Faces of ICJS is a celebration of the lived religious experience of friends of ICJS. Jason Hensley, who participated in the 2022 ICJS faculty seminar, shares how his faith expression changed because of his personal relationships and academic study of the Holocaust.
Q: How would you define your worldview in your childhood and early adult life?
I grew up with a very cut-and-dried sort of way of understanding life—you were either right or you were wrong. Those who are wrong are in trouble. Those who are right, they’re the ones that God loves. There was no in between. And you can see that playing into a lot of the fundamentalism that shaped my worldview as I was growing up.
I still belong in that fundamentalist camp. However, I’m very different than how I used to be.
I wrote my first book in 2009 and then I wrote another book after that in 2010. The books were essentially about how a number of Christian groups were completely wrong about what the Bible taught. It was a complete condemnation of a lot of groups. What I put in that second book especially was incredibly hateful toward other branches of Christianity, especially the Catholic church. I’ve pulled those books—they’re not published anymore.
I remember arguing with people all the time. I used to go into other churches and ask to see the pastor. I would surprise-visit non-fundamentalist churches to argue with them. My friend and I would do this, and we called ourselves “the order of Timothy.” It was bad, and I’m embarrassed to have published what I wrote and to have argued with those churches now.
Q: How have your views changed over the years?
Seeing the effect that my wife, who is also fundamentalist. What made my wife different was that she was fundamentalist in her approach to the Bible––she saw it as inerrant, as I did—but that didn’t come with any of the culture of judgment that sometimes is in fundamentalist circles (and that I manifested).
She showed me what it meant to live out Christianity, to love peace, and to love people. I began to realize that I missed an entire part of the Bible. Yes, there are parts about judgment in the Bible, but that was all I was about. Judgment, vengeance, all of that. And then I came to know the Jesus who promotes peace and who says, “Love your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest commandment.”
A lot of things changed when I got married. I had known about the softer parts of Jesus and the Bible, but I hadn’t really seen what they meant. And I think getting married and seeing how my wife lived really made a big impact. Seeing the effect that she had on people versus the effect I had on people really changed me.
So right before the pandemic, I wrote another book. I had sort of stopped writing for a while to try and fix things and change my way of thinking. But I wrote another book published in February 2019. It was called Giving Grace. It is all about, essentially, my struggle and my transformation.
Q: How does your academic work fit into the changes you’ve gone through?
I changed a lot as I started studying the Holocaust. In 2015, I went to the Belford conference for teachers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. I thought I knew a lot of things about the Holocaust, and I ended up being really humbled by the conference. I spent the first day arguing with the teacher, and then the second day I realized I didn’t actually know a lot of things. It showed me where the fundamentalist way of labeling people and cutting people off can lead. That was a very big realization.
I started looking for stories in which Christians had tried to help people during the Holocaust, and I ended up writing a book about that in 2016. And that became the book that I’m known for. I won a number of awards and was featured by the BBC.
So that was the first step in recognizing where this kind of thing leads and the effects it has. The Biblical basis came later, in 2019. I feel like it should have been me being convicted from the beginning based on what the Bible says. But it was very much the other way; relationships impacted me and changed the way I approach things.
Now I teach Biblical studies. There is a Biblical basis for recognizing that anger is part of God’s character, but it is not supposed to be part of our character. That was another huge realization for me. I had so often justified myself by thinking, God gets angry, so I should too. All of this hard line, not wanting to work with people, condemning everybody, judging everyone was a misinformed kind of understanding.
Q: How have these changes affected your relationships with fundamentalist churches?
Now I struggle with the question of how to reach individuals. I get asked frequently to teach at things or be the keynote speaker at different events at fundamentalist churches. So I’ve been trying to put together this message without alienating people and without getting people mad. So far, I’ve gotten a couple phone calls from people who are not really happy with my new message, but it’s generally been tolerated.
Q: What helps you to continue learning more?
Over time I’ve changed a lot. It has been really neat to get involved with groups, ICJS and others, that have helped me make that transition and understand a little more about how the impact that words have. I understand now how religion promotes peace and unity, which is the complete opposite of what I ever thought.
Jason Hensley teaches the Holocaust, history, and religious studies at Gratz College and California Lutheran University. He is a fellow of the Michael LaPrade Holocaust Education Institute of the Anti-Defamation League, a member of Civic Spirit’s teacher education cohort, and the award-winning author of 10 books. His work has been featured in The Huffington Post as well as the BBC, and he has served as the historical advisor for a Holocaust documentary. He participated in the 2022 ICJS faculty seminar, Faiths and Ferocity. Learn more about the ICJS programs for higher ed faculty here.
Faces of ICJS highlights the lived religious experience of friends of ICJS. Opinions expressed in Faces of ICJS resources are solely the participants’. ICJS welcomes a diversity of opinions and perspectives.