Dead heroes are safer - Bonhoeffer, King and Aung San Suu Kyi

"What would have happened to Bonhoeffer if he had survived?"  The question was asked me while we were dutifully reflecting with our neighbour at the end of a lecture on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at IBTSC, Amsterdam*.  My immediate response was that we wouldn't have liked him.  I've been thinking why I said that.

The lecture had already demonstrated why we might not have liked Bonhoeffer while he was serving a German ex-pat church in Spain.  He had given a series of lectures in which he showed himself supportive of notions of the superiority of his own people and of the legitimacy of war.  He was a product of his times and culture.  The theme of the IBTSC lecture+ was that it was while he was studying later at Union Theological Seminary in New York and became involved with a black Baptist church in Harlem, a district experiencing a cultural renaissance (search for Harlem Renaissance, it's fascinating), that he experience a change of perspective.  This led to the writings of Bonhoeffer that have been so influential for many of us.  An enduring legacy.  It may trouble us because there's something in us that would prefer to exercise discipleship that didn't make demands on our comfortable self-interested existences and many of us are so invested in the systems and trappings of organised religion that religionless Christianity seems like an existential threat.  But we don't set him aside or traduce him because of that.

In a similar way, the original question raised itself after watching "King: a filmed record ... Montgomery to Memphis".  We are still inspired and humbled by King's passion for God and for justice because one demands the other.  We are still confronted by the same and new manifestations of racism, denial of rights, poverty and war against which he protested and demonstrated.  He still challenges us with his stance of non-violence in the face of the most extreme provocation.  An enduring legacy even though he shames our feeble attempts to work for justice.

So why are dead heroes safer?  Two reasons, until I think of more.

Heroes are human.  They are fallible just like the rest of us.  They are likely to get things wrong, perhaps in a disastrous way.  Their reputation can easily and quickly shredded.  This is why Aung San Suu Kyi is in the title.  A prime example of someone who earned the respect of most of the world.  Who was lauded for her principles and who would have continued to be if the authorities had found a way of executing her.  The reality of her life and actions recently has been been terrible and she has lost her moral authority.  Maybe history will take a more nuance view but we cannot know that now.  Dead heroes can make no new mistakes - they are safe.  They don't disappoint.

We can construct dead heroes in our our own image or one convenient to our way of thinking and acting.  Both Bonhoeffer and King have been co-opted to all kinds of causes.  Their writings and historical actions can be treated like plasticine and moulded into all kinds of shapes. They are not around to gainsay. They are safe to play with.

Who knows what would have happened had Bonhoeffer and King been allowed to live until a ripe old age?  We live in an age where we seem to take pleasure in building people up so that we can knock them down.  Even if we didn't, we are all only human and we all disappoint, at some time or other, those who expect better of us. Dead heroes are safer.


* IBTSC - International Baptist Theological Study Centre, formerly the International Baptist Theological Centre in Prague.
+ You can see the lecture online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1GaBecIfnJw 

Poverty is a political choice - for the government, that is.

The report of the U.N. rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has come at a good time for the UK government.  We are are all distracted by the will she/won't she, will they/won't they of the Brexit draft agreement fallout.

If we weren't distracted, we would be appalled at his findings.  After all, we have just given tens of millions of pounds to the BBC Children in Need telethon.  We are not an uncaring society.  

However, it seems we have an uncaring government who have sacrificed the wellbeing of a whole swathe of society on the altar of political dogma.  We have a system that is "punitive, mean-spirited and often callous".  Child poverty is at a level that is "not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster".  One phrase is particularly damning: "poverty is a political choice".  Just to be clear, a political choice of government not of those who are poor.

We shouldn't be surprised as we have heard all this before (and had it ignored) from charities, foundations and churches.  What on earth has made us believe that the poor must suffer for the economic good of the country?  The rich and powerful remain untouched and, indeed, reap the benefits.  Just to prove that we humans learn nothing, the Hebrew prophet, Amos, was saying the same thing a few thousand years ago.

Children in Need drew our attention to lots of creative projects staffed by skilled and caring people that really make a difference.  Some of those were of a kind that would have been supported by local government before their budgets were cut the bone.  Things do still happen because people want a good society.  Voluntary effort, though, cannot on its own compensate for a callous regime.

Naturally, the government has rejected the report.  Well, they would, wouldn't they.

Socialism and pacifism in a bombed city.

My Mum and Dad didn't have many photos in the house.  There was only one small black and white framed photograph on the mantelpiece in the living room; of Revd Hugh Ingli James.

Ingli James had made a profound impression on them as minister of Queen's Road Baptist Church, Coventry 1931-43.  They were both young people and then members there.  Ingli James was, by all accounts, a powerful preacher, reflecting his Welsh roots - a passionate advocate for Jesus Christ.

He was an unashamed socialist and a pacifist.  He wasn't a Christian and a socialist and pacifist.  The two were an inexorable consequence of  faith in Jesus Christ.  The first might have raised eyebrows among some.  The second was a controversial in a city ripped apart by bombing.  He challenged people to see that their faith in Christ had to work out in social justice and that narrow patriotism with its consequence, war, should be renounced.  During the Depression, the church opened a centre for the unemployed and engaged in political campaigns.  Several members became conscientious objectors when conscription was introduced.  However, he faithfully wrote to those who, willingly or unwillingly, enlisted and found themselves in hard places.

Ingli James was not alone in his sentiments in Coventry.  Three days after Coventry cathedral was destroyed by bombing on 14 November 1940, two charred timbers were lashed together to form a cross, three medieval roof nails were joined to form a cross and on the wall was written "Father forgive".

We still need such as him.

Only United in Peacetime

"Workers of the world unite in peacetime - but in war slit one another's throats". A remark by Rosa Luxemburg, the German Marxist (1871-1919), I read in an article the other day. 

If you substitute Christians for workers, the phrase asks a sharp question about the churches in western europe and north america in the first half of the 20th century (and beyond). We had a rich history of internationalism and developing peaceful relations - not surprising given the nature of the Christian gospel. This is dumped by the majority at the national call to arms. Presuming that our remembrance reflections are not for one day only, it's an issue worth continuing to ponder.

A former colleague and friend, Jane Stranz, was reflecting on the German churches' majority support for the Nazis and wrote: "society evangelises us much more efficiently than the gospel does".