When
a series of three reading buddies recommend a book, I often buy it. However, several years ago, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (2010), a New York Times
bestseller by Eric Metaxas, came with concern. I don’t read horror, fiction or
non-fiction.
And what could be more horrific than another graphic account
of Hitler’s Third Reich seducing a nation into fascism while annihilating
Europe’s Jews and their sympathizers by the millions? Weren’t The Diary of Anne Frank and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom enough
for me to comprehend the reach of tyranny’s cruelty and ruin?
“Trust me,” a friend said, “although tragic, Bonhoeffer tells an important,
redemptive story relevant to us today. My husband and I read it to each other.
That might help you make it to the end. You must finish the book.”
Having read and respected Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (1937), I bought
Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer upon my friend’s word.
My husband and I read to one another until we reached mid-way its 542 pages.
“I need a break to read something lighter. I’ll finish
Bonhoeffer later,” Mel said.
As I turned the pages to the end, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer’s theological convictions publicly responded to Germany’s gradual spiritual,
moral, and social decline. ‘Only those
who believe obey’ is what we say to that part of a believer’s soul which obeys,
and ‘only those who obey believe’ is what we say to that part of the soul of
the obedient which believes. If the first half of the proposition stands alone,
the believer is exposed to the danger of cheap grace, which is another word for
damnation. If the second half stands alone, the believer is exposed to the
danger of salvation through works, which is also another word for damnation.
Bonhoeffer’s belief and obedience led him to the
executioner’s gallows. Corrie ten Boom’s belief and obedience followed her
Lord’s deliverance from evil through the gates of Ravensbrück concentration
camp back to her home in Haarlem, Holland. Afterwards, Corrie began a lifelong
ministry as a “tramp for the Lord’, speaking her testimony of forgiveness throughout
the earth.
Within the bounty of God’s mercy, in the early 1970’s,
Corrie ten Boom stood on the platform of Bethesda Missionary Church in Detroit.
And there I sat amongst 2,000 people, moved that Corrie forgave the Nazi guards
who beat and starved her and her sister Betsie, and millions of other women,
men, and children.
Dear Reader, when we are tested, let us remember this
great cloud of witnesses. Let us stand. Believe and obey. Obey and believe.
By the way, Mel finished Bonhoeffer.
