I wept. As I was reading, the tears burned while they filled the wound; a memory of terror, injustice and sorrow that never seems to fully heal. A scrapbook with rancid images that my Jewish relatives would share in hushed stories during my childhood visits to New York. How could a monster like Adolf Hitler happen? Why?
Lynn, Bentley and I recently escaped to one of Lynn’s favorite places for Spring Break; Green Turtle Bay in Kentucky. (NOTE: If you think teachers have it easy, go ahead and spend a week with eighteen 9-year-olds and let me know if (a) you are still speaking in multiple syllables and (b) you have not been cited for child abuse.) No television, phone calls, or the typical at-home distractions that keep us from using our address as an at-home attraction. She is recovering from a lousy bout of the croup; that nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever so you can’t rest crap…that she has lovingly decided to share with me. I awoke this morning with a full frontal hack attack, along with the commensurate etc, etc, etc.
I spent the better part of the day reading Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. Not of the Vince Flynn political thriller variety, I was challenged and found it essential reading for this Israelite, Hebrew and Messianic Jew trying to make sense of our world; a world frantically struggling for its human and spiritual survival. The book’s subtitle, A Righteous Gentile vs. The Third Reich, captures the sobering and inspiring story of one man’s stand “for God’s sake.” Bonhoeffer is mostly recognized as a participant in the failed assassination plot of Adolph Hitler, the story captured in the 2008 film Valkyrie; this event would subsequently lead to his execution. The book is an in-depth account of Bonhoeffer’s journey of faith, as well as his search for the meaning of the church and justice during the most turbid days in modern times. His Germany would become the backdrop to a holocaust, the remnants of which are still felt and expressed today, like an appalling run-on sentence regarding man’s inhumanity to man.
It has now been two weeks since our Kentucky getaway, and the germs from Chapter 10 are still feeding my current dis-ease: The Church and the Jewish Question. The previous pages are filled with reflections of Bonhoeffer’s personal growth in faith and his sense of justice, juxtaposed against a setting of political upheaval for the rebirth of nationalism in Germany. From a family known for its fairly conservative worldview, Dietrich benefitted from the Bonhoeffers’ tendency toward exhaustive research, considering all aspects of an issue to discern its most virtuous implications. Dietrich was deeply troubled as to the role of the church in response to Hitler’s blossoming support; support that would eventually lead to the eradication of any spiritual thought or sociological perspective opposing his definition of “Aryan” German nationalism. The majority of Germany’s church leaders would eventually take the position of Hitler’s regime. The Jews were the ideal culprits to blame for all of Germany’s ailments and would become the target of Hitler’s insidious wrath; his ultimate solution to The Jewish Question. Bonhoeffer agonized over the deeper issue of how Hitler’s policies affected the meaning of “God’s people” and “God’s church”; the very core of what he had come to believe and teach throughout Europe, America and other parts of the world. Bonhoeffer finally came to realize he must risk everything, including his own life, to take a stand.
By April of 1933, Hitler’s edicts were widely implemented, orchestrated by the inflammatory misinformation of Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda. Especially catalytic to the new breed of young German nationalists, the new rules removed Jews from every aspect of German society: government, medicine, law, arts, academia, business; even the German church became off limits. The following passage brought it home, beginning with this quote from Bonhoeffer about excluding Jews from German churches:
“A state which includes within itself a terrorized church has lost its most faithful servant.”
Bonhoeffer went on to say that to ‘confess Christ’ meant to do so to Jews as well as to Gentiles. He declared it vital for the church to bring the Messiah of the Jews to the Jewish people. If Hitler’s laws were adopted, this would be impossible. His dramatic and somewhat shocking conclusion was that not only should the church allow Jews to be a part of the church, but that this was precisely the church’s identity: the place where Jews and Germans stand together. “What is at stake,“ he said, ”is by no means the question whether our German members of congregations can still tolerate church fellowship with the Jews. It is rather the task of Christian preaching to say: here is the church, where Jew and German stand together under the Word of God; here is the proof whether a church is still the church or not.”
I came to know the calling towards my Hebraic + Messianic path in April of 2001. I like to think that, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my insatiable hunger for reading God’s Word, historical references, and other studies are about expressing my life in all the ways I can through righteousness, justice and faith in God: my Yahweh. In these short years, I have seen God’s glorious sheen in the reflection of like-minded men and women who are protagonists in the narrative; my heroes. And, just as it was a mere seventy-eight years ago, there are still dark ministers of propaganda all around us yearning to stockpile and burn the books of innovation, reason and diversity just like the Nazis in Berlin of 1933 in fear of the God of Israel. Just like the Babylonians who destroyed the temple in fear of the God of Israel. Just like the Pharisees and Saducees who crucified Jesus in fear of the God of Israel. Just like the false prophets who today, under the disguise of Christianity, righteously strive to rid their congregations of anyone who does not fit their “religious-tic” edict in fear of the God of Israel.
I have no idea how I would have responded to dilemmas of righteousness, justice and faith confronting so many people during Bonhoeffer’s times. And I struggle every day in a muddy hypocrisy of my own, trying to respond to the daily challenges to righteousness, justice and faith.
Ahhhhhhh….
I am dis-eased having witnessed an evangelical leader compare Presbyterians to Islamic terrorists.
Ahhhhhhh….
I am dis-eased having witnessed churches inviting everyone through their doors, and then suggesting to the homosexual couple that they might find another place of worship more welcoming.
Ahhhhhhh….
I am dis-eased having witnessed people arguing about what God’s Word says about this or that issue, when most Christians have never read God’s Word from cover to cover.
AhhhhhhhhCHTUNG!
God bless you.
In the embrace of the brackets – (b)
*If you want to learn more about my story and more stories between the brackets, visit the (b) in parenthesis column: click www.HImpact.me or www.binparenthesis.blogspot.com.
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