Author’s Note: I originally wrote this piece in late 2018, upon hearing a Pastor claim from the pulpit, that it was “wrong” for Christians to discuss abortion, because it was a “political” issue. Five and a half years later, with all that has happened since, it becomes ever more clear that this message needs to go out across America, again and again. We will either learn from the abhorrent mistakes of the past, or we will repeat them. But having that past experience, we are now without excuse!–Chris Adamo
Even a cursory search of modern European Mosques reveals a stunning plethora of enormous and profusely ornate buildings, ominously spreading like weeds throughout the continent. Meanwhile, the great cathedrals that had once defined Christendom in general, and Europe in particular, now stand nearly empty and are falling into ruin. It was barely eight decades ago that they were vibrant and filled to capacity. So what could explain this total collapse of everything Christian in Europe, where the presence of the faith of Christ had dominated in one form or another over the previous nineteen centuries?
The words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pictured here, give the most accurate and painful explanation. He warns that when Christians cease standing against evil, they ultimately stand with evil. In his lifetime, he saw a distressing willingness among seemingly devout Christians to not only refuse to speak out against the nightmarish horrors of the Nazis, but in many cases to openly embrace them.
In contrast, he appeared increasingly “extreme”, as a consequence of his own refusal to endorse the evils of the Reich, whether by actively condoning them or by tacitly supporting them through the silence that was demanded of him. Like pallbearers carrying a coffin, if each party does not bear his own portion of the weight, that which must be born by the others increases. In the end, a lone adherent risks being overwhelmed by the load, as others look on in disdain and denigrate him for his awkwardness and inability to accomplish the task at hand. So It was that Dietrich Bonhoeffer died alone in April of 1945, hanged by the Reich for his “crimes.”
German Christians of the 1930s, as well as those throughout much of Europe, rather than standing resolutely against the obvious evils in their midst, chose instead to concoct creative ways of ducking the firestorm. In the process, they proved that their ultimate faith was not in the God of righteousness and justice, but in themselves and their supposed ability to cry “peace” where there was no peace.
One of the most poignant episodes of this era comes from a man who, as a child, attended a Bible believing Christian Church, which was located near train tracks where Jews were being transported to the concentration camps. The Church members were distressed by the anguished cries for help from those Jews on the trains. The response of the Church was to sing their hymns louder as the trains passed by, in order to drown out the screams of terror and agony coming from the trains. Perhaps in the minds of some of those Christians, this display may have even appeared to be a greater “praise” to God. But to all who understood what was it actually represented, it was the most flagrant denial of Christ, and total perversion of anything “Christian.”
It would be worthwhile to hear the torment in the voice of the man recounting this episode in his young life, as he ponders to this day just how abominably he and his fellow parishioners misrepresented the love of Christ. What those doomed passengers on those trains saw was not a Christ of unshakable strength and courage, but one of fear and hiding. No less detestable was the message sent to the secular world throughout Europe during this time. They saw no refuge for the helpless nor any promise of restoration for those who might have fallen into the evils of the age, but total indifference and a pretense that it didn’t even exist.
If we believe we can dodge the difficult issues, in order to reflect only the “love” of Christ, we redefine our “faith” in our own image. But as we retreat from the modern secular worldview, we can be assured that it will only continue to advance and further encroach upon us. And despite our efforts to repackage Christianity in a seemingly “more palatable form,” we have not succeeded in fooling the world around us. Only ourselves.
Ultimately, what we deem to be “non-judgmental love” is actually indifference, and the world will respond to us with its own indifference. That is why, in modern Europe, the looming nightmare of Islam and sharia is widely perceived as representing something more enduring than all of those crumbling Gothic church edifices.
