A Life without Christ
I love stories. I love hearing about people. I love books that share a story. I appreciate stories that show me the love of Christ, especially when they don't intend to. I love stories about people who are real.I just read such a story.
Night by Elie Wiesel.
I can't fathom the extent of suffering Mr. Wiesel has endured. Never in a million years will I understand the suffering. I can't imagine what my response to God would be had I been the one in concentration camps. It scares me to think that my response might have been his. Listen to his story:
How sad to see a man who was so close to truth, only to turn so far away from it. His story is heartbreaking. The suffering is sad, yes, but many suffer. What is heartbreaking is his loss of faith and his rejection of God. As he remembers a hanging in the camp he says, " 'For God's sake, where is God?' And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows..."In days gone by Rosh Hashanah had dominated my life. I knew that my sins grieved the Almighty and so I pleaded for forgiveness. But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long.
When belief is caught up in a God who is not there, who is not personal, this is a right response. That god is dead. But praise the true God, that He is there and He is living.
While Night is desperate and intense, the most moving portion was in the forward written by the publisher Francois Mauriac. With him I identified and with his words I thought, "how should a Christian respond?"
What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a conerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to him. But all I could do was embrace him and weep.
Response. When Christians are faced with the suffering in the world how should we respond? Wiesel says this of response in his preface to his own story, "I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. What I do know is that there is 'response' in responsibility."
There is response in responsibility.
Labels: book review
6 Comments:
I just read this story recently as well. It is horrifying and heart-wrenchingly honest, yet it almost reads like fiction. I think it is one of the best autobiographical pieces I have ever read.
Caroline
I tried leaving a comment on your blog. Twice.
Thanks for the comment - didn't know you read my blog. Nice having you around :). How's life treating you? Let's do coffee sometime!
Have you read Day or Dawn? I listened to a book on tape version of Day, but I'm a hands-on person so I must read the real thing.
I got your comment (both of them :) ). I think it may be acting weird because I am using blogspot's beta version.
Yes, coffee would be nice. My contact info is on facebook, if you want to email me or whatever.
I actually have a copy (from the library) that contains Night, Dawn, and The Accident - but haven't gotten around to reading the second two yet.
I think the greater point, which you don't elaborate on, is not that Mr. Wiesel lost his faith while in the concentration camps, but after ALL that, he was able to find it again. I think that is the truest, most human, and most admirable thing he has done with the rest of his life; he's a living example of coming from the depths to 'glorify God's name' by his writing. I say that in quotes because it's not a traditional Jewish sentiment, but the greater point is still intact.
My second point is more of a plea. Please don't judge Mr. Wiesel. Yes, all people suffer, but who are you to say whether or not his lapse in faith was justified or not? It's very easy for us Christians to sit on our holier-than-thou pedestal and make widespread, sweeping judgments about our fellow man and how his faith appears to us. Even in the depths of our sorrow and our suffering, we cannot even fathom how it must have been to be truly persecuted for our faith and because of our faith to the point of mass extermination. Mr. Wiesel has led a life most Christians, even good, upstanding, moral ones can only aspire to: not only has his faith been challenged and called into question, but it has been strengthened and perpetuated because of that doubt.
Anonymous, you are right to criticize my apparent judgement of Mr. Wiesel's faith. I say apparent because that was not in the least bit my intention; I was merely making an observation. I am not familiar with his post-War experience to know whether or not he returned to faith. I do know what he continued to write and it is through his writings I draw my conclusions about his faith. He allows me to do that because that is the risk authors take in publishing personal thoughts.
My question to you is this: Faith in what? The basic thesis of "Day" is - God is dead and Man is all that's left. Suffering reminds man he is still alive. Because God is dead there is no love and Man cannot love. Suffering prevents man from loving.
Did Mr. Wiesel find faith again? I don't know. But if he did, in what does he place his faith? The power of mankind to overcome suffering? Christ has said that love is to be the mark of the Christian. If there is no capacity for love within the limits of how one sees life, then what does that say about the condition of his or her heart?
The point I clearly did not make was the point of grace. If Mr. Wiesel did in fact find faith once more, than yes, "glorify God's name." Lord willing, I will not suffer what he has suffered for his faith. I am fairly confident that I would fail that faith test. It is truly but for the grace of God...
Shannon --
Thanks for the notes on my blog. =)
I'm glad you read "Night." I loved it because he was so honest and open about his struggle with faith and life. Few people are as honest and real as he is in this book.
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