In my last blog post, I discussed the work of Isabel Wilkerson and her examination of racism in America.1 Normally I would just move on to another topic, but her work is so enlightening and engaging that I feel compelled to continue to explore some additional content from her book.
Ms. Wilkerson, when highlighting the rapid rise of Nazi Germany and the Aryan Nation to exclude Jews, reminds us of the “evil of silence.”2(p. 90) She discusses Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his oft-quoted comment that “silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” She continues with his statements that “God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” The actions of Nazi Germany and their rapid creation of castes are all too reminiscent of similar situations in our past that are now creeping into today’s culture.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Diedrich Bonhoeffer, born early in the 20th century in Germany, was a pastor and theologian.3 In his early twenties, he studied in the US and was disillusioned at the presence of social injustice for blacks and the lack of integration. After his return to Germany, he eventually became a strong opponent of Nazi Germany and its brewing Christian nationalism under the cloak of the church. He was eventually imprisoned and hanged in 1945.
Bonhoeffer was well known for his authorship of The Cost of Discipleship in 1937, exploring his interpretation of the role of a Christian disciple based on the Sermon on the Mount.4 Its publication coincided with the rise of the Nazi regime, yet he continued to speak his mind and oppose the German Christian (Deutsche Christen) movement with its purposeful exclusion of Jews from society. He viewed this latter movement as a threat to the true spirit of the Christian faith and inherently evil. Its flag alone is chilling to see today.
Flag of the Deutsche Christen movement
In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer draws a fine line between cheap grace and costly grace.
- Cheap grace is “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
- Costly grace “confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’”
I will take the bold step and equate cheap grace and costly grace with inaction and action respectively. Inaction in the face of gross inequities is cheap grace. It is ignoring the plight of our fellow citizens. It is turning a blind eye to what happened and saying it doesn’t matter because I didn’t do it. For those in America, it is being a part of a lynching mob (not even over 100 years ago) and then having your picture taken with the mob as the body dangles from the tree. It is accepting the destruction of Black “Wall Street” in Tulsa OK. In Nazi Germany, it was being complicit with the demonization and extermination of Jews. In India, it is being a part of a system that treats like-skinned people as subhuman.
Allowing castes to be developed and then perpetuated lies largely in the inaction of “good people.” When good people (not the active evil-doers) succumb to the evil of silence, they allow bad things to continue to happen. Even though they will argue that they did nothing wrong (“wasn’t me)5, I would argue that their inaction was an action in and of itself. Choosing to do nothing or ignore the problems at hand is an action that allows or permits the permanent erosion of fulfilling our responsibility to others.
Some readers might find my analysis too harsh. I am purposeful in my review of Wilkerson’s book and Bonhoeffer’s actions to bring into focus issues in our current climate. Nazi Germany is no more, and some will argue that my examples of inaction in the US are too dramatic. Yet too many folks refuse to accept that we could easily creep back into past errors. I distinctly remember in 2017 a ban on certain ethnic groups entering the country. I distinctly remember the children of some immigrants being separated from their parents and placed in cages in 2018. I distinctly remember the concept of recognizing past inequities and seeking solutions going forward (being “woke”) being demonized by far too many people in political service.6
Some folks have said that the serious introspection suggested by being woke is anti-white racism or breeds hate for white people. I would argue that they have succumbed to the cheap grace described by Bonhoeffer. Without repentance and without confession, they have refused to have a “contrite heart” that introspection requires. They have refused to accept vulnerability.7 They have embraced the cult of personality that promotes cheap grace, that refuses to grow and embrace others, that condones and permits class divisions (castes), and that encourages inaction when action is needed to fight social imbalance.
This particular blog post might be greeted with some skepticism and negativity. I would challenge the readers again to see the movie ORIGIN. Answer the challenge and look at your responses. Introspection and its accompanying “costly grace” forces us to review our past inactions and actions. Only then can we intentionally choose actions going forward that make a difference, not choosing inactions that permit the subjugation of others. Inaction is an action.
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/caste-a-purposeful-system-of-exclusion-part-i/
- Wilkerson I: Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. Random House; 2020. 476 pp.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/wasnt-me-2/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/woke-im-in/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/vulnerability-makes-us-strong/