God's First Love

God willing, in August I shall be in Bayreuth at a performance of Die Meistersinger. And it won't be the first time that I have graced the Festspielhaus with my presence. Some ten years ago I was there for The Ring, Tristan, and Parsifal, all due to the influence and kindness of my friend Martin who makes a living on the operatic stage, and will be doing so at Bayreuth again this year.

Bayreuth is a very attractive town, especially in summer, and Wagner's custom-built theatre is most impressive - despite the hard seats and the complete lack of air conditioning at what is after all the hottest time of the year. But I have to confess that there is something just a little bit unnerving about it all. And you know why, don't you? The Wagners - Wieland and Wolfgang and their mother Winifred (nee Williams) - had a dear friend and devoted supporter who did his very best to destroy the world. And they loved him for it, especially the former Miss Williams of Bognor Regis.

When I was last in Bayreuth walking about the place (including the Festspielhaus) with Martin, I couldn't help seeing little notices here and there signed by Wolfgang (now just off to Valhalla himself) and sitting in the theatre itself I was always aware of the ghosts of his late mother and her special friend hovering somewhere in the Circle behind me. And when the conductors named Barenboim and Levine were in the orchestral pit I couldn't help thinking of those millions of other ghosts who had had surnames not unlike theirs.

All of which has not been helped by a television documentary which I saw a few days ago about the contribution of medical science to the war effort of the Third Reich. All those SS doctors were the frontline troops in the only war which really mattered - the protection and improvement of the breeding stock. Even Charles Darwin's son asserted that something should be done to make sure the gene pool was not polluted by the Untermenschen.

The special friend of the former Miss Williams (sometime of Bognor Regis) was just the one to deal with the problem. And deal with it he did. Even when the tide was going badly against Germany as the war drew to a close, the transports full of Untermenschen kept rolling towards the death camps, soaking up the men and resources which were desperately needed for the defence of the Reich itself. But it was the enemy within which really mattered most it seems, not the Allied armies advancing over the Rhine on one side and into East Prussia on the other.

How extraordinary that is, and yet somehow part of a terrible pattern, and one with which the Church is inextricably involved. Here is Luther in full cry about God's chosen people: "Venomous beasts, vipers, disgusting scum, canders, devils incarnate. Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they should be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them be forced to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies."

And Luther most certainly wasn't the only one. John Chrysostom was just as bad, and he was joined by Ephraim the Syrian, Augustine, Cyprian, and Cyril of Alexandria among many others, from the patristic period onwards. For a more up to date example you have only to consider the response of the Slovakian archbishop Karol Kmetko to a Jewish plea for assistance in March 1942: "You shall not merely be deported. You shall be killed. And this will be your punishment for killing our saviour."

There is a most remarkable film called God on Trial which stars (if that is the right word) Sir Anthony Sher. The film is based on what appears to be a true account of something which happened in Auschwitz: the Rabbis in residence decided to try God for the crime of breaking his covenant with his chosen people.

During the course of the trial all the expected charges were laid, but nevertheless (in the film at least) the judges were about to acquit The Accused when a very distinguished Rabbi, who had so far said nothing, began to speak. He pointed out how God had bereaved the innocent mothers of Egypt, commanded the Israelites to slaughter the helpless Amalekites, and generally shown himself to be anything but kind and just. And why, he asked, is this so? Because, he said, "God is not good, he is not good - he is just strong." And now he had chosen a new people, and entered into a new covenant - with the very Germans who were hell-bent on exterminating the members of the old one.

At this point in the proceedings, Dr Mengele arrives to choose some more victims for the crematoria. One of these is a young man who has had little or no time for the faith of his fathers. Weeping in desperation, he throws himself at the Rabbi's feet crying, "What do we do now?" "Now," the Rabbi says, "now we pray." Holding their hands over their heads in the absence of skullcaps and shawls, they begin chanting, "You have been our refuge from age to age."

Even stripped naked in the gas chamber, they still hold their hands over their heads as they sing to the God who has not saved them, but in whom (somehow) they still hope and believe.

I find it fascinating that the Jews, more perhaps than any other people, have been the ones to carry the cross of Christ for the last two thousand years or so. And Christianity itself has been the hard and cruel cross which they have carried. I must confess that I do not see the divine (let alone ethical) imperative of zionism, but it does seem to me that the history of God's chosen people in the last two millenia makes presents a most profound mystery to do with suffering and faith of which the adherents of Christianity are hardly aware.

Richard Wagner himself was an appalling antisemite, especially in print, which is one of the reasons that Hitler was so devoted to the family, which in turn helps to explain why, after the war, only Winifred Wagner (late of Bognor Regis) was one of the very few still prepared to sing his praises. I'm afraid I did a little bit of singing myself at Bayreuth. Only the music of Wagner himself is ever permitted to be heard in the Festspielhaus. But I showed them. When no-one was looking I sat in the conductor's seat in the orchestral pit and sang a few bars of Mozart. And the roof stayed where it was.