November 6, 2011

About a week or so ago I finished the book “Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” by Eric Metaxas. What a book - five hundred ninety-one pages and everyone well written and informative! I’d heard of Bonhoeffer before and his book “The Cost of Discipleship” but I never read it and I only knew he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian. Well, he was much more than that. This book details his life which was lived between 1906 and 1945 and parallels the rise of Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer possessed a brilliant intellect which he came by honestly from his scholarly parents and ancestors and he was a saint seeing clearly what was happening in Germany after its humiliating defeat in the First World War, and the country’s quick acceptance of Hitler who promised to restore Germany to its former glory. The story is amazing. Here was a country of very faithful and practicing Lutherans and Catholics, people I saw as not unlike ourselves in the United States today, and yet who step by step allowed themselves to lead into doing unspeakably horrible things like illuminating a race of people, the Jews, and all physically and mentally challenged persons. How could that happen? How could good Christians, good church-going people allow such atrocities to take place? From what I read the answer is simple. First of all it appears that the “religion of the people” (Lutherans and Catholics as well) was only skin deep. People were going through the motions but there was no depth to their faith in Christ. How shocking and is that true of us today? Can we “overlook” things our government does - bad things, like dropping napalm on civilians, all the while thinking “what can I do”? Can we close our eyes to horrible things and be lead by the cries of certain leaders who tell us we’re America and we’re right and we’re number one and what we say goes, no matter what! If it could happen to seemingly good and honest people like the Germans of the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s it can happen to us. Really this book frightened me. It is so clear. Going back to Bonhoeffer, with his study of Scripture and theology which he took to heart – for him this was not just an intellectual pursuit, it was an openness to God’s Word and to God’s teachings and commandments in the Bible. Bonhoeffer had friends and loved ones who were Jewish or who were Christians but of Jewish stock – one married his twin sister. So from the very outset of the beating of the drums by Hitler and his band to undermine the Jews and finally destroy them, Bonhoeffer had none of it. He wrote and spoke against such policies to fellow Lutheran clergymen and scholars. And what kind of response did he get? “Oh, don’t worry, this won’t go very far.” He railed against all these tactics and was considered a “radical theologian”. Being a “good citizen”, following the government, being a “loyal German” are deeply embedded in the German blood, so Bonhoeffer’s words were hard to hear and easy to dismiss. Anyway I’ll end this rant with some quotes from the book.But let me also say to finish that Bonhoeffer was involved in a plot to murder Hitler which failed and for which he was executed two weeks before the fall of Berlin and the end of the war in Europe.

From Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxa

“Such people (meaning the ordinary, good, church-going people in Germany at the time) neither steal, not murder, nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. But… they must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep their private blamelessness clean from the stains of responsible action in the world. In all that they do what they fail to do will not let them rest. They will either be destroyed by this unrest, or they will become the most hypocritical of all Pharisees.” (Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 470.)

“The solution (the one we all need to heed in our everyday lives) is to do the will of God, to do it radically and courageously and joyfully. To try to explain “right” and “wrong” – to talk about ethics – outside of God and obedience to his will is impossible. ‘Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.’ We must look only at God, and in him we are reconciled to our situation in the world. If we look only to principles and rules, we are in a fallen realm where our reality is divided from God”. (Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 471)

“As long as Christ and the world are conceived as two realms (this is the great tool we use when we say things like, “This is business, or this is government and it’s different from Church.) bumping against and repelling each other, we are left with only the following options. Giving up on reality as a whole, either we place ourselves in one of the two realms, wanting Christ without the world or the world without Christ – and in both cases we deceive ourselves…There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is God’s reality revealed in Christ in the reality of the world. Partaking in Christ, we stand at the same time in the reality of God and in the reality of the world. The reality of Christ embraces the reality of the world in itself. The world has no reality of its own independent of God’s revelation in Christ… The theme of two realms, which has dominated the history of the church again and again, is foreign to the New Testament.” (I love that last line. Saying the world is one thing and Church and the Bible are another is just plain wrong even though the Church has taken this route in the past.) Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 469) (Emphases and comments are, of course, mine.)
So that’s my take on the Bonhoeffer book. It was truly an eye-opening read.

Our visit with Father General and his assistant was pretty lackluster. He was here for three days and he came to visit our house for dinner. We took him to see the new property but that was about all. I tried in a discussion to tell him about our problem of communication with the South American/Caribbean Province and its administration but he simply said he was having a similar problem with Fr. Alberto the new Provincial. So much for support and understanding. Aldino, the General is a Brazilian and a member of the Province so I guess I shouldn’t have looked for more.

On Wednesday a Brazilian Oblate priest, Claudio came for a week’s visit. I didn’t know the nature of his visit but I’m thinking that possibly he is discerning if he could come here and help out with our formation program. He is a real nice guy, about 35; he looks athletic and seems to be enthusiastic. He doesn’t speak any French but he just jumped into the community and is trying his best to communicate. In addition to his native tongue Portuguese, he speaks Spanish so we have some guys who are pretty good in Spanish and they’ve been serving as translators. I like the man and if he is trying to discern if God is calling him here to Haiti to help with our Oblate foundation,I hope he has the courage to follow through. I’ve tried to be very welcoming. Of course there is our “Tower of Babel” problem, which is language! I was learning Spanish when I was in the States and making some progress but since being here and speaking French all day, plus learning Creole, my Spanish has left me. Now when I try to speak Spanish everything gets mixed up, especially the Creole and the Spanish. My tongue is tied up in knots. But we still have our hands and facial expressions to communicate.

I guess that’s it for this week. My love to all. Let’s keep praying for one another. Tom

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