Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Christian, pastor, and teacher, who lived in Germany in the 1930s & 40s. (By the way, speaking of Bonhoeffer, in North Carolina we had a ministry to the deaf, and each service we had a translator who sat up in the platform and signed as I preached. One of the translators, a new member of our church, kidded me after one of the services, and said: “Every time I translate for you, you bring up Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I have to spell his whole name!”)
But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in a very difficult world: his life and ministry would take place in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler. Many people have asked: “What happened to the Christians, the pastors and churches in Germany under Hitler?” Well, as always, the responses of Christians, pastors, and churches varied:
— Some gave up their faith in view of the persecution and suffering they saw take place during World War II.
— Other German Christians lined themselves up with Hitler, saying we need his “masculine, positive Christianity” that will strengthen the German church. They went along with Hitler’s program against the Jews.
— Then there were those, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a few others, who refused to go along with Hitler, and had to go “underground” during the reign of the Nazis in Germany. These Christians lost everything in this world during the War, the bombing, the persecution that Hitler brought on them — and many of them, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, gave their lives for the stand they took for Christ and His word.
So in those difficult days, when Germany went through fiery trials, there were some very different responses:
— Some abandoned their faith
— Some compromised their faith
— And some held fast to their faith, even as everything they knew of their homeland, crumbled around them.
Is that just a history lesson? No it isn’t. Because we too are living today in a land that is changing — and not always for the better. We too live in a land that may very soon experience some fiery trials. So WE TOO may be facing some very real questions: how will WE respond to the changes we see around us? How will WE respond to the fiery trials that we go through? Honestly, even in this room, we will most likely fall into the same three camps that the Christians in Nazi Germany did:
— Some of us will abandon what we professed as our “faith” during those times.
— Others of us will compromise with the new order of things that will arise,
— And some of us will be like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and hold fast to the faith we have been taught, no matter what — even at the cost of our worldly possessions, and even our lives.
The question for each of us personally is: which of these will be MY response?
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