Through the series of blogs I have led us down a path that
is not comfortable. We have seen
Scriptures that make us question our understanding of God’s justice. My whole purpose to this point is that before we develop a theology regarding
suffering and evil, we should empathize with the human experience of suffering
and evil. This theology must be felt
before it is thought: If we do not feel a very real sense of the tragedy, the
loss, and the despair for the suffering in our world, we cannot be in a
position to develop a theology on it.
For our last stop before in this part of our journey I want to bring us
now to one of the darkest points in our human history, and in a lot of ways our
theological history. I want to bring us
to Holocaust.
Why Holocaust? I wish
we could say it was an anomaly in human history. I could have talked about the systematic
annihilation of the native peoples of this land by the United States; I could
have talked of the death marches of Mao Zedong; the gulags of Stalin; the
fields of Pol Pot; the slave trade of Colonial America…so why this? Theologically, the Holocaust strikes a little
closer to Christians, because when we are talking about the victims of this
abomination, we are talking about the “chosen people,” the people of the
Covenant. These are God’s people too, so
then why this? How could this
happen? How could God let this happen?
“Never shall I forget that night, the
first night in the camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven
times cursed and seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget the little faces of children, whose bodies I saw
turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames
which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal
silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which
murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I
am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”[1]
This quote from Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor
Elie Wiesel always moves me. He speaks
of the experience of a person of genuine and innocent faith encountering the unspeakable
horror of human evil. He with other Jews
were sent to camps to die, and the world remained silent…Worse; so did
God. Six million (can we even comprehend
the loss of one innocent victim?) Jewish people were murdered, more were
victimized. Were the survivors
lucky? All the times that I have been to
the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. what strikes me is what is missing
from our statistics. In the museum, when
I walk the journey of the years leading up to the Holocaust, you see a people that
are hated and systematically oppressed; bit by bit their freedom, possessions,
dignity, and humanity are stripped away from them. Only after that horrid degradation are they
hauled away like cattle to be slaughtered.
“Arbeit macht frei”-- is there
a crueler phrase to welcome you to a death camp?
What of the Germans?
Were all Germans evil; or just a majority of them? What is the power or the psychological force
that gets so many humans to agree to the systematic slaughter of other human
beings? And of course we know in history
it was not just Germans; Spanish Conquistadors, Christian Crusaders, American
Settlers, Japanese soldiers…and the list continues…all had their fair share of
perpetuating oppression and death.
Humanity has an unfathomable capacity for evil. And when I remember all that we have done,
all the violence, all the evil we continue to do…I can only hope that God is
somehow better and greater than these terrors that can bring me to my knees in
despair and grief.
Is God Abusive?
Finding ourselves in the muck and mire of God’s apparent
abandonment, and human sin, what are ways to try to theologize ourselves out of
this mess? Can we? Should we?
There has been a post-Holocaust movement in Jewish Theology that tries
to answer, or at least address these impossible situations. In Rabbi David Blumenthal’s book “Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of
Protest,” he addresses one way in which to approach theodicy:
“To have faith in a post-holocaust, abuse-sensitive world
is, first, to know—to recognize and to
admit—that God is an abusing God, but
not always.”[2] Rabbi
Blumenthal does not say God is Abusive, but that abusiveness is an attribute of
God. God is also merciful and loving,
but God is abusive.
Rabbi Blumenthal compares the phenomenon of child abuse,
with which he has much experience working with victims, to how God treats God’s
people. He argues that God’s cycle of
consolation, punishment/violence, reconciliation back to consolation and
punishment mimics a cycle of abuse one sees in child abuse and in abusive relationships
in general:
“I have crushed, and I
shall heal; there is no escape from My hand.” (Duet. 32:39)
“And if you do not
listen to Me in this and you go rebelliously with Me, I shall go in the rage of
rebellion with you, punishing you sevenfold for your sins…You shall eat the
flesh of your boys and consume the bodies of your girls…” As He rejoiced over you to show goodness to
you and to multiply you, so will He rejoice over you to destroy you and to
annihilate you…”In the morning you will say, ‘Would that it were evening’ and
in the evening you will say, ‘Would that it were morning’ because of the fear
which you will feel in your heart and the sights which you will see with your
eyes.” (Lev. 26:27, 29; Deut. 28:63,
67)[3]
Rabbi Blumenthal also discusses a great deal the phenomenon
of child abuse and how it relates to Theodicy.
In addition to the silence during the slaughter of God’s chosen people,
how can God allow the violation of such innocence around the world? Particularly when abuse happens so often in
environments that are supposed to be safe (homes and churches/faith communities). Where is the justice? And how can the victims (the victims are
almost always forgotten) possibly heal from the perpetual brokenness that comes
from this abuse? Today still
there is human trafficking resulting in slavery and the rape of women, boys and
babies; and God’s silence continues. Is
not God abusive? Or at least negligent to Creation?
Lost
How can we pick up the broken pieces of our lives? How can we mend the damage done of ages
past? What do we do with all of
this? Is all suffering unjustified? Sure some suffering happens because of our
personal choices: a gay man gets HIV for being promiscuous; but what if his
crime was simply looking for love in all the wrong places? Does he surely deserve the suffering of AIDS
and the stigma and judgement that goes with it? A hopeless and abandoned woman
getting an abortion too deserves her suffering, does she not? And what is all this when we compare it to a
child dying of leukemia, a still-birth, a young father diagnosed with cancer,
or 21 children being gunned down at their school? Wars continue, children are abused, and we see pain and struggle in our own lives and those around us.
I think it is healthy at some point in our contemplation of
suffering and evil to be “lost.” I find
that getting “lost” can be helpful occasionally, and vital if there is ever to
be any real hope to be found. In our
journey we see the safe and established formula “God rewards the righteous, and
causes sinners to suffer” may be true at times, but it is certainly not true
much of the time. For those who hold to
“Prosperity Gospel,” the Book of Job and any basic observation of the world and
of history will obliterate its foundations.
So where do we go from here?
For Christians, we must now go to the Incarnation for any hope (if there
is any). But for now I will leave you
with a Jewish Prayer to the God who abuses:
“May God Who is our Father and our King; Who injures, destroys, and
harms beyond reason; Who loves graciously, and is compassionate, and cares—
May God turn His Face to you so that you can see Him.
May His Face smile upon you, and may you know that.
May God share with you His anguish and His shame at His own hateful
actions.
May God bless you, and may you receive His blessing.
Amen.”[4]
[1]
Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. S. Rodway
(New York: Bantam Books, 1960; repr. 1982), p. 32.
[2]
Blumenthal, David R.. Facing the Abusing
God: A Theology of Protest. Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p. 248.
[3]
For further Scripture readings Blumenthal uses as examples: Isa. 42:24-43:4;
Isa. 51:17-23; Jer. 13:25-26; Isa. 3:16-17; Hos. 2:12, 21-22; Ezek. 16:6-8,
36-42.
[4]
Blumenthal, David R.. Facing the Abusing
God: A Theology of Protest. P. 285.
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