Parallels with today
“What good is the church if it doesn’t speak up for the victims of the state?” asked famed German Pastor Dietrich Bonehoeffer in the new film by Angel Studios titled “Bonehoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” in theaters beginning Nov. 22). The response was: “The church’s job is to kindle peace — peacefully.” Bonehoeffer’s comeback was: “Oh, you mean silence.”
Dietrich Bonehoeffer, deeply troubled by what was happening in Germany under Adolf Hitler, tried to awaken the church to stand against it, and felt pulled “between upholding his moral convictions or risking all to save millions of Jews from genocide.”
Later in life, Bonehoeffer wrote to his best friend, asking how the church had failed (or “How’d we get here?”), but answered his own question in saying that a “religionless Christianity” was needed — not going through the motions or rituals of “playing church” but by “the rejection of ‘religiosity’ and the embrace of a living, active faith.”
The church (individuals and as a body) is “supposed to be the conscience of the state” in “sounding the clarion call,” per “Bonehoeffer” book author Eric Metaxas, and, “Jesus gives us the opportunity, but doesn’t force us to live courageously.”
During an interview on “Takeaways” (TBN/Inspire) with Kirk Cameron, Metaxas (author of the new book “Religionless Christianity”) pointed to the parallels of what is happening in the world today, with what happened in Germany, encouraging Christians to not abdicate the role of the church, quoting Bonehoeffer’s famous words: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.”
Ronda Granlund
Clarkston
We were warned
Here’s a post-election thought: Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post wrote, “I’m most worried that this country is not what I thought it was, but someplace much more cruel, nasty, and selfish both in its attitude toward our fellow Americans and in its conception of Americans’ place in the world.”
Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. So what’s coming shouldn’t be a surprise.
Bert Kulesza
Clarkston
Happy for United flight
I was happy to read that Nez Perce County decided to invest in air travel in and out of Lewiston.
As it happens, my wife and I were on the United Airlines flight to and from Denver and on both legs we were pleasantly surprised to notice the number of people who had come to take the Columbia River cruise, as well as other vacationers.
“Cruisers” are revenue for our hotels and restaurants, so preserving these flights is money in the bank for us.
Cheers.
George Grenley
Lewiston
