Lessons from Auschwitz: Faith and Humanity

Jean-Pierre Fortin (professor at Loyola University in Chicago) is on the podcast to talk about his new book, Grace in Auschwitz. The book offers a constructive theology of grace in the wake of unprecedented evil. Unlike a book that tackles the problem of evil in the abstract, he does interviews and retellings of stories from Auschwitz, not to fix the problem of evil, but to develop a doctrine of grace, asking: How can God be brought to us through the experience of the survivors?

In one sense, it is a more honest look at Auschwitz, evil, and suffering, because it is in the lives of people where the theological work is done. He also frames contemporary Christological issues of kenosis or divine power in relation to those personal stories.

He also argues that Auschwitz wasn't the exception in Western progress, but a relapse into the very heart of civilization itself: if we think of Auschwitz as an exception we actually miss what is a revelation into the heart of violence of civilization.

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