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Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich QUOTES

Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich QUOTES

1 " Gideon conquers, the church conquers, we conquer, because faith conquers. But the victory belongs not to Gideon, the church, or ourselves, but to God. And God's victory means our defeat, our humiliation; it means God's derision and wrath at all human pretensions of might, at humans puffing themselves up and thinking they are somebodies themselves. It means the world and its shouting is silenced, that all our ideas and plans are frustrated; it means the cross. The cross over the world -- that means that human beings, even the most noble, go down to dust whether it suits them or not, and with them all the gods and idols and lords of this world. The cross of Jesus Christ --that means God's bitter mockery of all human grandeur and God's bitter suffering in all human misery, God's lordship over all the world. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

2 " If we think only of the great needs, then we are less likely to notice the individual small needs requiring our help. And all the great needs grow really out of little ones, or better, from the fact that in our blindness we in the beginning failed to see the little needs. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

3 " The new führer ended his address with a prayer, “May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany.”3 We should notice his wedding of a militant and nationalistic faith to a militant and nationalistic political program: “we are fighting. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

4 " although Hitler peppered speeches with references to God, neither he nor Nazism had a single thing in common with traditional Christianity. Nazi religion was pagan, containing a pagan savior and creed. The creed knew nothing of sin, and its faith glorified violence. Nazism had no meekness or humility, no love of neighbor, and no thought of forgiveness. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

5 " In this belief system Nazism had replaced hallmarks of Christianity with the qualities of a good Nazi: strength rather than weakness; domination rather than humility; hatred rather than love; dependence on Hitler rather than dependence on Christ, not to mention the importance of blood, race, and soil rather than the sacraments, and a sense of eternity. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

6 " On one occasion Barth invited a student to contribute an essay to the journal. The student was Max Lackmann, who was only twenty-four years old at the time. The essay, “Lord, Where Shall We Go?” appeared in the summer of 1934 and clearly drew a line between faithfulness to God’s word and faithfulness to the Nazi state. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

7 " While many at the time found themselves in conflict over their loyalty as Germans and their identity as Christians, Lackmann insisted that for Christians there was no conflict; they must side with Christ and against the Nazi state. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

8 " The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich

9 " Klemperer’s insight that Nazi speech dealt in superlatives. Hence, Hitler was the “smartest” leader of the “bravest” people of the “purest” blood, and Germany was the “greatest country” and “most glorious” of nations in the most “heroic” of wars and struggles against the “worst” of enemies in the “most dangerous” of times. "

― , Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich