With the excitement,hope and anxiety of the Democratic National Convention swirling around us and the world, it somehow seems a bit strange to be reflecting on Dachau and its place in our consciousness. But not really.
Some of the speeches are boring.Some have punch. But Barack can always stir me. What a sense of hope flows through him. I see him as a post-racial candidate--but that is another discussion.
Every election is a identity crisis--certainly at the presidential level. Who are we and how will we relate to one another and the world? I certainly hope and pray that we are more like the vision Obama offers.
But Dachau--one commentator on my previous blog obviously knows far more about the history of Dachau than I do. In the movie we saw there though they did indicate that the doctors were from the SS. It is interesting to think of Night as a fictionalized account of Weisel's experience. Creating particular scenes to offer deeper insights in the horrors of the whole concentration camp world was undoubtedly something he found necessary. Clearly, he has been able to speak to the world. Ken Kesey at the beginning of his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest wrote--Everything in this novel is true, whether it happened or not.
The spiritual challenge I see is how do we face the evil of humanity. How do we see that evil not just in the other--in our enemies but in ourselves? Demonic evil is in the world and in us and we are called to battle. The concentration camp system and the final solution brought about 11 million or so deaths including the death of hundreds of thousands of children. That is demonic. But we are so tempted to say that all evil is in the Nazis--and then in anybody we can somehow associate with them. `You see my fellow Americans, we good and righteous people(true Christian believers more or less) are battling Satan again in the form of the Axis of evil.' We Americans have rooted in us so deeply the images of WWII--where we see ourselves as the righteous heroes to the rescue. In many ways, there is truth to our self image, but self righteousness can blind us to the deeper truths of our own story.
Somehow, we in America need a spiritual revolutinon to look in the heart of our own story and stories to know better our glory and our shame. What would be the equivalent for us of requiring high school students to stare into the face of some of the evil aspects of the American story. Do American students know who Emmett Till was--on this the anniversary of his death?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Dachau is inspiring
A comment regarding my blog on the Presbyterian General Assembly asked about the cost of such an event in light of the Gospel. Presbyterians moved to meeting biannually several years ago primairly to save money. But the GA meeting is certainly worth the cost. Democracy requires people gathering and listening and struggling with one another and in this case with our sense of God's will for us and for the church.
Several days ago my wife and I returned from visiting friends in Germany. I was surprised by the crucifixes that visually dominated most of the beautiful Protestant churches we visited. My rusty memory of the Reformation reminded me that the Lutherans took over Catholic churches and used them for their own, so it should be no suprise that crucifies are prevalent.
We attended services in Grailsheim with our wonderful German hosts. We were about an hour west of Nurnberg. The communion service and the singing and the spirit of worship were energetic. We met the pastors and I asked them about what theologians spoke to them and they said Jurgen Moltmann. I resonate with Moltmann and in particluar with a book called The Crucified God. In that book Moltmann retells a story by Elie Wiesel from his book Night. Three men are being hung in a death camp. A young boy is among the three and since he weighed less, he struggled to die for many agonizing minutes as the camp inmates watched in numbed agony. Someone said within Wiesel's hearing--God, where is God now? Weisel replied--God is there. Being in Germany,I thought especially about that terrible tension between those who believe in God as controlling all events and thus a God who controls the crucifixion of Jesus on the one hand and God who is radically and eternally present in Jesus. Is God the crucifier or the crucified.
In college and seminary and in my own reading over the years, I had engaged the experience and issues of the death camps. I had read William Schirer and Alan Bullock and Wiesel and Bonhoeffer. Still, I admit that I wasn't eager to see Dachau, but my wife urged our visiting. So on our last day in Germany, we drove 200 kilometers through gorgeous countryside and beautiful small towns to Dachau.
Dachau opened as a prison/concntration camp in 1933. Tens of thousands died there. Some were tortured. Some shot or hung. Some died in barbaric medical experiments conducted by SS doctors. Many died of hunger and disease. We visited the crematorium and the SS had installed a gas chamber, but is was not heavily used. Dachau was a place of death, but was not an extermination camp, like Auchwitz. Still the old films taken by hte SS, photos and just the feel of the prison barracks evoked the demonic terror that ruled for 12 years in that place. So, yes, Dachau is a horrible place that speaks to us of the demonic evil unleashed on the German people and on the world.
Sometimes, we distance ourselves from that evil and from our own potential for evil. We Americans are tempted to self righteousness as a nation when we remember Nazi Germany's evil, because we are the heores of that story. We are the liberators.(I love the Band of Brothers videos). And yes, we fought a great battle and many of our fathers and grandfathers and some mothers and grandmothers fought, sacrificed and died in this righteous struggle. But we have the log in our own eye. We,like every nation, havve the issue of our own exploitation, brutaliztion, murder of others for our own gain. Yet, still, from slavery to wounded Knee to My Lai to the Phillipine war to Nicaragua and Indonesia, no evil of our nation is as profound and pervasive as the death camps. So what can be inspiring about Dachau?
