A Child S Grief A Nation S Lament

Genocide isn't past tense and the Nazi and Bosnian eras are not yet closed. The demonising of people as 'unworthy' and expendable is ever-present and the consequences are all too evident in the daily news. These fourteen essays by Australian scholars confront the issues: the need for a measuring scale that encompasses differences and similarities between seemingly divergent cases of the crime; the complicity of bureaucracies, the healing professions and the churches in this 'crime of crimes'; the quest for historical justice for genocide victims generally following the Nuremberg Trials; the fate of children in the Nazi and postwar eras; the 'worthiness' of Armenians, Jews and Romani people in twentieth century Europe; and the imperative to tackle early warning signs of an incipient genocide. Colin Tatz is a founding director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, visiting fellow in Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University, and honorary visiting fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. He teaches and publishes in comparative race politics, youth suicide, migration studies, and sports history.

In a faith focused on resurrection hope, patient endurance, and victory in Christ, is there any room for pain, doubt, and anger? In Scripture, lament is the prayer that makes that room. Not only is lament one of the most common forms of prayer in the Old Testament, it’s also woven deeply into the fabric of the New Testament and the Christian way. Lament is the cry for all those who ache over the way things are but aren’t content to let them stay that way. It’s the prayer for all the ways that the kingdom has not yet come, in the hope that God’s justice and peace will prevail—someday.

Jeremiah and Lamentation are at once a prophecy of the desolation of Judah but a history of it. Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. He cries for a nation that rejected God to the point that they could not turn back to God. The nation believed false prophets even when they were shown to be false. This is the cause for his weeping and we see his frustration which is a picture of the frustration that God had for Israel. We can also note that many of ChristÕs illustrations were taken from Jeremiah. The reader is encouraged to make that comparison and put them in the notes pages that are provided. I would also note a comparison with today. It is a study that in we can see even in our society.

In his pastoral and theological reflections, Martin Luther always sought faithfully to discern the Word of God from the Scriptures. Luther drew on the Gospel of Matthew when developing edifying sermons as well as teasing out valuable ethical insights for the Christian engagement in society. While his immediate audience was in Wittenberg, the Gospel of Matthew has continued to be a resource for the church's mission. In this collection of essays, internationally renowned theologians reflect on the ongoing reception of the Gospel of Matthew from the Reformation until today, and how, in light of the Lutheran interpretive traditions, it remains a valuable resource for the church as it seeks to respond to contemporary concerns in its mission to the whole world.