Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Stupidity, and Poker!

GTO Poker Theories – Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity

You want them at your table, but stupid players are a lot more unpredictable and should be approached with caution.

One of the real gifts poker has given me is that it has been a great jumping off point to learn things from other disciplines like economics, AI, psychology and Game Theory. So here is a series of articles where I bring some of the most interesting things I have learned from other subjects outside of poker which are applicable in this game we know and love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor who is known for his contributions to theology and his resistance to the Nazi regime during World War II. Bonhoeffer developed a theory of stupidity that he referred to as “stupidity as sin.”

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, stupidity can be more dangerous than evil because it is harder to defend against. While it is possible to take action against evil individuals, those who are stupid may not be receptive to reasoning and may ignore any attempts to protest or fight against them. As a result, people who are caught up in their own narrow perspectives and refuse to consider alternative viewpoints can be particularly difficult to oppose.

Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied. In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer argued that it was stupidity that led to the rise of Hitler. In modern times some of the extreme responses to COVID and climate change, or some of the more bizarre election results, could easily fall into this rubric. 

It’s hard to range a donkey

Obviously the examples above are all incredibly serious with potentially grave consequences. Not to trivialise those, there is an obvious poker parallel to be made, which is that stupid players are in some ways harder to play against. 

You can predict what a weak regular is going to do and usually put them on a reliable range of hands. In a 3-bet pot on a 2-7-K flop you don’t really have to worry about them having bottom two pair, for example. Against a complete donkey, however, nothing is out of the question. 

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Dangers of Christian Nationalism

Christian nationalism and the far right

We must stand up to, and speak out against, Christian nationalism, especially when it inspires acts of violence and intimidation.

By Dr. Ellen Kennedy, the Rev. John Matthews & the Rev. James Erlandson

Wikimedia Commons Sophie Scholl in 1942

Sophie Scholl was beheaded by guillotine in Munich, Germany at the age of 21.

Her crime? Speaking out against the Aryan white supremacy of the Nazi regime.

It was 1943. Sophie was a member of the White Rose, a clandestine group of university students who were distributing leaflets at universities throughout Germany urging resistance to the Third Reich.

A janitor saw Sophie dropping leaflets off a balcony railing into a central hallway at the University of Munich, and he turned her in to the Gestapo. She was arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and murdered four days later.

After the execution, a pro-Nazi rally was held at the university, and the janitor was given a standing ovation.

“Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go,” Sophie said, before she was guillotined. “But what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who became a leader in what was known as the Confessing Church, which opposed German Christian policies of exclusion and marginalization. He was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler that culminated in a failed coup on July 20, 1944. As a consequence, he was imprisoned for two years and sentenced to death at a court-martial in Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany.

On April 9, 1945, he was led naked into the execution yard and hanged. His crime? He would not subvert Christianity to a religion that put Hitler ahead of God. He believed that the German Protestant church failed to stand up against the evils of Nazism and he stood in solidarity with the victims.

Sophie Scholl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have become heroes in the pantheon of “upstanders” against the Christian nationalism of Nazi Germany.

What is Christian nationalism?

As Georgetown University political science professor Paul D. Miller described in Christianity Today, “Christian nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Christian Nationalists assert that America is and must remain a ‘Christian nation’ – not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”

We’ve all seen T-shirts proclaiming, “Jesus Christ is my savior and Donald Trump is my president.” This is an example of Christian nationalism.

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The journey inward: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s opposition to anti-semitism

By Dr. John Campbell

Anyone who gave their life in opposition to the regime of Adolf Hitler attracts my attention. Theologian, pastor, Christian activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of these people.

Bonhoeffer scholar Mark Thiesen Nation suggests the narrative that most people are familiar with is the one highlighted by bestselling author Eric Metaxas in his book about Bonhoeffer: “As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer-a pastor and author known as much for his spiritual classics ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ and ‘Life Together’ as for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler.”

That is the popular narrative. Less known is his opposition to the brutal treatment of Jews in Germany and how that contributed to Bonhoeffer’s death.

By way of review, Hitler’s rise to power took place in the backdrop of German deterioration after the First World War. Germany had been defeated. Afterwards, the Versailles Treaty had strapped the German economy and the German people resented the reparations imposed on them.

