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The scene is set inside an Auschwitz bunkroom in which several prisoners are knowingly spending their final hours.

Out of the tension of their situation comes the decision to carry out a trial in which God is charged with breach of contract. Since God made a covenant with his people, they argue, and since that covenant included many promises that, as his chosen nation, Israel would survive under his protection, why then is the history of the Jewish people marked with destruction and suffering? Surely their slavery, their exile and the six million dead of the Final Solution all prove that God is guilty of going back on his word.

The trial is justified by the Jewish characters who claim that this style of questioning God follows in the tradition of Abraham haggling with God over Sodom, Jacob wrestling with God, and so on. Ironically, putting God in the dock also follows in the tradition of Adam and Eve’s folly when they doubt God’s wisdom and set themselves in judgment over him, with tragic results.

Guilty verdict

During the drama, the history of the slavery and oppression experienced by the Jewish people is outlined and many reasons are given for the goodness of God. Their faith was being tested, they were being punished for violating the covenant themselves and God was purifying his people ‘like a surgeon removing a gangrenous limb’. The Jews who give these views are played as faithful, respectful, quietly spoken men with the determination to keep their faith alive through this terrible and dark time.

The opposing views are explored with bitterness and emotively illustrated with personal stories of suffering. God has not struck the Jews’ enemies dead, as he promised, they argue, he has let his people suffer and put them in the way of persecution. God’s judgment is out of proportion, since the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, therefore he is unjust. He uses evil people to do his work. Why can he not purify his people without gassing them? That leaves him as either unjust or impotent. The atheist argues that ‘God’s people’ are themselves deluded to think that God has chosen them alone; it is an illusion caused by perspective, they are simply making up a god to suit themselves. The brutality and callousness of Old Testament slaughter is also picked up on to demonstrate the apparent lack of mercy shown by God.

The verdict is a guilty one. God is guilty of abandoning his people in breach of his own contract. Therefore, he is either impotent as a god or he does not exist at all.

The scriptwriter, Frank Cottrell Boyce, is not Jewish, but a practising Roman Catholic and wanted to raise questions for everyone of all faiths and none to consider. ‘This should be a real water cooler sort of event’, he said, ‘television functions as a sort of a national forum and that’s great’.

No mention of Jesus

Yet this is problematic. As with any discussion of God that does not mention Jesus, it is very difficult to treat this ‘debate’ as a holistic representation of what the Bible has to say about suffering. The setting of Auschwitz and its Jewish emphasis prevents any reference to the New Testament. So nothing is said about the fulfilment of the covenant in the work and person of Jesus, and there is no mention of the way in which he, as the suffering servant, pours himself out for his people.

The programme is easy to view through http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and is useful as a preview of questions and issues that a debate of Christianity will raise. At 90 minutes it is not short but it could be used in parts as a springboard for discussion with all sorts of different groups.

Strength to stand

In the tradition of Dawkins and Pullman, the drama lends further emphasis to the growing insistence that ‘The Authority’ is unjust and immoral. Like The God Delusion, it presents a barrage of vitriol that can be intimidating to the Christian but which is increasingly treated as the dominant and more accepted view of Christianity. This reminds us that we need to draw strength from the more accurate representation of God’s character in his word and his son. Christians cannot hope to stay faithful in the firing line if they do not meet it clothed with the armour of God. ‘Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace’ (Ephesians 6.14-15).

God on trial - a contentious BBC2 drama reviewed

Guilty verdict

No mention of Jesus

Strength to stand

Eleanor Margesson

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