Does Your Theology Pass This Test?

I recently read something I can't stop thinking about. And while it's not a pleasant thought to consider, it has profound implications for what we believe. (Trigger warning: violence involving children).

In the book After Evangelicalism, David Gushee shares an insight into theology from a Jewish Rabbi.

Rabbi Greenberg never published much at book length, but some of his essays have been deeply influential in the Jewish community, in Jewish-Christian dialogue circles, and among those undertaking Holocaust theology. In one of these essays, Rabbi Greenberg took note of a particularly unspeakable type of atrocity that was visited upon certain Jewish children by their Nazi murderers. Anybody who studies the Holocaust knows that atrocities were so numerous that it becomes hard to focus on any one of them. But this detail stands out. 

This is the atrocity Rabbi Greenberg described (from the account of a Jewish Holocaust survivor):

The crematoriums could not work at the time, and therefore, the people [after being gassed to death] were just burned in open fields with those grills, and also children were burned among them. . . . And then, on one special day they started burning them to death. The gas chambers at the time were out of order . . . and therefore the children were not gassed, but just burned alive. When one of the SS men sort of had pity on the children, he took the child and beat the head against a stone first before putting it on the pile of fire and wood, so that the child lost consciousness. However, the regular way they did it was just by throwing the children onto the pile. They used to put a sheet of wood, then the whole thing was sprinkled with gasoline, then wood again, and gasoline and wood, and gasoline—and then people were placed on them. Thereafter, the whole pile was lit.

It's difficult to read those words, let alone allow your imagination to go there. Yet we live in a world where it happened. We are left to try and make sense of it. Gushee then explains how Rabbi Greenberg used this story as a theology test and how it shaped him personally.

After describing this scene, Rabbi Greenberg put forward the following proposition: “No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children.” Greenberg’s staggering proposition became known as the burning-children test. Probably few readers will have heard of it. But it has never left me. Test all statements (about God, theology, morality, faith, life) based on whether such statements would be credible in the kind of world in which two-year-olds have been thrown alive into pits of fire. I would hasten to add: the kind of world in which Jewish two-year-olds have been burned alive mainly by baptized Christians.

If we are willing to stare this act of evil in the face, it forces us to consider whether our view of God is enough. Theological ideas focused on God blessing us, making us happy, or granting us a win in every situation should feel absurd with Rabbi Greenberg's test in mind. Not to mention the 'Preachers and Sneakers' version of Christianity that tends to dominate our social media feeds.

If you consider yourself a Christian, think about...

• The last sermon you heard
• The worship songs you sing
• Your recent prayers
• Your favorite Bible verses
• The way in which you describe God to people

Do any of these feel out of place in light of the burning-children test? And if you think you're off the hook because you don't believe in God at all, I encourage you to reflect on how you make sense of this story without losing all hope. How do we live in a world like that?

This is a concern with much of Christianity, especially in America today. Many of us believe just enough about God to make us feel good. Without realizing it, we can build our theology on nothing more than 'fire insurance' with the reassurance we will avoid eternal damnation. But this type of faith leaves little to offer the world (or the person believing it) here and now. And in case you haven't realized it, Rabbi Greenberg's test applies to all sorts of evils that continue to happen in our world today.

Thankfully, we can perpetually keep growing in both our experience of God as well as our understanding of God. To quote Pete Enns from a previous blog post, "What if God the Creator is ever-present in and around us, and every waking moment of our lives is an opportunity to grasp a slightly clearer picture of the Infinite Mystery?" (See: Curveball). It is this type of faith in God—in which God continually seems to get bigger as we grasp a slightly clearer picture—that offers something of value for the suffering around us.

Does your theology pass Rabbi Greenberg's test?

Photo by Vlada on Unsplash