Root, branch, and rhetoric: Judaism and Christian self-understanding after the Holocaust

Some Christian theologians have suggested that the Holocaust warrants the rejection of traditional christology and ecclesiology and critics have attacked this "consequentialist" rationale. While a pragmatic-consequentialist argument has merit, the best warrant for post-Shoah revisionism rests on an argument from theological coherence: supersessionism and traditional christology are theologically incoherent because they impugn the integrity and singularity of God. Part One examines three sets of "indictments" (by R. Ruether, F. Littell, and A. R. and A. L. Eckardt) which illuminate the connection between antisemitism and traditional Christian self-understanding. Part Two elucidates several revisionist accounts of the relationship of the Church and the Jewish people (by F. Mussner, C. Thoma, J. T. Pawlikowski, P. v. d. Osten-Sacken, and P. M. van Buren). These accounts succeed in undermining traditional Christian anti-Judaism but erode the distinctiveness of Christianity.