Abstract
Christians and Jews generally agree that confessional attitudes played a role in the unfolding of the Holocaust. The Vatican's “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” while admitting to a painful history, distinguishes between “anti-Semitism,” based on racial theories contrary to the constant teaching of the church, and theological sentiments of mistrust and hostility called “anti-Judaism.” Such a dichotomy has been questioned. Adolf Schlatter offers an influential source for Christian attitudes toward Judaism on the eve of the Holocaust. His work provided a rationale and concrete example of the bridging of negative religious views and accusations of the Jews as an immediate social danger.
In the process of carrying out his will, God bears vessels of wrath, prepared to perish, with great and often enduring longsuffering…. That they [the Jews] came to exist through wrath is made evident in that the loss of life is their end. Adolf Schlatter, 1935
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