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I am sitting still stunned after watching a riveting piece of drama. The BBC has taken one of the most dreadful parts of human history and made something wonderful out of it.
‘God on trial‘ tells the story of jews, wrestling with God, like Jacob before them. If you missed it, you can watch again for the next 7days by visiting the BBC i player- here
This programme was a master class of writing and acting. It is centred around a group of Jews in Auchwitz who have just been selected for the gas chamber. And in angry outburst, some of them decide to put God on Trial.
The charge- breach of the contract with his Chosen People, the Jews. And the arguments went backwards and forwards. Some angry and rejecting, others clinging to faith with all of their might. Here are a selection of some of the arguments
Jews had suffered before. The point is to be a good Jew- we are being tested. Punished for sins. sons deserted faith- forgetting the scriptures.
But why punish children and old people, and good Jews because of the sins of the bad ones? Why not punish HITLER?
But this covenant is with the Jewish people- it is not personal.
In time, things become better? God is a purifying surgeon– not a punishment, but a purification? Like the flood, or the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Painful, but beautiful. A process necessary for the rebirth of Israel? A sacrifice? A Holocaust… you can hate the knife, but love the surgeon. there will be a holy remnant. they can finish the story.
Do not let them take your faith. Hitler will die but the TORAH will live. We must trust in God.
God gave us free will. We have to take responsibility for our own planet.
But there was the man who was forced to choose from one of his children- one to save. Free will? I do not want it.
“But he is here. I know he is here, even though I do not understand him. Snowdrops the first ray of sun. I felt him. That warmth. Maybe GOD is being gassed. He is suffering with us.
But who needs a god who suffers?
Maybe God needs us… maybe he is not strong after all without us
Were does all this evil come from, but where too does all this goodness come from?
The violent history of the Jewish people. God the avenging God. God who kills the first-born Egyptians, and destroyed the people of the promised land- to make room for the Israelites. Moabites, Amelakites- Is this God Just??? What was it like when God turned against these people? It was like THIS. God was not good- he was only on our side! Now he has made a new covenant with someone else!
WE cannot fathom the mind of GOd. THis will end…
BUt no no no no- this will not do- making predictions about the future. The covenant we have NOW- Psalm 81 the throne of david will last for all time and his descendants….
You have something in common with the Nazis! 100 thousand million stars. To count them 2500 years- just one galaxy! Yet all his focus is on ONE planet? One part of the planet- the Jews?? If he loved the jews so much- why did he make anything else?
It’s all about power and control. Each one with their own God.
Don’t let them take your God. He is your god, ‘even if he does not exist’.
And as brilliant minds chased ideas about God like lifelines thrown to drowning men, their appointment with the gas chambers drew closer. And in the end, they found God guilty as charged.
But then, at the end, one man cries ‘Now God is guilty- what do we do now?’
‘Now’ came the answer, ‘we pray’.
So did I.
this fragile tent 
Hi Chris
Thanks for your blog which I discovered when I was left speechless and crying at the end of ‘God on Trial’. I’m about to link to you on my site. I’m a Christian mum (just dropped second baby daughter at school for the first time, this morning, feeling a bit emotional) but now to work. We’re launching a youth group on the 21st of the month and I am a volunteer children’s worker, although hoping to hand this over to new paid staff. I start theological college later in the month. I like the look of the book 40 so will probably order this. Keep blogging – I’m enjoying your site.
God bless
Rachel at Re vis.e Re form
Hey there Rachel
Good to hear from you- and thanks for the encouraging comments.
Very much empathise with the first day at School thing! Hope that goes well! My youngest is 8, but I still feel a little sense of loss that the school stole my lad…
hope 40 is useful to you with your other projects too- it is very easy to use as a worship/mediation thing, and the pictures work with lot of different age groups. We have soundscapes and other stuff if you are interested.
Blessings, and I’ll dip into your blog too…
Chris
I share your emotions on watching this movingly crafted work. But perhaps it is worth saying that the central charge – that God broke his covenant with the Jews – is based on not reading the terms of the contract. Of course Jewish lawyers – and every Rabbi reads the Torah as a lawyer – would go back to the contract itself. It is a contract for a promised land. Adonai offers the Children of Israel a lease on the territory that will be known as the Land of Israel. He will ensure that they get there by defeating all enemies on the way and driving out and wiping out the incumbents, who are treated as illegitimate squatters. The terms of the lease require that the “chosen people” obey every detail of a complex set of rules and obeisances, paying daily homage to the divine landlord. If they fail to do this they will be evicted.
The covenant is very clear, and the Prophets kept pointing this out right up to the eviction itself on Aug. 7th 586 BC.
The drama brought a series of real rabbinical discussions of the holocaust to powerful life. But the imaginary trial itself was based on a charge that has no validity. It assumed that God had promised to be nice and kind to the Jews – dare I say, the kind of God that Christians expect and hope for, but that Jews have not really ever thought they were dealing with. Perhaps that is why the experience of Auschwitz did not destroy Judaism.
Alan Ereira
HI There Allan
Interesting point- thanks. I wonder if you arrive at this issue as a Christian or a Jew (or neither?)
Your response would seem to indicate that we would view the issues differently- and that, indeed, our view of God is very different.
Many Christian would be surprised. We would see ourselves as having inherited our understanding of who God is from our acceptance and study of the Jewish Bible.
But clearly there are differences, and most of these are about Jesus- and perhaps the glorious muddle that his followers have made of following his teachings!
I wonder about the precision you bring to the ‘contract’ though. I know this is what the film was attempting to do, but to me, this was part of its power- a group of people trying to make sense of their God in appalling circumstances- Trying to understand if the God they serve has abandoned them…
Can we really abstract Ancient eastern text to place it within a western modern legal context?
If we can, then the people of Israel’s failure to meet the terms of the ‘divine landlord’ as you eloquently put it, has deserved consequences. And there can be no complaint.
But but but- women, children tortured and killed indiscriminately? Is this ever to be explained by a contract broken?
The book of Job wrestles endlessly with this same topic- and comes, as far as I can see, to no conclusion- apart from one.
God is God.
AS for you last point about the God that Christians expect and hope for…
Suffering is part of the Christian history too. The Liberation theologians remind us of the place of the poor and broken in the Kingdom of God. I am not sure that suffering ever destroys faith. In many cases it seems to strengthen it?
But if we can not hope in a God of love, then what else is there to hope for?
BLessings
Chris
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