"Never again!" In the years following the Holocaust, the phrase came to signify a general determination never again to permit systemic anti-Semitism and genocidal violence. Yet anti-Semitism endures, and its underlying causes persist. The resilience of anti-Semitism casts the Holocaust not as inexplicable or singular, but as an event shaped by identifiable--and universal--human prejudices. Despite the intense attention focused on the Holocaust, we consistently misrepresent it. By describing it as a purely irrational phenomenon, we risk minimizing the threat that anti-Semitism continues to pose. Instead, we must identify and acknowledge its causes, which are not only political, economic, and pseudoscientific but ideological as well. Taking its title from the Book of Esther, Mordecai Would Not Bow Down investigates these ideological causes. Timothy P. Jackson argues that the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were persecuted for their belief in one God who is the sole Creator of a moral order centered in selflessness and love. Judaic teachings about the importance of caring for the weak and vulnerable overtly contradicted the Nazis' "natural" lust for power and enjoyment of cruelty, which further fueled their anti-Semitism. By analyzing the ideological clash between Nazism and Judaism, Jackson reveals the ways in which Christianity was complicit in the Holocaust-specifically, the role of Christian supersessionism: the belief that the New Covenant supplants or erases the Old Covenant, making Christians and not Jews God's elect. Supersessionism has historically enabled Christian anti-Semitic violence. Yet Judaism and Christianity are ultimately complementary in their shared origins and analogous aims: the Law that saves the Jews and the Gospel that saves the Gentiles are of a piece. God's choosing the Jewish people to embody collectively a message of fellowship and moral responsibility is parallel to God's calling on Jesus to save humanity individually. Moreover, both divine vocations often engender demonic resentment. Recognizing that Auschwitz and Calvary are but two sites of the same murderous despair is an important step toward eliminating the pervasive menace of anti-Semitism.

About the Author
Timothy P. Jackson is Professor of Christian Ethics at The Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He is the author of Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy and The Priority of Love: Christian Charity and Social Justice, among other works.

Reviews
contributes much to the ongoing discussion of the supersessionist/Holocaust issues * John T. Pawlikowski, Journal of Law and Religion *
A worthy addition to the growing literature on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and Christianity. * CHOICE *
As a Gentile Christian, Jackson has taken a certain risk in writing about the Jews, the Shoah, and anti-Semitism. He does so, however, with nuance, sensitivity, courage, and moral clarity. * Brad East, Commonweal *
Among the most thoughtful and committed scholar theologians active today, Jackson knows that Israel, the Jewish people, are the suffering servant, called by God's word and steeled by God's covenant to their role as a blessing to the earth's nations. Jews have immeasurably enriched civilization spiritually, morally, and intellectually. Yet Jews are persecuted. In this unique and important book, Jackson argues that Jews have been persecuted through the ages because Jewish ideals are antithetical to the power-lust that masquerades as worldly wisdom. Jewish loyalty is to a higher standard calling all who listen to seek goodness, truth, and beauty for their intrinsic preciousness and no lesser good. * Lenn Goodman, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in Humanities, Vanderbilt University *
Although I do not share some of the author's theological premises, I am pleased to recommend this book. Why? Because it is elegantly written, philosophically profound and provocative, and the fruit of reading so wide one can only envy it. I know of nothing quite like it, and any reader of it will profit in countless ways. * Gilbert Meilaender, Senior Research Professor, Valparaiso University *
Many books have been written about anti-Semitism. This one is different. Without for a moment averting his eyes from the particular horrors of the long history of Christian anti-Semitism, or of its culmination in the Holocaust, Jackson invites us to go deeper. Jackson finds in anti-Semitism fundamentally an effort to escape our humanity before God, a form of idolatry that lashes out in hatred of God and of the frail and vulnerable, whom God loves. He summons each of us recognize our own inner Nazi, intent on denigrating others in order to elevate ourselves, resistant to a moral monotheism that demands universal love and suffering service to the world. A proper engagement with these matters, he insists, must be radically self-involving, not detached or merely analytic. Mordecai Would Not Bow Down is a profound, lyrical, forceful book that will not let you go. * Jennifer A. Herdt, Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale Divinity School *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197538050
Author Timothy P. Jackson
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 739g
Dimensions(mm) 152mm * 239mm * 33mm