GUILT, FORGIVENESS AND THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY
GUILT, FORGIVENESS AND THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY

Towards an alternative theological model

Summary/Abstract: This paper posits a variety of reasons for the particular ways in which both Holocaust theology and Jewish-Christian dialogue have developed over the last seventy years and suggests that, because of the particular circumstances of the Holocaust and its relationship to historical conceptions of judgement and forgiveness in the Jewish and Christian faiths respectively, it may not be helpful to use discussions of guilt and forgiveness arising out of Holocaust theology (formal or informal) as the basis for developing a Jewish, Christian or inter-faith theology of guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation in the wake of atrocity more generally. The paper explores the cost for perpetrator, victim and international/bystander communities of accepting any narrative according to which those involved in the enacting of atrocities are defined entirely by their guilt and denied all possibility of forgiveness. It suggests that, in the wake of a conflict where the experience is too raw for it to be reasonable to ask or expect perpetrators or their representatives to acknowledge guilt or victims and their family members to extend forgiveness, it may be helpful to encourage an interim stage in the reconciliation process during which those identified as part of the perpetrator community are asked to acknowledge the flawedness of any human decision or action and thus the possibility of culpability whist those who identify as victims are required to acknowledge the prerogative of God to forgive whom, as and when He (alone) sees fit.

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