Daily Archives: January 6, 2018

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The leader of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther noted: “When the Church crawls in to bed with Caesar, Caesar hogs the covers and leaves the Church exposed and naked”

Is that not exactly what is happening today?

The writings of some authors are timeless. This year I have taken to reading a collection of the writings of the German pastor, theologian, and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer as my spiritual reading on a daily basis for this year. I’m also doing 365 days of Martin Luther in German as part of my spiritual journey for the year.

Luther is interesting, but Bonhoeffer I think is more relevant to our time. In his book Ethics which was written during the reign of the Hitler regime Bonhoeffer wrote something that strike to the heart of our present crisis in the United States and even more particularly that of the conservative Christian Church and its relationship to President Trump:

“The message of God’s becoming human attacks the heart of an era when contempt for humanity or idolization of humanity is the height of all wisdom, among bad people as well as good. The weaknesses of human nature appear more clearly in a storm than in the quiet flow of calmer times. Among the overwhelming majority of people, anxiety, greed, lack of independence, and brutality show themselves to be the mainspring of behavior in the face of unsuspected chance and threats. At such a time the tyrannical despiser of humanity (in the case of Bonhoeffer, Adolf Hitler) easily makes use of the meanness of the human heart by nourishing it and giving it other names. Anxiety is called responsibility; greed is called industriousness; lack of independence becomes solidarity; brutality becomes masterfulness. By this ingratiating treatment of human weaknesses, what is base and mean is generated and increased ever anew. The basest contempt for humanity carries on its sinister business under the most holy assertions of love for humanity. The meaner the business becomes, the more willing and pliant a tool it is in the hands of a tyrant. The small number of upright people will be smeared with mud. Courage is called revolt, their discipline Pharisaism, their independence arbitrariness, and their masterfulness arrogance.” 

We have seen this in our own day among President Trump, his supporters in Congress and the media, and especially among conservative Christians. The worst aspects of human nature have been elevated to virtues over the past two decades and like Germany in 1933 there was someone waiting in the wings to exploit it and make it his own.

 

I’ll leave you to mull that over and I will continue to post these theological and ethical criticisms of the church and of the President, and yes I will keep making the connections with the Nazi state and other authoritarian regimes as I do so. But for me this is a matter of faith, and for me that means confronting and battling the Christians who have gotten in bed with the Trump regime; in the long term they are at least as dangerous, perhaps more than the President for they serve as his enablers; as Bonhoeffer noted:

“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.”

Until the next time,

Peace

Padre Steve