Faith and Responsibility
If we rely on God’s compensation to make things right then any Church can excuse anything. It does not matter when we abuse people in this life because in the end God will compensate the victims. Nothing would be out of bounds. Anything goes.
The upsite of such a theology is that it gives us comfort. On the downside, it empowers abuse instead of confronting it.
The martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught that in our age, Christians have to live as if there were no God. His co-conspirators had asked Bonhoeffer why they needed to assassinate Adolf Hitler. If Hitler was so evil then why couldn’t they just leave it to God to kill him?
Bonhoeffer got it right. Christians have to take responsibility for their world. That’s the difference between blind faith that faith that will make us free.
The upsite of such a theology is that it gives us comfort. On the downside, it empowers abuse instead of confronting it.
The martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught that in our age, Christians have to live as if there were no God. His co-conspirators had asked Bonhoeffer why they needed to assassinate Adolf Hitler. If Hitler was so evil then why couldn’t they just leave it to God to kill him?
Bonhoeffer got it right. Christians have to take responsibility for their world. That’s the difference between blind faith that faith that will make us free.
posted by Hellmut at 08:29
2 Comments:
Food for thought. I think we need to look at it in the light of the revealed gospel. Personally, I think grace trumps justice. I hope so, or I'm screwed.
I love the Bonhoeffer statement that Christians have to live as if there were no God. Very profound.
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