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Sunday, December 15, 2024

Bonhoeffer War Sermon (1930)

Concerning the early 20th century international war termed

The Great War or The First WORLD War:

War bears within itself the justification

of sin.  For it contradicts God's command-

ment.  A final answer to the question of

whether a Christian should or should not

participate must be rejected.  Both answers

are possible.

One person shows solidarity and goes along.

The other one says: "Even the authorities 

are demanding sin; I will not participate."

On the one hand, we are threatened by

militarism.  And on the other,

by doctrinaire pacifism.

This is not a matter of assessing people

morally.  Here people did die heroic

or miserably cowardly deaths.  One can

be even more grateful to the cowardly 

than to the person who died heroically.

Just think what it means for a poor,

cowardly person to offer up life itself!

The heroes at least had an ideal.  The 

others died without such an ideal, 

miserably, but perhaps with all the more

difficulty.

But both suffered death, stood together

in a single line like a wall.  Gratitude!

But God amid all this!  It is not our

place to award retroactive medals for

bravery.  Nor the opposite either.

They died.  How?  Who knows?  Enough

simply that they died.  As a result,

we live.  That prompts us to offer

thanksgiving and to repent before

God!

Pray for the victory of one's own

cause?  No.

It, the church, prays only for peace

for soldiers on both sides.  War sermons?

They were equally bad in both Germany

and England.

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