One of the reasons I appreciate engaging in historical research, particularly related to the early to mid-twentieth century, is because it reminds me that today is not harder to live in—it only seems that way. To be fair, today is a hard time in which to live for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are political and economic realities, some of which hit closer to home than others. But, when I look at what others have gone through I am reminded that times are always hard to live through, especially when you are trying to live in light of the gospel and not in spite of it. 

A famous figure, gaining more and more notoriety as fascism becomes both a more visible reality and an epithet freely flung, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I don’t care for popular takes on him, and frankly some times I don’t even care for him (my favorite German theologian during the church struggle in that time is Helmut Thielicke), but I do have things I appreciate about what he said. For example, on July 23, 1933, the very day the Nazi regime declared who the victors were in church elections (thus securing that people sympathetic to the Nazi party and power would lead the church) Bonhoeffer preached a sermon on Matthew 16:13–18, Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ. His opening paragraphs are worth hearing again:

If it were left to us, we would rather avoid the decisions which are now forced upon us; if it were left to us, we would rather not allow ourselves to be caught up in this church struggle; if it were left to us, we would rather not have to insist upon the rightness of our cause and we would so willingly avoid the terrible danger of exalting ourselves over others; if it were left to us, we would retire today rather  than tomorrow into private life and leave all the struggle and the pride to others. And yet—thank God—it has not been left to us.

Instead, in God’s wisdom, everything is going exactly as we would rather not have it go. We are called upon to make a decision from which we cannot escape. We must be content, wherever we are, to face the accusation of being self-righteous, to be suspected of acting and speaking as though we were proud and superior to others. Nothing shall be made easy for us. We are confronted by a decision, and a difference of opinion. For this reason, if we are honest with ourselves, we will not try to disguise the true meaning of the church election today. In the midst of the creakings and groanings of a crumbling and tottering church structure, which has been shaken to its very foundations, we hear in this text the promise of the eternal church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; of the church founded on a rock, Christ has built and which he continues to build throughout all time.¹

The days were hard and looking harder and yet, there was hope, hope that Christ was still the one building his church, hope that the gates of hell could not prevail. 

During the middle of the twentieth century on American soil the church struggled with how to speak into the cultural issues surrounding race relations. It isn’t possible to fill out the context entirely but my own church body reflected all the attitudes and actions that cause those of us in the twenty-first century feelings of delight and disgust, depending on what we see going on. Andrew Schulze, not nearly as well known as Dietrich but for my money is a pastor and theologian who is more than equal to him, understood that church bodies needed to speak into present realities. He was, though, a realist about what happens when a church body speaks. He wrote: 

“One might assume that pronouncements are merely the expression of what Christians believe and are trying to live by even before the pronouncements have been made. But in the past in the area of race relations the church has not always witnessed to its people in keeping with its duty toward Christ; and the acceptance of pronouncements at a convention of a church body or at a bishop’s conference or elsewhere is no assurance that they will be implemented on the local parish level.”² 

He knew, all too well, that words are important, that the church of Jesus Christ needed to speak them, but he knew that speaking them didn’t always mean people would live in light of them, in fact, he knew that some would live in spite of them. 

“Words alone, though, will not ‘do the trick.’ They may even defeat their very purpose, e.g., when the mere statement is used by those for whom it is intended  as a garment of self-righteousness to hid their inaction. But words are nevertheless important, especially when they are intended to and do chart the way for meaningful action.”³

Words matter, they need to be spoken, but they are not always the silver bullet to fix a situation. Situations, if we are being honest, are never fully fixed, they just give way to others. Bonhoeffer knew that the times were tough, so did Schulze, and both were committed to living in light of the fact that Christ is Lord of the church, that he builds it, that he sends it back into the world, a world which also belongs to him. 

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it on the rivers.” – Psalm 24:1–2

The entire psalm, often read or chanted during Advent, is a reminder that Christ is the Lord, the one who ascended, the one who is ruling over all that belongs to him. If Christ is Lord of the church and the world then neither are autonomous and both are held to his standards. When either do not embody that lordship, words must be spoken, actions must be taken. 

