Anguished Hope

Sometimes it is just wonderful that I have to walk through the WCC library to get to my office (when there are no staff in the library and the library users also walk into my office this is sometimes less wonderful but hey c'est la vie). This morning arriving at work Dr B found this book Anguished Hope: Holocaust Scholars confronting the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. Looks like the right book for me to read at the moment as I try to sort out my feelings and thoughts on this issue, particularly following the conference I attended in Bern last year on theological perspectives on the Promised Land.

More than 20 years ago my undergraduate dissertation was on "The Confessing Church and Anti-Semitism". It was an important piece of research for me to write but I realise how much the debate has moved on and how much I personally need to be challenged by that now. So finding this book and being able to sign it out of the library as the first person to borrow it really is one of the perks of my job. And I'm on holiday next week so I might even have time to read it. Each essay is followed by questions from the other contributors and then the author's response once more. It looks very interesting. More on it soon - the real challenge in terms of my reading is concentrating on the serious stuff and not letting myself get sidetracked by all that great detective fiction ...

In the meantime "anguished hope" would also be a great title for a sermon.