Franklin Hamlin Littell (June 20, 1917 – May 23, 2009) was an American

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

scholar. He is known for his writings rejecting

supersessionism Supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology, is a Christian theology which asserts that the New Covenant through Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant exclusive to the Jews ...

and, in light of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, advocated educational programs to improve relations between Christians and Jews. After spending nearly ten years in post-war Germany as Chief Protestant Religious Adviser in the High Command assigned especially to the task of deNazification during the occupation, he was deeply affected by the atrocities that had been committed during World War II, and thus dedicated his life to researching the Holocaust and bringing its tragic lessons in human rights to widespread public attention. In public meetings, on campuses and in churches, he raised one of the first

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

s of conscience in the post-war period, talking about the lessons of the Holocaust. Littell is regarded by some as a founder of the field of Holocaust studies, having established at several institutions masters and doctoral programs devoted to study of the Holocaust (the latter at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

in 1976). In his book ''Historical Atlas of Christianity'', first published in 1976, he maintained that many

Christian churches In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym for ...

failed to deal honestly with their complicity in the murder of European Jews. In 1939 as a young Methodist minister he attended a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

rally in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, and he would later formulate, in a paper entitled ''Holocaust and the Christians'', that the lure of Nazism was caused by failures in Christian spirituality originating from the

First Council of Nicea The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This ecumenical council was the first effort ...

in 325 CE. He also wrote in theological support of

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...

Writings

*''The Anabaptist View of the Church'' (1957) *''The Free Church'' (1957) *''The Crucifixion of the Jews'' (1975) *''Historical Atlas of Christianity'' (1976)

References

Historians of the Holocaust 20th-century Protestant theologians American Christian theologians 1917 births 2009 deaths Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany {{US-reli-bio-stub

Writings

See also

References