Tag: Nazis

DARKNESS

george gaffga2 Comments

Is it not possible that we as Christians are subject to the groaning of this world just as anyone else? While we may not fear evil, the ultimate loss of faith, we do need to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

There is, in all of this, a type of abandonment. Some feel abandoned by God whose oft-repeated promises seem to insulate believers from earthly trials. But the God we have come know and trust in Christ subjected himself to the worst the world would offer, to the point of crucifixion. The true sign of the faith is trusting the crucified Christ – the pioneer of our faith and our own journeys. Pioneers lead the way through the worst to discover the best. Even those travellers in long ago America had their share of fear, anxiety, and doubt but they knew to keep their eyes on their leader. (See Hebrews 12:2)

Sometimes even the firmest of believers have to experience what the ancient writer called the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ As we walk blindly through this, God extends his hand to guide us beyond the grave circumstances of earth’s bounds. It is only through this ‘dying’ that we truly encounter Christ. The disciples discovered that truth.

In 1939 amidst the Nazi rise to power, King George VI of England, gave a speech in which he quoted the poet Minnie Haskins, entitled “The Gate of the Year” (1908):

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God – that shall be better than light and safer haven than a known way.’

GRACE AND PEACE UPON ALL

 

WHEN LIES ARE NECESSARY

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“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Winston Churchill

There are times when a lie protects the greater truth because truth is a greater reality than any one statement.

A small example: If your wife (in this case) puts on a new outfit that doesn’t quite seem to fit her and she asks you, “Does this make me look fat?” – Your true statement might be, “Why yes, dear, it does.” But your marriage, your love for her and the evening that you will spend together is a greater truth reality than your simple true (but stupid) answer.

Telling the truth seems to be a Christian ethic (way of doing the right thing) but a Christian ethic is not the only thing to be considered. There is a greater reality at work here.

There are ways to tell the truth that are unloving, rude, sarcastic and judgmental just to name a few. And some are just plain, as in the aforementioned example, senseless.

So ‘truth’ itself is not adequate. Truth must be centered in Jesus Christ who IS the truth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer gives the example of a teacher asking a child in front of the class whether it’s truth that the child’s father often comes home drunk. (p. 753 The Bonhoeffer Reader.) The reality of this personal family’s life is being invaded by the pretense of seeking the ‘truth’. When the child says NO he or she is expressing a greater truth- the love, the privacy and even secrecy of a personal family against this unjustified intrusion.

In another example Bonhoeffer gives, there is a criminal who is looking to harm your friend whom you are hiding. The lawbreaker asks you if you are hiding your friend and you respond, ‘no’. And when the Nazis sought out the Jews being hidden by Christians, the homeowners lied to protect the innocent.

See truth is not just about facts but involves a greater reality centered in the person of Jesus Christ.

And, this is not about choosing the lesser of two evils. No, not at all. It’s about choosing the best reality, the greater truth identifying with Christ. If everything about Christ provides the context for our living then lying (in the sense of using certain words equated with a certain reality) is fully acceptable for the sake of Christ.

Truth telling comes from inward communion with God through God’s Spirit. Before the incident of the TREE in the Garden of Eden there was only truth, the will of God. And now, when faced with an ethical decision we go inside to ask, ‘Father, what is your will in this matter?’ We look at Christ on the cross asking why and for whom he died and then make our decision in light of that cross of love. And if we are wrong, well, God will cause all things to work for good for those who live within his love.

I really like the scripture where it is said, THE LAW CAME THROUGH MOSES (good and righteous as it was) BUT GRACE AND TRUTH CAME THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. (John 1:17) There is a distinction. Note it.

Sometimes truth requires a good lie.

Disclaimer: None of the above is an excuse for licentiousness. That, in the phrase of Bonhoeffer, would be CHEAP GRACE.

RELIGIONLESS CHRISTIANITY

george gaffga3 Comments

I have taken up readings by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) once again.

