Dietrich Bonhoeffer watched a nation  turn away from the teachings of Jesus, setting aside their Christian values, while pretending faithfulness, even as  their Jewish neighbors were persecuted.  Indifferent to the wellbeing of others, or unwilling to speak out, Church goers looked on as people were arrested, detained and sent to  concentration camps. Bonhoeffer had heard the official statements blaming Jewish people,  for everything wrong in Germany.  He saw the movement from forced wearing of a yellow star, gradually become more aggressive, until being Jewish was a crime.

Writing a letter to a friend in 1934, Dietrich Bonhoeffer expressed his frustration with the silence of the church, “We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing – for that is nothing but fear. ‘Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless’ – for who in the church today still remembers that, that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?”

In 1934, Bonhoeffer would not have know the extent of evil happening at those camps, but he knew that the very act itself was wrong.  He  despaired  over his government’s terrorizing and targeting ethnic groups, then  looting  their homes and businesses.  He heard the scapegoating, not only of Jewish people, but of Gypsies and the handicapped, with all of the excuses to justify  Hitler’s actions.

Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, we wondered what we would have done, had we been living in Germany at the time? Would we have remained silent? Or would we have cheered on the ethnic cleansing of Hitler’s Germany? Would we have been part of the underground movement, protecting and moving people to safety? Would we have protested from the very beginning, demanding justice? And would our protests then, have stopped the whole movement of hatred from succeeding?

James Russell Lowell’s words speak loudly to the moment both then and now. “Once to every soul and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side; some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever twix the darkness and that light”

Today we are seeing an administration running roughshod over rights, established law, and constitutional protections. What was supposed to be immigration enforcement, has become instead, persecution. We have seen entire ethnic groups scapegoated, demonized and targeted, while cruelty is justified as law, and innocent children suffer as a result.

Our justice system is overwhelmed with people protesting false detentions. Our courts are in chaos as good people resign rather, than carry out unjustified investigations. The nation is in turmoil.

James Russell Lowe’s, words continue to speak to me, “Once to every soul and nation, comes the moment to decide, in this strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side.

As God whispers in our need,

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly.” Isaiah 58:6-8a