On Jan. 30, 1933, Hitler was legally appointed as Reich chancellor by the aging President Hindenburg. Hitler addressed the nation instilling hope where none had existed before. In his address to the nation Hitler declared: “The national government sees as its first and foremost task the restoration of the unity of spirit and will of our people. It will preserve and protect the fundamentals on which the strength of our nation rests. It will preserve and protect Christianity, which is the basis of our system of morality, and the family, which is the germination cell of the body of the people and the state.”

He concluded: “We are determined, as leaders of the nation, to fulfill as a national government the task which has been given to us, swearing fidelity only to God, our conscience, and our people.”

Understandably, this young, energetic leader, who came from the working class and was a veteran of World War One, could rouse Germans from their despair. Little did they know that his tyrannical grip on Germany would lead to destruction once again.

According to Nation in his book, “Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis,” after the burning of the Reichstag, Hitler issued the “Protection of People and the State” which in essence became the fundamental law during his regime. There was restriction of the press, the right to assemble, voter suppression and provisions for property search and seizure.

For all intents and purposes Hitler was freed from any obligation to uphold parliamentary and constitutional regulations. In essence, the chancellor claimed unlimited power. Germany was no longer a democracy.

By April of 1933 there was a state sponsored boycott of Jewish shops throughout the country. Hitler wanted to revive the glory of the Aryan race.

Seeing Hitler’s militaristic style and blatant antisemitism, Bonhoeffer did not want to be part of a military build-up. He believed that war was immoral and he was becoming aware of the repressive tactics of the Hitler regime.

Authorities turned down his offer to become a military chaplain. Since he came from an upper middle-class family with many connections in government, his brother-in-law was able to get him a position in the Reich Ministry of Justice. This afforded him an insider’s view of the working of government.

Not long after Hitler assumed power, Bonhoeffer asked the question in a radio address: “To what extent is leading and being led healthy and genuine, and when does it become pathological and excessive.”

As early as 1933, he felt that the Protestant Church was mistaken when they aligned themselves with Nazi political agenda. He eventually took part in a dissenting church and even prepared seminarians for pastorates in the Confessing Church, so called.

Bonhoeffer had grown up among ethnically Jewish children. His sister Sabine had married a Jew; Dietrich’s brother-in law was warmly accepted in the family circle. Dietrich had a deep-felt empathy for the plight of German Jews.

His early essay on “The Church and the Jewish Question” shows how he was trying to gain some clarity of thought about what response Christians should take regarding their Jewish brothers and sisters. He begins the essay with a typical Martin Luther understanding that the state is independent from the church. When the state forms policies discriminating against Jews, this does not mean individual Christians should remain silent about state immorality.

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Review: Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context

AUTHOR: ROBERT D. CORNWALL, WORD&WAY

BONHOEFFER’S RELIGIONLESS CHRISTIANITY IN ITS CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTEXT. By Peter Hooton. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic (Rowman & Littlefield), 2022. 211 Pages.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lives on as a martyr. His death came in April 1945 at the hands of the Nazis as World War II was nearing its close. He was only thirty-nine at the time of his death by hanging. His story has been told by several biographers, and his works have been made available for all to read in English translation. Despite his relative youth, he left behind a massive amount of material, both published and unpublished. As a result, Bonhoeffer has proven to be one of the most influential theologians of the past century and a half. This is true even though his theological understandings never reached a point of completion. Perhaps it’s that incompleteness that’s lent itself to the diversity of interpretations of work over the years, as well as its use by people from across the religious and even political spectrums. For example, Conservative evangelicals, some of whom are Christian Nationalists, have appealed to his efforts to resist the Nazis as fodder for their acts of resistance, especially when it comes to attempts to outlaw/discourage abortion. At the other end of the theological spectrum, in the 1960s the “Death of God” theologians found his prison letters and essays that hinted at a world without God attractive. Then there are the pacifists who have made use of his reflections on nonviolence. Some have simply tried to turn him into a conservative American evangelical (ala Eric Metaxas).

Robert D. Cornwall

Over the years my theology and practice have been deeply influenced by Bonhoeffer’s writings. I began reading his works (Cost of Discipleship) in college and continued to read them through seminary (I took Lewis Smedes’s “Ethics of Bonhoeffer” course) and beyond. I’ve read most of the biographies and several more specialized studies. I purchased the full set of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works and keep them close at hand so I can dip into them when needed, especially in sermon preparation (the scripture index in the index volume is very helpful!). I’ve always welcomed studies of his life and works that illuminate rather than obfuscate. That is true of two recent biographies by Ferdinand Schlingensiepen and Charles Marsh, which are especially good. Added to these studies is Peter Hooton’s Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context. Hooton’s book is a specialized monograph, that focuses on one dimension of Bonhoeffer’s theological explorations. While it’s written for a scholarly audience, I found it to be very accessible.

