From the very beginning, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings centered around the life of the church. The church, its calling and welfare, was his passion. As a young doctoral student, he wrote two dissertations. One was titled, “Christ Existing as Community.” As…
‘Why didn’t God do anything to prevent this?’
Several years ago, a group of Christians decided to throw their collective weight behind a candidate for national office. They were concerned about the moral decay and chaos that threatened their nation in the wake of an inconclusive war. They…
We need a new (and better) Stuttgart Declaration
I was a new staff member when I heard some helpful advice through the church grapevine: My job security depended on the orientation of the blinds in my office windows. Church members wanted all the blinds in the building to…
The sacrilegious singing of ‘How Great Thou Art’
Around 3 a.m. Eastern time on Nov. 6, a crowd gathered in the lobby of the West Palm Beach, Fla., convention center where Donald Trump had just delivered his victory speech. The crowd, which included Christian singer Sean Feucht, began…
Does the church in America need a new Barmen Declaration?
It is not the first time this question has been raised, but I ponder it here: Does the church in America need a new Barmen Declaration? In late May 1934, the Pastors’ Emergency League met in Barmen, Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer…
Silence in the face of evil: learning from an obscure schoolteacher who urged Karl Barth and other theologians to stand in solidarity with the Jews in Nazi Germany
If I thought Nazi-era Germany was an aberration I could probably move on; but in Donald Trump’s America, who can think that? The Church of Jesus Christ is confronted by an anti-Gospel once again. The German Church never acknowledged her complicity with the National Socialists, and the white churches of America are equally resistant to truth.