Broken Gospel? : Christianity and the Holocaust PDF

The Holocaust lies, oftenunacknowledged, near the heart of our contemporary crisis of religious faith. The horrific fruit of two millennia of Christian antisemitism, the slaughtercalls into sharp question the moral and intellectual credibility of the Churchesand the Christian faith itself.

Can Christianity ever recover? In BrokenGospel? Peter Waddell suggests that it can, but only by facingunflinchingly the history that paved the way for the Nazi genocide, and theChurches' sins of omission and commission as it took place. Engagingwith both Christian and Jewish scholarship, Waddell also approaches withsensitivity the theological issues that arise from the horror: questions of howthe claimed holiness of the Church relates to its wickedness; ofChristian-Jewish relations; of prayer and providence; of heaven and hell, andthe faint possibility of forgiveness.

Scholars, clergy and general readersalike will be challenged by this exercise in repentance and reconstruction, andinspired by the possibility it offers for Christian theology and practice toflourish once more.