We Remember the Holocaust

This Sunday at Good Shepherd we remember the Holocaust. We do so for
one simple reason. The German executioners were Christians. Their
victims were Jewish.
Like it or not, we Christians have a lot to answer for. The plain
truth is that because of a simplistic reading of the gospels of
Matthew and John, generations of Christians have believed that the
Jews killed Jesus and should therefore be punished. And boy have we
made "them" pay. For two thousand years Christians have segregated,
dominated and killed our Jewish brothers and sisters, forgetting all
the while that Jesus was Jewish as were his closest followers.
Sadly some of our greatest church leaders have encouraged this bitter
legacy of hatred and oppression, from Origen to Augustine to Martin
Luther. And so when German Christians, acting on behalf of the Nazi
government of Germany, killed 6 million of the 9 million Jews in
Europe during World War II, they were fulfilling the darkest
inheritance of a faith whose founder taught us to love our neighbors
as ourselves.
This Sunday at 9:45 our friend Jeff Gubitz, the head of the Knoxville
Jewish Alliance, returns to Good Shepherd to help us remember the
tragedy of the "Calamity", the Shoah, the Holocaust.
And at 5 pm that same day, we will join in the annual service of
remembrance at Heska Amuna on Kingston Pike. Both Susan and I will
participate in the service. I hope you will come.
And I sincerely hope that you will bring your children. We who are
Christian must never forget.
In faith and peace,
Charles