Oh, for a 21^st Century Bonhoeffer

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 2/26/22

            Is Atlanta close to leading the nation in crime? We’re all aware of Chicago’s crime rate, but the crime news in our local newspapers and on television became alarming long ago. What is happening?

            What’s happening locally and around the world is the loss of civility. We call it civil-ization, forgetting that civil-ization is based on civility and that when too many people choose not to be civil there can be no civil-ization. Yes, we can have the forms of civilization such as laws, police, commerce, and a governing class and still not have civilization. For instance, forget the normal, evil criminal for a moment. What if those who are being governed have begun to express in no uncertain terms their dissatisfaction with those doing the governing? What if populists – that is, the people – are fed up with the governance they’re being handed and are no longer hesitant to say so? What if, say, typically quiet parents, or truckers, or good folks without college degrees decide it’s time to organize and take action to show the governing class what they’re thinking? What if your next door neighbor who has never raised his voice leaves his house with a sign that reads “Listen to the regular folks,” places it in his car, and drives away? What if next time you join him?

            Today around the world civilization itself is at risk. In practically every nation there is unrest with either a small or a large number of ordinary citizens rising up to speak their piece. These newly aroused citizens are not contributors to incivility; they are rising in opposition to it. How many times have we heard of unrest in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, all English-speaking lands characterized by British pomp and politeness? But there’s unrest there also, all because ordinary citizens are fed up with oppressive government, particularly mandates and the government’s unwillingness to deal with crime.

            The world’s loosening civilization is twofold. Sadly the murderer and the thief we will always have with us. He or she is only one part of the two-headed monster of incivility. The other part is the governing class – mayors, sheriffs, county executives, district attorneys, governors, or bureaucrats - who scornfully disregard the cries of the people they supposedly serve.

            Commentators view the rising incivility differently. Some believe that in America the elections of 2022 and 2024 will settle much of the unrest and that the large numbers showing up at school board meetings will wane because normality has returned. For the rest of the world, pundits are not so sure. The Russian bear is showing his claws and will probably never be intimidated by our current president who is observably asleep at the wheel. As for China, according to most journalists the Chinese people are as far from true political freedom as they have ever been.

            To put it mildly, domestically and internationally nothing is going swimmingly. A fit question would be “What would Dietrich Bonhoeffer do?”

            I know. He’s not in most history books but he should be. For decades evangelical Christians have read this martyr’s books, observed his humility, and admired his absolutism regarding governmental evil and life itself. This German, Lutheran pastor hated tyranny and also believed there were some things worse than death. That’s why he opposed Hitler openly from the pulpit and from the point of his pen. He paid for his stand with his life. He was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at age 39.

            Anti-vaxxers, traditionalists, and people of faith are not in danger of being hanged in America, but we are blind if we cannot see how Covid became a weapon in the hands of those who believe in strong governmental power. Proof of their purposes and slyness is the fact that so many mayors and governors are backing away from their firm mandates, seeing how political winds are now blowing. That doesn’t mean their views have changed. They will emerge another day with other weapons.

            Bonhoeffer did not believe in the perfectibility of man, as most liberals do, via government largesse and programs. He wrote, “Peace is confused with safety, but peace must be dared. Peace is the opposite of security.”

            If America and the European nations who once honored the Judeo-Christian ethic are to return to the God of that ethic, Bonhoeffer can help them make the return trip. Currently though, we are, as poet Matthew Arnold put it, without “peace and help for pain / And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

            Bonhoeffer, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

 

Roger Hines

2/16/22