The Sign of the Cross
Subtitle: From Golgotha to Genocide
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017
Place of publication: Milton
Language: eng
Number of pages: 315
ISBN-13: 9781351474221
Subjects: Crosses; History; Christianity; Psychology; Christianity and antisemitism; Christianisme; Psychologie; Histoire; Christianisme et antisémitisme
Description: "This book presents a unique effort to create a new understanding of the Christian sign of the cross. At its core, it traces the conscious and unconscious influence of this visual symbol through time. What began as the crucifixion of a Jewish troublemaker in Roman-occupied Judea in the first century eventually gave rise to a broad spectrum of readings of the instrument used to accomplish such a punishment, a cross. The author argues that Jesus was a provocative, grandiose masochist whose suffering and death initially signified redemption for believers. This idea gradually morphed into a Christian sense of freedom to persecute and wage war against non-believers, however, as can be seen in the Crusades ("wars of the cross"). Many believers even construed the murder of their savior as a crime perpetrated by "the Jews," and this paranoid notion culminated in the mass murder of European Jews under the sign of the Nazi hooked cross (Hakenkreuz). Rancour-Laferriere's book is expertly written and argued; it will be readable to a large audience because it touches on many areas of controversy, interest, and scholarship. The work is critical, but not unfair; it employs psychoanalysis, art history (the study of the symbol of the cross in works of art), religion and religious texts, and world history generally. The interweaving of these various themes is what gives this work its ability to draw in readers-and will ultimately be what keeps the reader interested through the conclusion."--Provided by publisher.
Table of contents: title: Cover; Half Title ; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents ; Preface; 1. Introduction: The Scandal of the Cross; Losing and Recovering the Scandal; Golgotha; Some Forms of the Cross; Relics of the True Cross and Empire; 2. The Crucifixion of Christ as a Narration of Grandiose Moral Masochism; Jesus Arranges for His Own Humiliation, Suffering, and Death; Jesus as God Crucified; Divine Suffering on the Cross and Human Guilt; Original Guilt; The Masochistic God: Having It Both Ways; Avoiding the Idea of Grandiose Masochism; Questioning the Redemptive Power of Divine Masochism.; title: 3. Christian Masochism versus Christian Masochism by ProxyMartyrdom: True Christian Masochism in the Extreme; Less than Martyrdom: Self-Flagellation and Semi-Crucifixion; Further Varieties of Christian Masochism, and the Terminological Issue; Christian Masochism by Proxy; 4. Resurrection: The Victory of the Cross; In Denial: The Persisting Belief in Resurrection; Beyond Denial: The Contribution of Reaction Formation; Many Varieties of Resurrection; From Unfinished Mourning to the Verge of Political Power; 5. Crusades: From the Cross to the Sword; Onward, Christian Soldiers.; title: The Wars of the Cross and Penitential Christian MasochismInquisitions and the Albigensian Crusade; Christian Military Orders: Iconographic Conjunction of Cross and Sword; 6. Paranoia versus Paranoia by Proxy: The Cross and Christian Antisemitism; The Deicide Charge: Christian Paranoia by Proxy; Paranoia by Proxy and the Adversus Judaeos Tradition; Antisemitic Violence and the Cross; Augmenting the Deicide Charge with New Layers of Paranoia; 7. The Holocaust: The Hooked Cross and Christian Antisemitism; The Hooked Cross of Lambach Monastery; Linking the Nazi Hooked Cross to the Cross of Christ.; title: The Christian Hooked Cross Before HitlerHitler's Crosses; The Hooked Cross as Hitler's Apotropaic Device; Ordinary Germans, Ordinary Christians; Hitler the Christ; 8. Unresolved Aftermath of the Holocaust; Christian Antisemitism after Auschwitz; The Persistence of Supersessionism; Christocentric Views of the Holocaust; Idealized Jewish-Christian Futures; 9. Conclusion; Bibliography.