Christanity, the Other, and the Holocaust

Abstract

This study, part of a much more detailed but unfinished project, involves the use of culture studies and discourse theory to investigate the ways in which Christianity has been involved in the social relationships of the phenomenon of power over the Other, how that power expresses and perpetuates itself, and how it manifested itself during the Holocaust. Such a study is of crucial importance because Christianity has, for many centuries, constituted a culture, or a major determinant of Western culture, by which hundreds of millions of believing Christians have had their most deeply-held beliefs formulated. Scripture, scripture commentary, papal bulls, the arts, and countless sermons, pamphlets and books constitute the discourse within which those millions have lived. The tentative hope is that this analysis will reveal the underlying cultural substrata that helped empower those who either actively perpetrated or passively acquiesced in the Holocaust.