The Church and the Times

If I would ever have known that going to a gym at night makes you more alert than sleepy, I probably would have staid home. Going to the gym I usually listen to my iPod. The same is true tonight. Instead, however, listening to music, I choose to turn on Focus on the Family's radio play "Dietrich Bonhoeffer."

Having just finished Eric Metaxas's biography of Bonhoeffer I can't get enough of this man who was not only a committed Christian, but a true example of what it means to live Christ like. In this radio play, while in America, Bonhoeffer made a statement after his own exposure to racism targeting his black friend at a coffee shop outside of Harlem. He said, "if the Blacks become godless, I will blame the white people of this country."

During the year as Bonhoeffer attented Union Seminary in New York, NY, as well as some of the more prominent churches, he found the gospel of Christ to be dead. Instead the itineraries were filled with all kinds of do good activities and entertainment for their parishioners. It was the Black church where Bonhoeffer saw the gospel of Jesus Christ alive. A Gospel that associates with those who suffer.

Sadly, the church in America was silent on the slave issue before the Civil War. She was also silent on the Jim Crow laws. As the church in Germany was silent during Nazi Germany on the Jewish issue, even those of the Confessing church, as opposed they were to the "German Christians" who in reality was Nazi at its very core, therefore distancing themselves as true Christians from the "Reichs Church," when it came to the Jewish question, Bonhoeffer was unapologetically rallying to this cause and found himself alone in his pursue to shake the Confessing Church to the help of those who cannot help themselves.

What will happen to the church in America. Today we see many who adopt a "Social Gospel." Not the kind that Bonhoeffer identified with while he was in America visiting the Black churches. But the kind that identifies itself within the realm of political correctness, with Rick Warner and the Emerging Church at the forefront, doing charity for the poor, saving the environment, rallying for peace when there truly is no peace. Is it enough to bring a side note in our sermons of what is going on today, or should we make a bold stand, just as Bonhoeffer did and knowingly put his life on the line. What will the church of America do when all of a sudden the tide turns against Christians and Jews, will it become the Socialist Church of America? Things to ponder about.