated for failure to respond, then today the churches could say truthfully, “They were pagans. They left our fellowship in the covenant.  They were not of us.”  But the churches did not do this.

This obviously raises serious questions about the credibility of those denominations which conceive of the Christian church as being chiefly institutional in nature, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, which claims to be the one, true church instituted by Christ, and the Lutheran Church, the other Christian denomination at the scene of the crime.  Unfortunately, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer and Maximilian Kolbe were the exceptions, rather than the rule, and the leadership of both the Lutheran and the Catholic Churches betrayed both Christ and the Jewish people by appeasing the Nazi monster. 

But considering the concept of “church” in a more organic sense, as something which has more in common with a family than with a political party or a labor union, the idea of “kicking them out” is a bit more problematic.  A Christian does not choose the other “members” of the church any more than a man chooses his siblings or grandparents, and all a man has to do to attend the family reunions is simply show up; no credentials are demanded as proof of his genealogy.  So there is a difference between becoming a Christian and joining a church.  One can join a church and even attend regularly without ever becoming a Christian (c.f. Mt 22:1-14).  But those who become Christians are those who have individually and deliberately entered into a covenantal relationship with God through the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and this decision means total self-surrender to God (Lk 14:27-33).  As Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2:20).  Consequently, the Christian no longer belongs to himself; he belongs to God (1 Cor 6:19-20). In exchange, God promises to give the Christian the desire, the strength, and the grace necessary to live a godly life and bear the “fruit of the Spirit” (Phil 2:13, Gal 5:22).  Jesus said that “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Mt 7:20). Consequently, when this fruit is absent, and when a person instead bears the fruit of sin and death, we may question the extent to which he has truly given his life to Jesus.  If a person’s entire life (such as Hitler’s) is a flat contradiction of everything that Jesus taught and commanded, we may safely assume that this person has not truly entered into a relationship with God and that he is not a Christian.  Certainly something else, rather than Jesus, was lord and master of Hitler’s life.  As John the apostle said, “Whoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” (1 Jn 3:15).  And Jesus taught that

Not every one that sayeth unto me, “Lord, Lord” shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?”  And then I will profess unto them, “I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity” (Mt 7:21-23).

Thus, as a Christian, I would say that it is God who sets the terms for membership in the body of Christ, and by God’s terms, the Nazi elite were not Christians.

Now what about those Christians who were not directly involved in the death camps, and who may have been good parents and neighbors and churchgoing communicants and so forth, but who yielded passively in the face of evil and injustice against their Jewish brothers?  And what about those theologians who were generally regarded as good men (e.g. Aquinas and Luther), but who preached doctrines that were sometimes anti-Semitic in nature?  This is a deeper, more challenging question.  True, as a Christian qua Christian (i.e. a Christian just insofar as he is a Christian), a man would never partner with evil, but those of us who are Christian know that we do not always act as a Christian.  Sometimes we act out of anger, frustration, fear, ignorance, pride, hunger, a desire to fit in, etc., rather than acting out of faith, hope, and love.  In fact, that is why Jesus was given as the propitiation for our sins, because we do so often fail, even when we know better and have the means at our disposal to do better.  Does that excuse the sins of the anti-Semitic Christians?  No, sin is still sin.  It is ugly, horrid, intolerable, and costly, so costly that it took the blood of Jesus to absolve us of it.  God does not wink at sin, and neither should we.  Christians who betrayed their Lord by remaining silent in the face of the massacre of His chosen people have to answer to God for it.  As the Proverb says,

If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, “Behold we knew it not;” doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? And He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? And shall not He render to every man according to his works? (Proverbs 24: 11-12).

And Jesus Himself said, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”  So let it be said that, in accordance with Christian doctrine, God is not going to turn a blind eye to the sins of Christians; each of us will be held accountable to God for all that He has entrusted to us (Mt 25:14-29).

Let us also put to rest the notion that a man may find in the New Testament grounds for anti-Semitism.  Jesus was Jewish; Mary was Jewish; the apostles were all Jewish; and Jesus died to save Jews just as much as He died to save gentiles.  As Peter said, Jesus’ will is that none, Jew or gentile, “should perish, but that all should come to repentance” and receive everlasting life (2 Pet 3:9).  Paul says, “Hath God cast away His people?  God forbid.  For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom 11:1), and Paul warns the gentiles not to be high-minded towards the Jews, but to fear God (Rom 11:18-21).  Of the Jews who rejected Christ Paul says,

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as the election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable… God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all (Rom 11: 28-32, N.I.V., emphasis added).

Thus, we may conclude that the New Testament clearly forbids anti-Semitism.    

Now let us consider a deeper and more difficult matter: the implications of the Holocaust for the Christian (and Jewish) belief that God is perfectly good, just, loving, and merciful.  The presence of injustices like the Holocaust and the slave-trade are cited as evidence that Christian theology is impossible. According to Christianity, God is omniscient, perfectly good, and omnipotent.  Yet God allowed the Holocaust and the slave-trade to happen, even allowing people to practice these evils while claiming to be Christian!  If God knew about it and did nothing to stop it, then He is not perfectly good.  If He did not know about it, then He is not omniscient; and if He could not stop it, then He is not omnipotent.  

How could God allow Auschwitz to exist?  Why did He not smite the Nazis?  Why did the Jews have to wait for the Americans and the Russians to liberate them?  Why didn’t God just set them free Himself, like He did when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt? 

