North American evangelical Christian responses to the Holocaust

Abstract

This project examines some of the ways the evangelical Christian community views the Holocaust by comparing the positions of four seminal mainline Protestant Holocaust theologians to those of five evangelical theologians, observing theological differences which affect the two groups' positions. The project compares evangelical and mainline Protestant responses to charges of Christian theological and actual complicity in the Holocaust. It further compares responses of the two groups, primarily in the United States, to requests by post-Holocaust theologians for specific theological or doctrinal changes from contemporary Christianity. Critical differences emerge between the mainline Protestant and evangelical responses. Significant differences also emerge within the evangelical responses examined. Commonalities which affect the evangelical response to the Holocaust include evangelicalism’s Holocaust rescuer hagiography and its view of the Bible as an authoritative, objective revelation from God. An essential question remains the limitation of theological boundaries for orthodox Protestants in the re-examination of faith.