Pilgrim to Unholy Places

Through visiting Auschwitz and other horror sites of the Third Reich, the author reflects on the meaning of belief and ethics in today's world in dialogue with Jewish thinkers. His standpoint is the victim Christ of Philippians 2:5-11, a Jewish victim among others and therefore one open to mutual recognition, each hearing the cries of the other.

Based in New Zealand, the author, an Anglican priest, made a number of pilgrimages 19952008 to the extermination (and other camp) sites of the Third Reich, 193345. These find expression in Diary entries that describe the sites as they now are and scope the problems they raise for both Jews and Christians. The book thus places the Holocaust at the centre of Jewish-Christian dialogue. In face of the silence of God and the choiceless choices of the victims, the central question is how we Jews and Christians can talk agency either of God or the inmates. With a view to opening a conversation between Auschwitz and Golgotha, the author invites the Jewish interlocutor into a consideration of the Jewish victim Christ in the 'no-way-out' of the cross. Can there then be mutual recognition between the many Jews of heroic faith and self-sacrificing love in the death camps and the victim caring Christ? Three examples are cited: a Mrs Levy at Auschwitz; the Paris Rabbi, Berek Kofman; and Janusz Korczak at Treblinka. These and others like them embody an ethic of caring that allow us to be hopeful about the modern world.

Autorentext

Raymond Pelly is an Anglican Priest living and working in New Zealand. He has an MA in Theology from Oxford University and a Doctorate in Ecumenical Theology from the University of Geneva. Besides serving in numerous parishes, he has taught at Westcott House, Cambridge (UK); St John's College, Auckland (NZ); and the University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus (USA). He was also Visiting Scholar at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass., in 1982/3 and 1995/6. His most recent work, 2005-2014, has been as Honorary Priest Associate at the Cathedral of St Paul, Wellington, New Zealand, where he had a ministry of counselling, spiritual direction and education.

Inhalt

Introduction: 'Raids on the Unspeakable' - Auschwitz, 1995 - Dachau, 1995 - Lviv, Cernitsa, Warsaw, Treblinka, 2001 - Majdanek, Sobibor, Belzec, 2001 - Dachau, Mauthausen, Hartheim Castle, Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, 2003 - Berlin, 2003 - Mittelbau Dora, Leitenberg, 2006 - Esterwegen, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück, 2008 - 1. Hearing the cries. The Self-emptying Pilgrim Christ, Philippians 2:5-11 on Kenosis - 2. Pilgrim to Unholy Places. A Definition - 3. Thinking with your feet. The Pilgrim's Way of Knowing - 4. Kneeling and Surviving. The Pilgrim and Prayer - 5. Unholy Places. Site-specific Reckoning with Evil - 6. Holy Places I. Paul Celan and Grief - 7. Holy Places II. Paul Ricoeur and Memory - 8. Rachel Weeping for Her Children. Biblical Precursor of the Holocaust - 9. Jewish Responses to the Holocaust. Agency, Divine and Human - 10. Auschwitz and Golgotha (1) Analogue or Adversary? - 11. Auschwitz and Golgotha (2). Impulses for a Shared Covenantal Ethic - 12. God as Co-Passionate. Abyss of Love, Victim-Survivor - 13. Christ and Horrors. Engführung: Narrowing/Impasse - 14. Recognition, Thanksgiving. Honour, Gratitude - 15. Real Hope in the Real World? - Appendix. On De- and Reconstructing Root Metaphors. The Analogy of the Sun.