MARTIN LUTHER AND DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
If any of you are brave enough to come out of the corner, here's how human beings used to deal with punks like Andrew Cuomo, and narcissistic fat cats like Bill de Blasio.
Where are you guys? What happened to us? Any chance of a, ahem, resurrection in the near future?
Like today?
As a communicant Lutheran (gasp!), my knowledge of the titular gentlemen is greater than that of the average person. Even the above average person. Even the greatly accomplished person.
Luther confronted the Catholic Church and their 1400 year old liturgy which included more money flowing into the institution than flowed to the needy. Bonhoeffer, and fellow Lutheran pastors, took on Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer paid for it with his life, executed at the Flossenburg Concentration Camp, Germany, shortly before the end of WWII.
I raise these two important, yet somewhat unknown men, for what they did during crisis, and for what present day churches (including my home parish of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church) do not.
Stand up to excess and abuse by government.
Within the past few weeks, the mayor of New York City has escalated violence to pre-Giuliani levels, and refused to allow more businesses to open despite good CV19 numbers. The Mayor has belittled the citizenry by painting a huge Black Lives Matter in front of Trump Tower. He has scorned and mocked those of us who challenge his assertion that riots (he calls them social justice) do not spread the virus.
His colleague in Albany killed about 15,000 senior citizens and yet takes a victory lap over good statewide numbers. The governor placed restrictions on out of state visitors and rolled back or delayed re-openings as well.
These re-openings involve the church, all denominations.
In times past, stalwart individuals, in more trying circumstances than these, came forward and challenged the powerful. Again, they paid for it. Martin Luther lost his priesthood and was banished. Bonhoeffer was killed.
As some of you know, the story did not end there for either. Martin Luther became the leader of the Protestant Reformation, and the scion of the Lutheran Church. Bonhoeffer is immortalized as the symbol of Christian character and resolve.
Tragically, we all know the ignominy of Adolf Hitler, though I can't tell you who the Pope was in 1521.
I cannot compare our circumstance of today with that of World War II, or the Catholic Church of the 16th Century. Ours is not an existential crisis, though some would like it to be.
Take a look around. See the people wearing masks standing a hundred yards away from anyone. Watch the shop owners shrug their shoulders and tack another "Due to Covid-19 . . . " sign on their door. Listen, if you can, to the politicians make Caligula-like statements to the press and be swooned over by those adoring ministers of doom and gloom, the media.
Our leaders ignore the ongoing destruction of the lives of innocent people. Destruction far outweighing, at this point, anything Covid-19 could achieve.
Ask yourself how you want to be remembered?
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