“What the Kingdom of God requires is a radical Christian movement in our own time which has a vigor and depth that equals that of those radicals who have gone before us.” These words introduce a Radical Reformation Reader, first published in 1971 by a group confident that the past could—and did—offer practical, theological guidance for following Jesus in the contemporary world. What forms of church are appropriate to the ecclesial heirs of such a radical tradition, especially in settings marked by individualism, escalating violence, and growing economic disparity? The essays republished here explore divergent contextual responses and invite readers to do the same.
Virgil Vogt was leader for many years of Reba Place Church and Reba Place Fellowship, a Christian Community in Evanston, Illinois. He was managing editor for Concern: A Pamphlet Series for Questions of Christian Renewal from 1960-1971. Laura Schmidt Roberts is Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Fresno Pacific University. She is the lead editor of Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision: New Essays in Anabaptist Identity and Theological Method (2019).
Laura Schmidt Roberts is Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Fresno Pacific University. She is the lead editor of
Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision: New Essays in Anabaptist Identity and Theological Method (2019).
John D. Roth is Professor of History at Goshen College, where he also serves as editor of The Mennonite Quarterly Review and director of the Mennonite Historical Library. He is the author of numerous books and articles on subjects related to the Radical Reformation and contemporary Anabaptist and Mennonite theology, including
Teaching that Transforms: Why Anabaptist-Mennonite Education Matters (2011).
A Review of John K. Roth's Sources of Holocaust Insight: Learning and Teaching About the Genocide
by Bill Younglove, Holocaust Specialist
Ethicist John Roth has done it--again. His latest volume--to be added to the fifty-plus volumes written by him over a half century--represents a kind of bringing it all together, the it residing in the title and subtitle--The Holocaust as genocide, extraordinaire.
In almost classical fashion, Roth establishes in a Prologue exactly what the essence of an ethical pursuit should be--and in an Epilogue some 250+ pages later, outlines, via thirteen bulleted points, key Holocaust insights gleaned.
Sandwiched in between is a compendium from decades of testimonies by surviving witnesses, conversations, conferences, scholarly research, and writings by, literally, hundreds of well-known--and perhaps not so well-known figures. One format aspect, which this reader really appreciated is that genuine footnotes (at the foot of most pages!) make for easy connections. Likewise, bibliographic and post-bibliographic electronic notes allow for easy, extended, referencing.
En route, Roth's customary straightforward prose, strengthened by apt analogies or even figures of speech, help the reader understand the very winding--and often seemingly duplicitous--path that ethical explorations take. As the Table of Contents notes, the eleven chapters are populated with names familiar to every scholar of Holocaust history and literature. At the same time, Roth includes friends and teachers whom he met during his years of academic pursuit, noting their contributions, also, to the whole spectrum of Holocaust Studies.
Particularly important to this writer is Roth's inclusion of teachers--thus the learning in the subtitle. No one who has attempted to impart the importance of the events (principally) between 1933-1945 in Europe to young people has ever forgotten the challenges that students have given, rightfully so, to anyone standing in the front of the classrooms.
Herein is the essence of John Roth's pursuit in Sources of Holocaust Insight. If you are quite new to the field, but are a determined teacher, you will find that Roth's personal odyssey will provide you with a wealth of resources to help you respond to the dilemmas posed in Wiesel's half dozen questions. For the more seasoned teacher, Roth will provide context for that which you may already have broached, if not explored thoroughly. For those steeped in Holocaust scholarship, Roth's references to Albert Camus, and Sartre parenthetically, may cause said reader to (re)visit, existentially, what Kafka called the language of the absurd. Dramatist Samuel Beckett, himself active in the French Resistance during World War II, questioned the absurdity of that world in his play, Waiting for Godot. When pronounced correctly, God-ot suggests that humanity's wait will long test its faith in its capacity for compassion, as well as survival. Roth is a consummate faith tester.
