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Thomas A. Idinopulos,
Betrayal of Spirit: Jew-hatred, the
Holocaust, and Christianity
About the Book
The author draws on a unique
combination of personal experience and theological
reflection to examine how anti-Semitism invaded, occupied,
and dominated the human mind throughout history. His
insightful theological interpretation of the history of
Jew-hatred in Christendom provides a way of understanding
how anti-Judaism differs from anti-Semitism, and reveals how
anti-Semitism created the possibility of, but was not a
direct cause of, the Holocaust. The author addresses such
questions as: In what ways does the history of anti-Semitism
explain the Holocaust? And, in what ways does it not
explain the Holocaust? Other questions that rise out of the
more technical concerns of historiography: How do we explain
the unexplainable? What was the role of religion in Nazi
thinking? What should we make of the Intentionalism/Functionalism
debates among historians? The responses to these questions
insightfully reveal the interplay between rational and
irrational, religious and racial components that combined to
make the Holocaust a dreadful reality.
Reviews
"In penetrating essays based on his long and distinguished
leadership in fostering good relationships
between Christians and Jews, Thomas Idinopulos explores the
Holocaust and its aftermath in ways that are at once
personal and path-breaking, carefully researched and well
reasoned, insightful and wise."
—John K. Roth
Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Founding Director, The Center for the Study of
the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights
Claremont McKenna College
“In response to the
existential question, ‘What is the relevance of my faith as
a Christian to the Holocaust?’ Idinopulos constructs a
theological and historical narrative that is also deeply
personal. The shock, outrage and incomprehension that
greeted his first youthful encounter with anti-Semitism in a
loved and trusted friend led to his questioning the
irrational power of hatred for Jews. Arguing for retaining
the specificity of Christianity and Judaism despite what he
sees as their reciprocal antagonism, he acknowledges their
irresolvable differences. An answer is not to be found as
some might wish in the creation of a wishy-washy universal
faith but rather in the necessity for ‘visiting one
another’s houses,’ and appreciating rather than attempting
to erase the differences between them. He concedes that
what has come to be known as the teaching of contempt is
reprehensible and must be eliminated but, despite its
importance, he finds in German nationalism and Hitlerian
racism the principal precipitating factors in generating the
holocaust. He is also fully cognizant of the millenarian
aspirations and parallels between the social myths that
portrayed the Jew as the betrayer of Christ in the First
Crusade and as underminer of the German nation during the
Nazi period. In the course of his account, he considers the
works of Jewish thinkers such as Emil Fackenheim and Irving
Greenberg, historians such as Jehuda Bauer and Daniel
Goldhagen and Christian thinkers such as Clark Williamson.
Idinopulos’ work does not come to a conclusion but rather
points to the abstractness of evil and the ways in which the
artistic faculties can be turned against themselves as the
betrayal of spirit. Holocaust literature, he maintains, is
the effort to invent a voice for what cannot be spoken and
to restore a link to God, the aims of his own courageous
project.
—Edith Wyschogrod
Contents
Acknowledgments; Foreword; Preface; Part One —
Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism: Are There Differences
Through History? Jew-hatred: Greco-Roman Times to the
Spanish Exile; Jew-hatred: The French Revolution to the
Nazis; Part Two — The Problem of Anti-Semitism: Theoretical
versus Practical Solutions; Christianity: A Guest in the
House of Israel? Jews Be Damned: Is Christology Inherently
Anti-Semitic? Eradicating Anti-Judaism from The Book of
Common Prayer; Part Three — Fateful Connections:
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; The Nazi Vision of Utopia;
Explaining the Unexplainable; Part Four — Judaism,
Christianity, and the Holocaust: Theological Responses to
Evil; Jewish Responses to the Holocaust: There is No Law and
There Is No Judge? The Churches and Hitler: Was There Church
Resistance to Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy? The Question for
Christians after the Holocaust: Was the Cross Triumphant
Over Sin and Death? Betrayal of Spirit; Selected
Bibliography; Index.
About
the Author
Thomas A. Idinopulos teaches in the Religious Studies
Department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Among his
140 publications are more than eighty articles and book
chapters on religion, politics, and literature in journals
such as Encounter, the Journal of Religion,
Journal of the AAR, Cross Currents, Middle
East Review, and the Israeli Bulletin of Religious
Affairs. He is the best-selling author of such works as
Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed: Jews, Christians,
Muslims in the Holy City from David’s Time to our Own,
The Erosion of Faith: An Inquiry into the Origins of the
Contemporary Crisis in Religious Thought, and Land
Weathered By Miracles: Historic Palestine from Bonaparte and
Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and The Mufti.
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