The cross replaced by the Swastika, the Bible replaced by Mein Kampf. You wouldn’t believe it in a hundred years. It’s as fanciful as an American invasion of Canada or Denmark, but nearly a hundred years ago, that’s exactly what happened. When Hitler attained power in Germany, the first thing he took over was the German church. He used his brute nationalism to sway the Lutheran and Catholic leadership to his way of seeing the world.
But one man inside the church decided that political courage was an act of faith, and to stand silent in the face of evil, was in fact, evil itself. This man was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the subject of a new film that bears his name.
Bonhoeffer was no ordinary churchman. He abhorred religion, adhered to the idea that Christ had been displaced by religion. And with the rise of Hitler, Christ was being disposed. The last straw.
BONHOEFFER: PASTOR. SPY. ASSASSIN is no Tinker Tailor Spy, being a rather pedestrian paced picture, but it bursts with timely issues that have been around for a hundred years and, sadly, will still be circulating in a hundred more. It champions the fact that courage is not a luxury, or a fad, it is a necessity if society is to keep from destroying itself.
As Bonhoeffer wrote, “Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.
If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver. Comfort the troubled, and trouble the comfortable.”