German school children are requried to visit concentration camps to remember what happened in their country. The phrase Never Again is emblazzoned on a memorial on the parade gound at Dachau. But Never Again demands remembering what once was. Never again means remember the past, your story and the story of others. Don't turn away. Don't gloss over the ugly truth. Face realtiy. Trust the words of Jeuss that the truth will make you free. So within Dachau we saw children visiting with their families. And we saw earnest and attentive groups of German young adults who were being guided through Dachau. The guides for these groups were themselves young adults. Something painful and very hopeful was at work.
At the far end of the camp, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant memorials stood defying the forces of evil that confronted us when we first entered the grounds.
The Protestant Memorial was also, incredibly a church. A small congregation worhsips each Sunday at 11am. Martin Niemoller, a Protestant pastor, who had been interned at Dauchau preached the first sermon when the chapel was dedicated in the sixties. My wife lite a candle and placed it on the communion table with other candles. Pray and worhsip here also in the face of this great evil--don't let evil take your soul. And strengthen yourself for the battle. Evil is not just back in the past, it is not just about the Nazis--it is about us, our world today and the struggle to Never Forget and dedicating ourselves to not allowing evil, however subtle, to triumph.
The Carmelite Sisters built a monastery right outside the walls of Dachau. They pray daily for the soul of the world in the war against demonic evil.
So that is why I find inspiration in Dachau.
Several days ago my wife and I returned from visiting friends in Germany. I was surprised by the crucifixes that visually dominated most of the beautiful Protestant churches we visited. My rusty memory of the Reformation reminded me that the Lutherans took over Catholic churches and used them for their own, so it should be no suprise that crucifies are prevalent.
We attended services in Grailsheim with our wonderful German hosts. We were about an hour west of Nurnberg. The communion service and the singing and the spirit of worship were energetic. We met the pastors and I asked them about what theologians spoke to them and they said Jurgen Moltmann. I resonate with Moltmann and in particluar with a book called The Crucified God. In that book Moltmann retells a story by Elie Wiesel from his book Night. Three men are being hung in a death camp. A young boy is among the three and since he weighed less, he struggled to die for many agonizing minutes as the camp inmates watched in numbed agony. Someone said within Wiesel's hearing--God, where is God now? Weisel replied--God is there. Being in Germany,I thought especially about that terrible tension between those who believe in God as controlling all events and thus a God who controls the crucifixion of Jesus on the one hand and God who is radically and eternally present in Jesus. Is God the crucifier or the crucified.
In college and seminary and in my own reading over the years, I had engaged the experience and issues of the death camps. I had read William Schirer and Alan Bullock and Wiesel and Bonhoeffer. Still, I admit that I wasn't eager to see Dachau, but my wife urged our visiting. So on our last day in Germany, we drove 200 kilometers through gorgeous countryside and beautiful small towns to Dachau.
Dachau opened as a prison/concntration camp in 1933. Tens of thousands died there. Some were tortured. Some shot or hung. Some died in barbaric medical experiments conducted by SS doctors. Many died of hunger and disease. We visited the crematorium and the SS had installed a gas chamber, but is was not heavily used. Dachau was a place of death, but was not an extermination camp, like Auchwitz. Still the old films taken by hte SS, photos and just the feel of the prison barracks evoked the demonic terror that ruled for 12 years in that place. So, yes, Dachau is a horrible place that speaks to us of the demonic evil unleashed on the German people and on the world.
Sometimes, we distance ourselves from that evil and from our own potential for evil. We Americans are tempted to self righteousness as a nation when we remember Nazi Germany's evil, because we are the heores of that story. We are the liberators.(I love the Band of Brothers videos). And yes, we fought a great battle and many of our fathers and grandfathers and some mothers and grandmothers fought, sacrificed and died in this righteous struggle. But we have the log in our own eye. We,like every nation, havve the issue of our own exploitation, brutaliztion, murder of others for our own gain. Yet, still, from slavery to wounded Knee to My Lai to the Phillipine war to Nicaragua and Indonesia, no evil of our nation is as profound and pervasive as the death camps. So what can be inspiring about Dachau?
German school children are requried to visit concentration camps to remember what happened in their country. The phrase Never Again is emblazzoned on a memorial on the parade gound at Dachau. But Never Again demands remembering what once was. Never again means remember the past, your story and the story of others. Don't turn away. Don't gloss over the ugly truth. Face realtiy. Trust the words of Jeuss that the truth will make you free. So within Dachau we saw children visiting with their families. And we saw earnest and attentive groups of German young adults who were being guided through Dachau. The guides for these groups were themselves young adults. Something painful and very hopeful was at work.
At the far end of the camp, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant memorials stood defying the forces of evil that confronted us when we first entered the grounds.
The Protestant Memorial was also, incredibly a church. A small congregation worhsips each Sunday at 11am. Martin Niemoller, a Protestant pastor, who had been interned at Dauchau preached the first sermon when the chapel was dedicated in the sixties. My wife lite a candle and placed it on the communion table with other candles. Pray and worhsip here also in the face of this great evil--don't let evil take your soul. And strengthen yourself for the battle. Evil is not just back in the past, it is not just about the Nazis--it is about us, our world today and the struggle to Never Forget and dedicating ourselves to not allowing evil, however subtle, to triumph.
The Carmelite Sisters built a monastery right outside the walls of Dachau. They pray daily for the soul of the world in the war against demonic evil.
So that is why I find inspiration in Dachau.
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