H. Martin Rumscheidt

In Search for a Theology Capable of Mourning

H. Martin Rumscheidt

To what extent are the children of Holocaust perpetrators to feel remorseful or responsible for their parents' wrongdoing? Is the yearning by those offspring of Nazi sympathizers for forgiveness justified, or should they separate themselves from their parents or relatives and ignore the history?

Such dilemmas have gnawed at theologian Martin Rumscheidt ever since, at age eighteen, he discovered his father's complicity in using Jewish slave labor at his workplace, IG Farben. He has written and spoken extensively about his journey in search of what he calls a theology of mourning that would preserve his concept of the reality of God and still recognize the reality–at times grim reality–of life.