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In my Theology after the Holocaust seminar this term, one of the works we’ve been vigorously engaging is a book by David R. Blumenthal called “Facing the Abusing God”. Blumenthal has the arduous task of trying to square a world in which there is providence (God’s active participation in human history) with the unspeakable evil of around 8 million children under the age of 10 who died in the camps. This problem of evil is well known to the posters here but, Blumenthal’s theology of protest is provocative and it has some intuitive draw.


Blumenthal creates a spiritual discourse where the universe in which we exist is the holy and creative work of God (the Heavenly Father in Mormon terms), where God’s spirit manifests itself is aesthetic, moral, and rational ways to human beings. In my opinion, Blumenthal relies too heavily on metaphors (sailing metaphors at that) to describe how we humans bumble are way through the dark, seeking greater and greater light to make our way back to God. The texts subject to exegesis are four psalms (27, 44, 109 and 128), and these psalms represent four broad categories of reflecting on the blessings God gives (128), on anger at abandonment by God (44), yearning for revenge (109) and the call for God to bring healing (27). It is in these discussions of the text that Blumenthal invokes his best analogical reasoning by drawing analogies between survivors of child abuse and rape (discussed in psychological terms) and the survivors of the holocaust (discussed in theological terms).


The short of it is that believers in the God of the Bible must have a relationship with God that is analogical to a child who suffered abuse from a beloved parent. At one point, Blumenthal equates good psychology being necessary for good theology and bad psychology necessitates bad theology.


It’s an interesting hermeneutic, one that allows for the unfavorable analogy of the believer being that of the abuse victim, meaning the exercise of doing theodicy is nothing but the neurotic, terribly confused and ultimately terrified victim who justifies the abuse in terms of their own shortcomings. Is there anything more sinister in the world then when the victim blames themself for the abuse they suffer at the hands of loved ones?


Applying this hermeneutic to the mainstream LDS Church is almost a form of abuse itself, because you can clearly see the fruits of the church simply have no way of dealing with the significant evil that exists in this world daily.

Discuss.

Thanks for the recommendation, Stak. Just bought it.

How would the faith of the Jewish people be today had there been no abuse? Let's say that WWII never happened. Nothing cathartic occurs among Jews just greater secular wonders abounding and what? Could they long survive without dissolving completely in the relentless solvents of modern atheism?

These are to be the people that eventually will make up a true Zion that weathers the new age when the element melt with fervent heat. These people were made capable of forsaking the world and so galvanized to its eventual fruition by the atrocity of near genocide. A crucible for much faith was the Holocaust.

I personally am familiar with how abuse can invent faith and love and charity from out of nothing but the hope against hope of wanting these things and somehow knowing God must be out there. And more insisting that he is. Such are the justice demands of abuse.

MrStakhanovite wrote:... The short of it is that believers in the God of the Bible must have a relationship with God that is analogical to a child who suffered abuse from a beloved parent. At one point, Blumenthal equates good psychology being necessary for good theology and bad psychology necessitates bad theology.


It’s an interesting hermeneutic, one that allows for the unfavorable analogy of the believer being that of the abuse victim, meaning the exercise of doing theodicy is nothing but the neurotic, terribly confused and ultimately terrified victim who justifies the abuse in terms of their own shortcomings. Is there anything more sinister in the world then when the victim blames themself for the abuse they suffer at the hands of loved ones? ...

Mr Blumenthal seems like one of the brighter pennies in the collecting plate.

I don't always like to think of the unpleasant aspects of the religious belief I formerly professed, but this post certainly reminds me of one of them with uncomfortable clarity.

It's a lot more pleasant to think that there is no deity at all, rather than to think there is one and he, she, or it made a world like this.

Chap wrote:
It's a lot more pleasant to think that there is no deity at all, rather than to think there is one and he, she, or it made a world like this.

The joy of the consolation of knowing God makes up for it. Which race is more satisfactory. A race against children that you can win easily, or to race against those better and stronger and only the heart that you bring to the race sees you victorious?
Do you want life-lite? Is the joy of that going to long endure?

Nightlion wrote:How would the faith of the Jewish people be today had there been no abuse? Let's say that WWII never happened. Nothing cathartic occurs among Jews just greater secular wonders abounding and what? Could they long survive without dissolving completely in the relentless solvents of modern atheism? ....

There have been huge, ongoing discussions on the implications of Holocaust in the Jewish community. The initial reflexive response in Judaism, which was that the Holocaust happened because of the relatively secular nature of Ashkenazic Jews, has almost universally been abandoned. Rather than increasing faith, it's often argued that the experience has eroded the beliefs of everyday Jews in orthodox forms of Judaism and has instead increased Jewish atheism and secularization.

Nightlion wrote:How would the faith of the Jewish people be today had there been no abuse? Let's say that WWII never happened. Nothing cathartic occurs among Jews just greater secular wonders abounding and what? Could they long survive without dissolving completely in the relentless solvents of modern atheism?

These are to be the people that eventually will make up a true Zion that weathers the new age when the element melt with fervent heat. These people were made capable of forsaking the world and so galvanized to its eventual fruition by the atrocity of near genocide. A crucible for much faith was the Holocaust.

I personally am familiar with how abuse can invent faith and love and charity from out of nothing but the hope against hope of wanting these things and somehow knowing God must be out there. And more insisting that he is. Such are the justice demands of abuse.

28% of American Jews are either atheists, agnostics, or otherwise uncertain about God.

28% feel that religion is not important in their lives, and 41% think it's only somewhat important

The vast majority attend religious services rarely or never.

Only 26% pray daily.

53% believe their scriptures are not the word of God. Only 10% take them as the word of God, literally true word for word.

89% believe there is MORE than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion

82% believe that many religions can lead to eternal life.



So so much for that theory.

http://religions.pewforum.org/portraits

Nightlion wrote:

Chap wrote:
It's a lot more pleasant to think that there is no deity at all, rather than to think there is one and he, she, or it made a world like this.

The joy of the consolation of knowing God makes up for it. Which race is more satisfactory. A race against children that you can win easily, or to race against those better and stronger and only the heart that you bring to the race sees you victorious?
Do you want life-lite? Is the joy of that going to long endure?

You mean that kindly, I know, but my problem was that I did not find my increasingly clear and uncomfortable perception of what this universe's deity would be like at all consoling. Rather than the reverse. I am consoled by his absence from reality.

Morley wrote:

Nightlion wrote:How would the faith of the Jewish people be today had there been no abuse? Let's say that WWII never happened. Nothing cathartic occurs among Jews just greater secular wonders abounding and what? Could they long survive without dissolving completely in the relentless solvents of modern atheism? ....

There have been huge, ongoing discussions on the implications of Holocaust in the Jewish community. The initial reflexive response in Judaism, which was that the Holocaust happened because of the relatively secular nature of Ashkenazic Jews, has almost universally been abandoned. Rather than increasing faith, it's often argued that the experience has eroded the beliefs of everyday Jews in orthodox forms of Judaism and has instead increased Jewish atheism and secularization.

Crap. I sound like one of them college teachers. So sorry.

Chap wrote:
You mean that kindly, I know, but my problem was that I did not find my increasingly clear and uncomfortable perception of what this universe's deity would be like at all consoling. Rather than the reverse. I am consoled by his absence from reality.

You think so. But if you ever did come to know the Lord you really would jump for joy.