EDUCATION: Video - God On Trial

(I would NOT USE THIS VIDEO WITH KIDS YOUNGER THAN HIGH SCHOOL and if you use it with your high school youth group watch it first and be ready!  There are a lot of very provoking questions.)

Ever seen the GOD ON TRIAL (Masterpiece Contemporary)?  It's a pretty serious portrayal of a legendary discussion by Jewish rabbis in Auschwitz who have decided to put God on trial for murder?  No.  For breaking His covenant with them as the chosen people!  Very provoking questions and outcome.  There are so many interesting questions that I would watch and discuss in the same hour instead of watching the whole thing and discussing later.

Remind people that these are JEWS and not Christians having this trial so they come without the New Testament hope that Christians have.  Some questions that arise are:

• Historically Jews have suffered.  Historically, has God broken His end of the covenant with them?
• If God has betrayed us, why should we remain faithful?
• Are tests a part of the covenant?
• Who broke the covenant first, God or the people?
• Was the holocaust a punishment for breaking the covenant?
• In the covenant, if God reserves the right to punish the wicked, why is He punishing the good Jews and not Hitler?
• Is the holocaust a punishment or a purification of the people?  Will there be another holy remnant afterward?
• Were good people sacrificed because with God any sacrifice must be the first, best, unblemished?
• Is Hitler doing God's work in the same way Nebuchadnessar was in 2 Kings?
• If God is all-powerful and just, then why did he not stop the unjust killing of the holocaust?  Either He wanted to stop it and could not or He is not just because where is the justice in genocide?
• Evil is a choice in the world.  People have free will.  If given the free will to save one of your children, what is your choice?  Do we want free will?  Do we always have choices?
• Were the Jews martyrs?  Were they killed because of their faith or their race?
• If God is suffering with them, who needs an all-powerful God who suffers?  Do we not need a vengeful God who will send the angel of death to our enemies?
• What kind of God do we want?  Maybe God needs us?
• Do you ask where the evil comes from or where the goodness comes from?
• As Jews, whenever the Old Testament speaks of the descendants of Abraham and David, it is talking about the Jews at Auschwitz.  If God's covenant is about the survival of the people, is the survival of the people certain if Hitler kills them?  How can a people cease to exist?
• At the point of death, if you deny God, what does it get you?  At the point of death, after 4000 years of saying prayers and wearing "silly" hats, what does it get you?
• Justice?  Was God JUST when He let Pharoah live but killed the first born male children, drowned the soldiers in the Red Sea, smote the nations showing no mercy to men, women, or children, killed David's son for David's sin?  What do we learn about obeying God?  Is He good or just on our side?
• Hitler's Germans wore belt buckles that said "Gott mit uns" or God with us.  Has God made a new covenant with someone else?
• Is there nothing for those Jews to hope for, after all?

Considering the fact that the Jews don't consider Jesus and the New Testament, what important questions were not asked?