LEARNING FROM A TRAGEDY: THE CHURCH IN NAZI GERMANY AND THE RENEWAL OF ECCLESIAL IMAGINATION

Abstract

The past is deep and, if taken with appropriate evaluation, has lessons for the present and the future. I argue that coming to terms with the past with critical ecclesial imagination cannot be overemphasized. After the Jewish Holocaust, the Church acknowledged how some of its teachings laid the ground for anti-Semitism and how, even today, it still has the task of continuing to rethink its theology and theo-praxis. This article discusses how the experience of the Church in Nazi Germany became a Kairos for its ecclesial imagination. In an increasingly divided world, ecclesial communities need to understand what it means to come to terms with the past and the theological implications of memory rooted in self-criticism.