What a coincidence - Bonhoeffer and Neimoller on the same day. So I thought I would have to post on that blessed man, Karl Barth. Barth along with Bonhoeffer and Neimoller formed the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. This Christian community came to life with the Barmen Declaration of 1934. The Barmen Declaration has always been interesting reading but it is well to read it to-day - when the American Empire is involved in a war built on lies in Iraq; when the USA, Europe, and Australia step up security within their borders and upon their citizens; and a large section of the US polity has taken its religion and its politics right and seeks to flex its political muscle, particularly on a President who sympathises with them.
The thing that is magnificent about the Barmen Declaration is its absolute simplicity. The scriptures it enunciates are simple and straightforward. The dominanting message is Jesus is Lord.
As those who profess to be dedicated to the preaching of the gospel seek political power and influence;
as Christians show, in general, no discernable difference from the rest of the comfortable western population in their support of consumer driven, individualistic, sensuous behaviour;
as Christians allow themsevels to be silenced on topics of justice and righteousness for the sake of personal financial survival and advancement;
as Christians, along with the rest of the population, seek their own security by giving their governments permission to restrict freedoms on a wide and deep scale, permission to wage war, and permission to marginalise people who can been seen as "The Other" -
it is well to dwell on the prophetic nature of what was done in 1934 when the Nazis were still bright and shiny and seen as Germany's great hope. In 1934, the Nazi's worst atrocities were still to come and beyond imagination.
Yet these men of God got the issue right. They, through prophetic insight, went to the very heart of the matter. And this remained, through grave atrocities and threats to humanity, the very heart of the matter through the next eleven years until the Third Reich disintegrated. The issue is what or who is at the centre of an individual's life. The issue is who or what governs and directs an individual's life. The issue is who or what does an individual treasure. The issue is who or what does an individual choose.
Lordship is the issue. To these questions, the answer is simple when the answer is Jesus is Lord.
The answer is complicated when in an individual's heart of hearts the answer is subject to self-centredness and self-satisfaction; individualism; personal security at the expense of others; possessions and their accumulation; personal beauty; sexuality; power and dominance.
The answer is complicated when sacrificial love; care for one another irrespective of differences of any kind; and striving for structural, community and personal justice is excluded.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