He was a Lutheran pastor who gave his life in resistance to the Nazi Reich of the 30’s and 40’s. And what he observed in Germany was a piety that pushed God away from the center of a person’s life. In this way God was safer.

This marginalization of God was done by language, ceremonies, and even church sacraments. One could be a Nazi and still give allegiance to God through the label of ‘Christian’ and even go so far from the center to have a ‘God blessed baptism’ without the effects. (It reminds me of a scene from ‘The Godfather’.) The same people who received the church sacraments could be the same persons who were anti-Semitic and executed their own citizens for the security of the Reich.

It’s hard to imagine how the German Nationalists could live with themselves. The reason perhaps is that they pushed God to the periphery of their lives, A God to whom they were only accountable for their religious observances and not their day to day lives.

We do and have done the same in America, myself included. We use our religious labels like ‘born again’ or ‘evangelical’ as ways of aligning ourselves with the God of religion. We get baptized, carry large study Bibles and join churches as a means of attaining an acceptable righteousness with God.

But what truly matters is very little of any of this. What matters is Christ, not religion. Christ is the understanding of Bonhoeffer was the epitome of ‘giving ones life for another’. In Philippians 2 Paul writes that we are to have the attitude, the mindset, the character of Jesus who ‘gave up power’ and his equality with God to become a servant to humanity even to the point of dying on the cross. That’s the center where Jesus lives and to where he calls us. In the vocation of salvation, to which we are called, we are to be a people who are for ‘all the others’ not just the few who belong to ‘our group’. Jesus didn’t die for only the Jews. He died for everyone, for all people. He was/is the Lamb of God who takes away ‘the sin of the world’. (John 1)

So if I am called to be Jesus’ disciples whom do I get to exclude in the name of nationalism, politics, the economy or even safety. Jesus did not call us to be ‘safe’ in this world. Rather he said we should carry a cross and deny ourselves, which is the only real way to discover who we really are.

‘Religion’ keeps us thinking that this is what we have really done. I Tithe. Wow, what a burden, a cross to bear. Jesus said that the very people who tithed were the same ones who neglected weightier matters of just and mercy.

Here’s the Message Version of Luke 11:42 “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.

And now one of our states has a ‘good Christian’ man running for the U.S. Senate. His past is questionable with several allegations of sexual abuse. He has been compared with Joseph the carpenter who married a young virgin, Mary and bore a son, Jesus. So what’s the problem? And it was 40 years ago. It’s not relevant, some say. And he’s good for the country, a quality that outweighs any past behavior.

See what Bonhoeffer means by pushing God to the peripheral even while using God to condone our own character.

Remember Paul in 1Cor. 13 writing that we can ‘do’ or ‘perform’ all the right acceptable and seemingly moral behaviors but with love it counts, in the salvation vocation to which we are called, for nothing.

God did not send his Son to only save our personal souls to go to heaven when we die but to establish once and for certain His Kingdom, the beachhead for a reconciling of earth and heaven. In Luke 4 Jesus tells about his own presence on earth.

God’s Spirit is on me;
he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, “This is God’s year to act!”– Message Version

We are called to follow Jesus in the center of all life, loving others, those on the fringe of life, needing to know the love and blessing of God for everyone. We are called to be the light of the world- the whole world.

And as Jesus taught, ‘not even the powers of hell can stop that kind of church’.

We are the bride, getting ready for the Bridegroom to meet us, to feast with us and to restore this creation to a new heaven and new earth. That cannot happen with God on the periphery of our lives. We are not looking for a Christian State but rather the state of Christians to make Christ the center.

And listen- I’m no pillar of virtue when it comes to all the above. I have performed many religious acts and ceremonies that I have thought appeased God and even after 60 years of being ‘a Christian’ I need Christ more than ever at the CENTER, the center of all I am and do. Thanks be to God for his grace in all of that.

Maranatha