Tafilowski, Ryan
'Dark, Depressing Riddle'

Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of the Volk in the Theology of Paul Althaus.

At the twilight of the Weimar Republic, politicians, scientists, and theologians were engaged in debates surrounding the so-called 'Jewish Question'. When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, these discussions took on a new sense of urgency and poignancy. As state measures against Jews unfolded, theological conceptions of the meaning of 'Israel' and 'Judaism' began to impact living, breathing Jewish persons. In the study, Ryan Tafilowski traces the thought of the Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus, who once greeted the rise of Hitler as a 'gift and miracle of God', as he negotiated the 'Jewish Question' and its meaning for his understanding of Germanness across the Weimar Republic, the Nazi years, and the post-war period. In particular, the study uncovers the paradoxical categories Althaus used to interpret the ongoing theological significance of the Jewish people, whom he considered both an imminent threat to German ethnic identity and yet a mysterious cipher by which Germans might decode their own spiritual destiny in world history. 256 Seiten, gebunden (Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie; Vol. 166/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2019) leichte Lagerspuren/minor shelfwear