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Reflections of an Unconverted Convert: Elie Wiesel, the Problem of God, and One Jew's Return Home
This is the story of Dr. Murray Haar’s odyssey from Jewish tradition to Christianity and back again. As the child of Holocaust survivors, he struggled with questions of God and faith and finally left the religious tradition of his youth behind. He became an ordained Lutheran pastor and professor at a midwestern Lutheran College. Ultimately, through the influence of Elie Wiesel, he found the way back home to the Jewish tradition and community of his birth.
118 pages, Paperback
Published December 19, 2022
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February 20, 2024
I was very excited to read this book, but I’m not sure how to evaluate it. I had Dr. Haar as a professor for “Intro to Christian Belief” and “After Auschwitz” at Augustana. He was easily one of my favorite professors for his courage to pursue truth without straying into affectations.
His writing is clever and memorable as shown in his most succinct statement of belief, “I believe in God despite God, in spite of God, and to spite God.” And questions like, “If your faith doesn’t work in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, what good is it?” My favorite statement he always used was that he wants to avoid “happy, clappy, smarmy Christianity”.
However, he is seriously wrong on many points of doctrine and interpretation of scripture. He believes it is our role to call God to account when God is wrong. By what standard? Haar would say it is God’s very law he uses to call him to act rightly. Is God wrong or uncaring as a redeemer if a single Jew suffers? How about 6 million Jews? God never promised protection and redemption in this way. Just read about when mothers ate their children during the Babylonian Exile. He promised the world would hate his followers. Haar wildly misreads the covenants of God and mistakes descriptive passages for prescriptive. It is precisely this faith that will not work in Auschwitz. I would love to sit down and talk with Haar again. May this Jew come home for the first time and see the riches of Christ.
So what can we learn from this book? Follow the traditions of the laments and take your hardest and most puzzling questions to God, He can bear it. Don’t let questions drive you away from God, but take them to the only one who can do anything about it. And do it in faith that refuses to give up and fall into apathy. I’d recommend this book to anyone willing and able to differentiate Biblical truth from subjective standards of emotion-driven “truth”. Haar challenges me and I value that more than all the generic work professors teaching that God celebrates trans men getting abortions and quoting John 3:16.
His writing is clever and memorable as shown in his most succinct statement of belief, “I believe in God despite God, in spite of God, and to spite God.” And questions like, “If your faith doesn’t work in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, what good is it?” My favorite statement he always used was that he wants to avoid “happy, clappy, smarmy Christianity”.
However, he is seriously wrong on many points of doctrine and interpretation of scripture. He believes it is our role to call God to account when God is wrong. By what standard? Haar would say it is God’s very law he uses to call him to act rightly. Is God wrong or uncaring as a redeemer if a single Jew suffers? How about 6 million Jews? God never promised protection and redemption in this way. Just read about when mothers ate their children during the Babylonian Exile. He promised the world would hate his followers. Haar wildly misreads the covenants of God and mistakes descriptive passages for prescriptive. It is precisely this faith that will not work in Auschwitz. I would love to sit down and talk with Haar again. May this Jew come home for the first time and see the riches of Christ.
So what can we learn from this book? Follow the traditions of the laments and take your hardest and most puzzling questions to God, He can bear it. Don’t let questions drive you away from God, but take them to the only one who can do anything about it. And do it in faith that refuses to give up and fall into apathy. I’d recommend this book to anyone willing and able to differentiate Biblical truth from subjective standards of emotion-driven “truth”. Haar challenges me and I value that more than all the generic work professors teaching that God celebrates trans men getting abortions and quoting John 3:16.
Displaying 1 of 1 review