To Judge or Not to Judge?

"By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are."

- Dietrich Bonhoefffer

Politics & Religion

If one is looking to ruffle feathers, one needs look no further than the subjects of politics or religion.  If one is looking to get stones throne at them, one needs only combine the two. 

I am stunned at the silence proceeding from many church leaders, denomination leaders, indeed many Christian leaders in our nation regarding some of the happenings of our day.  I know that there are many bold leaders, who regularly preach the truth from pulpits that have a broad and in some cases national and international reach.  Yet these leaders remain silent regarding a great many issues that are effecting our society today. 

Don't get me wrong, some are starting to stand up and to speak up.  But most are choosing the sidelines rather than the front lines.  Bonhoeffer's words reach prophetically from his grave to our day, "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:  God will not hold us guiltless.  Not to speak is to speak.  Not to act is to act." 

I admit that I do not know all of the details, however as I understand it, there are some rules that pertain to churches in order for them to maintain their tax exempt status.  One of which is that political statements cannot be made from the pulpit.  Again Metaxas' book on Bonhoeffer still rings in my ears with the sound of the nazi government of the 1930's which became very involved in what preachers could and could not say from the pulpits of Germany.

To America's preachers I make this plea:  Speak up.  Speak up now, while you still can.  Engage your congregation in understanding the events of our time, how the Bible speaks to those events, and how that impacts us and our responsibility as followers of Christ.

Surely many people will cry "separation of church and state" when they encounter the combination of politics and religion.  Yet as for me and my house, we will both cherish and use the freedoms that our country was founded on, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of religion (NOT freedom from religion). 

I am a patriot, I love my country, I am proud to be an American, but I am first a follower of Christ.  To the United States of America:  You can keep you tax exempt status.  I'm going to say what needs to be said.

Bonhoeffer Poetry

  
Discipline

If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things
to govern your soul and your senses, for fear that your passions
and longing may lead you away from the path you should follow.
Chaste be your mind and your body, and both in subjection,
obediently steadfastly seeking the aim set before them;
only through discipline may a man learn to be free.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote from Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer

Today's Bonhoefferism

 "The only fight which is lost is that which we give up."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This phase was often repeated by Bonhoeffer to another inmate & friend during his imprisonment.

Quote taken from Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer on Sovereignty

"Everything we cannot thank God for, 
we reproach Him for."


- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quote from Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxas

Bonhoeffer on Grace & Repentance

"The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them.  For its own sake, for the sake of the sinner, and for the sake of the community, the Holy is to be protected from cheap surrender.  The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty.  The key to loose is protected by the key to bind. The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quoted from "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas, pg. 293

A Must Read:

Now nearly at the halfway point through the book "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas, I can no longer wait to write a review. So here is a first half review:

Metaxas' Bonhoeffer is an intensely compelling combination of history, theology, and biography. This insightful work is seriously educational and inspirational at the same time. Bonhoeffer has the potential to have a massive impact on our society, specifically upon the Christianity therein.

I must admit it is alarming to consider events and movements within Germany during the 1930's which bear a stunning similarity to movements in our day.

This book is a must read.

Today's dose of Bonhoeffer:

"With that we have articulated a basic criticism of the most grandiose of all human attempts toward the divine - by way of the church. Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the church. It is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in so doing utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea."

"One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist; one admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn't do: one doesn't take him seriously. That is, one doesn't bring the center of his or her own life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation. One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ, and allows no serious encounter to take place. I can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman - just as, after all, I can also live without Plato and Kant.... Should, however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks and if the word of God once became present only in Christ, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me.... Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously. Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment. And it is now of importance for us to clarify the seriousness of this matter and to extricate Christ from the secularization process in which he has been incorporated since the Enlightenment."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quotes from "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas

Quotes from Bonhoeffer

"Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness."


"It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, that a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity."


"Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued."


"The religion of Christ is not a tidbit after one's bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or it is nothing.  People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christian."

- Detrich Bonhoeffer
Quotes taken from "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas

Subtitle: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

____________________

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed for a plot to assassinate Hitler
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After enjoying John Bird's review of "Bonhoefer" I've just purchased a copy for myself.  The subtitle alone is sufficient motivation for me to read this book, not to mention the subject of the bio. Biographies have historically not been my favorite type of literature for they are often to boring to keep my attention.  This biography is different.  John was right and I cannot wait to read more!