Bonhoeffer

I went to a talk this week by Eric Metaxes, the author of the largest biography I have ever read. His book, "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy" has sold hundreds of thousands of copies which is surprising considering that the book is a hefty six-hundred pages of non-fiction. Metaxes, however, is engaging both as a writer and as a speaker. Here in Nashville he had the whole crowd singing some sort of popular song of the Hee-Haw genre. As clueless as I felt, I appreciated his connection to the predominate culture of his audience.

What I really realized during his talk was that history has some incredibly uncommon heroes who countered culture with courage and bravery. The reason they fought for the weak and oppressed was they held certain truths to be more important than popular opinion and they were able to do that because of their faith in a higher power and a higher authority. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (part of the plot to assassinate Hitler) fought for the rights of Jews in Germany years before war was even a consideration. He opposed his polite culture and power-hungry government because his belief said that Jews and Gentiles were equal in the sight of God.  William Wilberforce's faith directed him to stand against the prevailing opinion that Africans were a subhuman people that should be exploited for British empire building.  Today we honor these men for their stances, whether or not they appeared successful. 

Today our culture sits in the same place, but in this case instead of picking a race that we can persecute we have picked our own unborn. And while there are still many people in the USA that oppose abortion, very few are willing to speak up in public against it. This should cause each of us to re-examine ourselves. Are we the kind of people that would allow Jewish Christians to be banned from the church if our government required it? German believers did.  As soon as we allow our own comfort to trump our convictions all is lost already.