We need to be careful, though, about the words we speak. In my mind, given the violent reality unfolding today, given that times are hard and feeling harder by the moment, given that none of us want these times and yet find ourselves in them, we need to speak words of prayer. I once heard it said, and I believe it, there is NOT power in prayer (at least not in and of itself as a kind of magic incantation), but, there is power in the one to whom we pray, the Lord of the church and the world. 

Of course, the twentieth century produced my favorite theologian, the one who makes all others seem a bit pale by comparison, Martin Franzmann. He published a book of prayers later in his life for a variety of situations including “For Men in Protest” and “For Charity toward Men in Office.” In the book they are poetically arranged, but I stripped out the formatting to make them easier to pray. We need to be careful praying them though, so that we don’t think the words are magic, they aren’t. They shape us for service in the church and the world. They force us to consider the rightness of the cause under protest, the people who are doing that work, and the people on whose behalf they engage in that protest—whether or not you agree with it. They force us to consider the men and women in office, to put the best construction on their efforts, and to remember that we live under them—whether or not we voted for them (and I can assure you that I did not vote for the current occupant of oval office). 

We pray not simply to give it up to the one who has power, though to be sure we do that, but we speak the words so as to be shaped by them, so as to be moved to act in light of the words that are never enough. Our words might not be, but the Word is. The church is his. The world is his. The throne, kingdom, and power belong to him. He has seen us through the past hard times, he will see us through this one too, with his word of promise guaranteeing that we can live in light of who he is, even as we live in an age that acts in spite of who he is. 

For Men in Protest:

O furious Cleanser of the house of God, O Blaster of the fruitless tree, look in mercy on these men whose love compels them to spell out in act their anguished impatience at the sloth of the law, their no to legal illegalities, their militant compassion for the wronged and all the nameless, faceless poor and dispossessed. Keep them from intoxication with their rightness. Grant them charity toward those who cannot be as militant as they, who walk down other, longer roads, toward the same goal. Preserve them from driving the wedge of power so deep into the grain of structured equity that all goes crashing. Bid them guard with care the flame that breaks so quickly into a fire that makes an indifferent holocaust of all the works of Your judicial hand. Lord, give us all a heart of quick compassion, wisdom to plan and execute before the too-late of our action breeds the swarms of scorpions whose sting shall make us all long for death we cannot find. Amen.⁴

For Charity toward Men in Office:

Almighty God, You have ordained the authorities that are; You have clothed them in a majesty that is higher and stronger than the given facts of their history, a majesty that wakens fear in us and claims honor from us. O God, remember in Your mercy the men who bear the burden of this majesty, men like us, easily bent by the pressure of temptation, by the impact of expediency. Remember them and strengthen them when they are moved to shade the truth to their own ends, to withhold what should be told, to distort what must be told, to disclose what does not serve our common weal. Keep intact their honor and their credibility. Purge us, O God, of cynical distrust, of party passion, of the deafness of our rebellious bent. Teach us, O Lord, the meekness that would rather be deceived than be encrusted with perpetual distrust. Teach the charity that will interpret all uncertainties toward the side of goodness. Create in our world an air in which the truth can freely breathe, a sea on which the ships of truth can sail, an earth on which the feet of truth can walk unhurt. Your Son, our Lord, would not speak ill of Caesar even when Caesar’s power nailed Him to the cross. Give us the Spirit of Your Son. Amen.⁵

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords:Letters, Lectures, and Notes From the Collected Works (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977), 213. ↩︎
2. Andrew Schulze, Fire From the Throne:Race Relations in the Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1968), 168–169. ↩︎
3. Andrew Schulze, Race Against Time (Valparaiso: Lutheran Human Relations Association of America, 1972), 92. ↩︎
4. Martin Hans Franzmann, Pray for Joy (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1970), 57–58. ↩︎
5. Martin Hans Franzmann, Pray for Joy (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1970), 59–60. ↩︎