Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis on this date – April 9th – 74 years ago.
 

His life and death are an inspiration to those of us who understand that we are all accountable to a Higher Authority. A stark reminder that – especially as Christians – we are called to oppose temporal authorities when they advance evil in any form.
 

The Left is currently attempting to marginalize Christians by re-writing history and claiming religion as no part in government. This is a lie. We wouldn’t have a Constitutional Republic if America were founded by secular atheists. (Even a cursory reading of the founders’ own views plainly reveals their Judeo-Christian worldview and how it influenced their actions in establishing a government.)

 
Bonhoeffer’s example reminds us that we must firmly resist progressive attempts to distort the past and steal our liberty.

In her book, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Called by God,” Elizabeth Raum summarizes the possible actions that the theologian felt the German churches could take with respect to Nazi tyranny, as he expressed in a 1933 paper titled “The Church and the Jewish Question;” obedience, suffering, resistance ~

First, he suggested that the church can require the state to answer for its behavior – are its actions legitimate? Second, the church can assist any victims of state action. “The church,” he wrote, “has an unconditional obligation (my emphasis) to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.” Finally, he suggested a third possibility, “not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself.”

In Hitler’s Germany, Bonhoeffer didn’t have the benefit of our First Amendment freedoms. But he knew that as a Christian it was his responsibility – as in all times and places – to obey God before government.