Christian apologists have generally agreed that the problem of evil is the most difficult criticism to answer, because it is the one with the most “teeth.”  Philosophical answers to the problem of suffering have been attempted, with varying degrees of success.  C.S. Lewis wrote a brilliant treatise called The Problem of Pain, which renders a deep exploration of this theme from a perspective of both faith and philosophy.  Viktor Frankl, a Jew and a survivor of Auschwitz, gave a masterful treatment of the problem of suffering from a medical and psychological perspective in his masterpiece Man’s Search for Meaning.   But when I seek philosophical answers to these problems in the Bible, I am struck by the fact that there simply aren’t any.  Nowhere in the Bible is a philosophical answer given.  In several places a philosophical answer is demanded, such as when Job finally reaches the end of his endurance and shouts, “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up but you merely look at me!” (Job 30: 20, N.I.V.).  I am reminded of Elijah’s depression after his triumphant showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 19:4), David’s despair in the 13^th and 31^st Psalms, and Jeremiah’s lamentation after he was beaten and put in the stocks by Pashhur (Jer 20:1-18).  Many of God’s suffering servants asked “Why?”  And God answers them, but not after the manner of human philosophers.  Solomon waxes philosophical in Ecclesiastes, with his complaint that everything seems meaningless (Ecc 1:2), but he does not go on to give a satisfyingly philosophical answer to the questions he raises.

I believe that God answers His people when they ask the tough questions, especially when their hearts are utterly broken and they turn their eyes towards Him.  Just as God saw the affliction of the Israelites in Egypt and heard their cries and knew their sorrows (Ex 3:7), I believe God sees and hears and sympathizes with those who have suffered in our own times.  But what sort of answer is it that God gives? 

I remember puzzling over the satisfaction Job received when God answered him, since God’s answer to Job seemed to me to be no answer at all.  There was nothing about justice or the reason for Job’s suffering or any of that.  Yet Job was completely content with God’s reply. Then it was explained to me, and I realized how obvious the answer had been all along.  Job was satisfied because he did not really want an answer at all; he wanted God.  And when God spoke, it was merely the fact of God’s presence that calmed his soul.

To illustrate this, let us imagine that we are standing before a young child who has just learned that her mother has died. Who in their right mind would attempt to offer the poor girl a series of syllogisms about the problem of evil, or a philosophical enquiry into the nature of suffering, as if death was merely an abstract notion that she had just read about it a book?  No, the girl has experienced death, not read about it, and this is the real world, not a classroom.  What the girl would want- and what we would be most inclined to give her- is sympathy, a hug, our condolences, our sincerest offer to be of help in any way we can…  It is that human touch that we most desperately need when we find ourselves in life’s darkest moments; the knowledge that someone is there, that someone cares. Surely, then, this is the sort of answer that we can expect from a loving and merciful God, since this is the sort of answer that we most desperately need.  And it is no surprise that this is the very answer we find in the pages of the Bible.  As the Bible says,   

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4: 15-16).

He hath no form or comeliness; and when we should see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all… he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Is 53:2-12).

Christ Jesus…being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:5-8).  

God’s answer to the problem of sin and death and human suffering is Jesus: the ultimate self-revelation of God in human form, i.e. God coming to us on our own terms and as one of us (Mt 1:21-23, Jn 1: 1-18).  It is scandalous and practically inconceivable: that the great “I AM,” the creator of space and time and the earth and the heavens, should so humble Himself as to enter into His own creation (into the world that we humans have wrecked by our sin) as a helpless infant and share fully in our human experience, including our experience of suffering, sorrow, and death; yet that is what the New Testament proclaims. 

Corrie Ten Boom, survivor of the Ravensbruck death camp (who miraculously managed to smuggle a copy of the New Testament into the camp) said of her experience:

I had believed the Bible always, but reading it now had nothing to do with belief.  It was simply a description of the way things were- of hell and heaven, of how men act and how God acts.  I had read a thousand times of Jesus’ arrest- how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him.  Now such happenings had faces and voices (191).

To those who have suffered and wonder where God was when they needed Him, Jesus stretches forth His pierced hands to embrace them with love and sympathy and healing.  That is why the authors of the New Testament letters could speak words of hope and encouragement, though each of them knew suffering and privation, and all but one were martyred.  That is why the author of the letter to the Hebrews, after speaking of those who had been martyred, said (encouraging those who would be martyred soon),

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb 12: 2-3, N.I.V.).

There is much that simply does not make sense no matter how much you try to figure it out.  Questions like “Why are there places like Auschwitz?” or “Why are there people like Nazis?” are those types of things.  I don’t think there’s a human answer that can possibly make sense of it all.

I wish to conclude by quoting from Francois Mauriac’s foreword to Eli Wiesel’s book Night:

And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him?  Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world?  Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine?  And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses.  The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead.  It is they who have given new life.  We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear.  All is grace.  If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child.  But all I could do was embrace Him and weep.

There is something in that which expresses the inadequacy of words.  As a Christian, I cannot say anything which would heal the broken hearts of those who have suffered unimaginably; I can only point to the cross…

Bibliography

The Bible, King James Version. Nashville, TN: Gideons International, unknown year.

The Bible, New International Version. Colorado Springs, CO: International Bible Society, 1984.

Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search for Meaning, translated by Ilse Lasche. New York: Washington Square Press, 1984.

Lewis, C.S. The Complete C.S. Lewis. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

Littell, Franklin. The Crucifixion of the Jews. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005.

Ten Boom, Corrie. The Hiding Place. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 1971.

Wiesel, Eli. Night, translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.