Can we do our scholarship with our backs to Auschwitz? Gregory Baum, evil and the public role of the religious studies scholar

Abstract

In his 1987 book Compassion and Solidarity, Gregory Baum recounts a story told by the German Roman Catholic theologian and priest Johann Baptist Metz, who, in response to the Holocaust, developed a guiding principle: ‘You cannot do theology with your back turned to Auschwitz’. Baum challenges scholars to ask the same question. What is the cost of doing scholarship with one’s back turned to Auschwitz and other forms of radical evil? Does not business-as-usual scholarship risk conforming to the dominant culture and practices of our time, no matter what? Does it not risk pushing scholars to acquiesce to the neo-liberal model of the depoliticized, neutralized scholar? Baum’s refusal to ‘do scholarship’ with his back to evil highlights the necessity and urgency of using scholarly expertise to participate in public debates. First, society needs the unique expertise of scholars of religion to address its many interconnected crises. Second, participation in public debates affords scholars the opportunity to develop a self-critical spirit and to look for signs of ideological taint and distorting messages in their work. Participating in public debates results in better scholarship, Baum argues, but only if one adopts a critical-humanistic approach rooted in an emancipatory commitment, a hermeneutics of suspicion, and the perspective of the victims, the marginalized and the excluded. In other words, socially engaged scholarship is only valid when it is critical – as well as self-critical – scholarship. Baum’s approach promotes a scholarly humility about truth claims that avoids inauthentic universalisms. David Seljak explores the necessity and urgency of participation in public debates by the religious studies scholar by examining Baum’s biography, public role and its impact on his scholarship.