As God and I spent the day in my room, he had me watch a movie, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace.
What is a moral person to do in a time of savage immorality? That question tormented Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis. His convictions cost him his life. The Nazis hanged him on April 9, 1945, less than a month before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer's last years, his participation in the German resistance and his moral struggle are dramatized in this film. More than just a biographical portrait, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace sheds light on the little-known efforts of the German resistance. It brings to a wide audience the heroic rebellion of Bonhoeffer, a highly regarded Lutheran minister who could have kept his peace and saved his life on several occasions but instead paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.
I am absolutely fascinated with the different methods humans use to survive. I also have a lot of respect for a person who stands for something. Even if it is not something I believe in, I admire people who will give their life for what they believe in. Slavery, prison, and war, especially WWII movies are at the top of my rental list. I don't like blood and gore, but I do like to watch people in impossible situations.
I'm not fun to watch a movie like this with, because I stop, go back, watch that last scene again, watch this one's face, go back and watch that one's face. I only do this when I watch a lone. I like true stories too. It just means more.
Guard: Fresh blankets
Bonhoeffer: Thank you
Guard: Just remember it's the people you know that counts. Not God
Bonhoeffer: I think God is aware of that
Guard: Oh you know him personally, do you?
Bonhoeffer - Getting to know him, but it takes time
This movie got me thinking about knowledge. Knowledge is power. When I think of knowledge the definition in my mind is "to know the truth". Truth is powerful. People withhold the truth for control and it works. There is a little book called "How do you kill 11 million people?" written by Andy Andrews. Interesting little book. Oh the answer is; "You lie to them." If the Jews would have known what was going to happen, would they have handled the whole thing differently? If the knowledge was out there, the world would have been forced to do something, right? No. There is a little story in Andy's book about a congregation at a church next to the tracks where trains hauled Jews to their death every day. They could hear the desperate cries of these Jewish people on their way to be slaughtered and they knew, they had the knowledge and what did they do? They scheduled their church service in such a way that just when the daily train went by, they sang. Not to encourage the victims of the Holocaust, but to drown out their cries so they didn't have to hear them. Knowledge is power if you use it.
Genocide in
Anyone who knows me at all knows why this upsets me so much. Think about boot camp. They put those soldiers through the wringer to make them tough enough for what they will be facing. They take spoiled little boys and turn them into men; they take undisciplined out of control hoodlums and turn them into sharp shooters. Isn't that what God is doing with us? God doesn't waste scars. Trials, trauma, and tragedies are to be turned into triumph.
I've been thinking about what Christ will mean in the future. We will need a new form of Christianity. In a time when the world has come of age, I think there is only one purpose of religion in a modern world where people must come and share in each other's suffering and share the suffering of God in a Godless world. We need more than just religion in the formal sense. We need faith and Jesus Christ at its center. Real Christianity means sharing each other's pain. - Bonhoeffer
My grandson loves the movie "Wall-E". This movie cracks me up. It's us in the future. They have loaded us on a spaceship and we are floating around in space because we have destroyed the planet, basically. All the humans are lying around all day in hover craft recliners eating and watching a screen. They are all over weight and have forgotten how to walk. I hope we are off the planet before it's our turn to face a Holocaust right here on our soil. I can't even imagine how spoiled
In 7th grade math I had a teacher named Mr. Pugh. Mr. Pugh was a rule follower, well he expected us to be. One day we were to get in pairs. We were not to leave our seats to do it. I knew what was going to happen and I turned around in my seat to watch. The "new girl" in the last seat in my row would not be chosen by anyone around her, because not only was she new, but she was a minority with a birthmark on her face. I defied the rules, got up out of my desk and found a chair in the back. I put it next to her and introduced myself. Then I had a staring contest with Mr. Pugh. I broke the rule. As I knew he would he had the class turn their attention to me, the "rule breaker". I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I wasn't going to back down. After he explained what he saw me do, he said, "I have never been more proud of one of my students." Whew, not what I was expecting at all. Wendy and I became good friends. She was a part of our group. She was one of the funniest people I ever knew growing up. She made me laugh all the time. That had to be God.
Soldier: You're trembling. Afraid?
Bonhoeffer: I'm cold
Soldier: So, this is the end
"No." He shakes his head and walks to the gallows. He was executed less than a month before the war was over.
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice; we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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