As for the author of this book, Peter Hooton is involved in the area of public theology at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture on the Canberra campus of Charles Sturt University. Before this, he was a career diplomat working in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the South Pacific. He holds a Ph.D. from Charles Sturt University and is part of the university’s “Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre.”

Hooton’s book appears to be based on his Ph.D. dissertation at CSU. In it, he focuses on Bonhoeffer’s musings about religionless Christianity. This view of Christianity is especially present in Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, as well as his Ethics. These works, all of which are to some degree incomplete, appeared at the end of his life. They suggest themes and possibilities of further exploration should he have survived the war. It was especially in his letters to his friend Eberhard Bethge, that an imprisoned Bonhoeffer delved into what the possibility of a religionless Christianity. Though when he wrote of a religionless Christianity, he wasn’t embracing atheism. Rather, he was envisioning what a non-institutionalized Christianity might look like. He was not, of course, alone in this, for Karl Barth was writing about Christianity apart from religion, which Barth believed was a human venture. For Bonhoeffer, this religionless Christianity would speak to a world come of age, that is a world that in a post-war world would have lost its innocence and naivete. Bonhoeffer’s vision of such a Christianity come of age, as the book’s title suggests, was deeply rooted in Bonhoeffer’s Christocentric vision.

Hooton points out that Bonhoeffer’s critique of religion was linked to Barth’s. His older contemporary suggested that religion is a human act of seeking God, which is a futile effort as God is wholly other. However, God is encountered as an act of Grace as God reaches out to humanity. Early in Bonhoeffer’s theological career, he placed greater weight on the church as the means of encountering God. We see this in works such as Sanctorum Communio, his initial doctoral dissertation. However, by the 1940s, he was contemplating what theology might look like in this new world order outside the realm of the church. Like Barth, Bonhoeffer never suggested that anyone should separate themselves from the church. However, he began to believe that the church isn’t the cure for what ails the world. While he resonated with Barth’s critique of religion, Bonhoeffer didn’t completely embrace Barth’s view. Bonhoeffer called Barth’s views a “positivism of revelation.” Nevertheless, he agreed with the larger critique of religion, and that critique was Christological in nature.

As I’ve noted Bonhoeffer’s vision was deeply Christological. For Bonhoeffer, God encounters us in Christ. While he didn’t reject his Lutheran theological foundations, he tended not to focus on the Trinity. Rather, in his view, the God who is for us will be encountered in Christ. Thus, his primary question concerned who Jesus is for us today. That leads to a question of who we are in relation to others. Interestingly he finds an anchor for his worldly Christianity in his reading of the Old Testament, which became increasingly this-world in orientation. As Hooton notes, Bonhoeffer’s theology was becoming progressively more inclusive as time passed. This more inclusive vision is first seen in his posthumously published Ethics. In this work, we see a movement in his thinking a move away from the powerful God of religion to a God of weakness who is revealed in Christ on the cross.

According to Hooton, as Bonhoeffer moves further into this nonreligious vision that is centered in Christ, he also begins to envision a nonreligious interpretation of the Bible. Bonhoeffer doesn’t abandon traditional biblical/theological terms like cross, sin, and grace, but he begins to look for other terms that are more expressive of the concerns of this new non-religious age. It’s not so much the words themselves as it is the way these concepts are understood. One of the concepts that he seeks to re-envision is repentance, which he speaks of in terms of ultimate honesty. For Bonhoeffer, “ultimate honesty” is ultimately a change of perspective about life and God, such that we join Jesus in being for others.

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Not Gathering with the Church Hurts You Spiritually

Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have reacted in similar fashion. “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer” (Life Together)

By Jonathan Leeman (9Marks)

03.05.2021

Some will think this is insensitive, some will think it’s overdue, but I want to make sure it’s said: not physically gathering with the church hurts you spiritually. So, pandemic-weary Christian, work to gather again with your church, even if your church continues to offer a virtual option. Likewise, pandemic-weary pastor, gently encourage your pandemic-weary congregation to gather as soon as they can.

A WORD FOR MEMBERS

To Christians, let me admit, I don’t know your situation. I don’t know the laws you’re under or what health risks remain for you personally. Therefore, with a general-audience article like this one, I want to leave space for differing circumstances and consciences. Providential hindrances are real. If the flu keeps you home from work, you stay home and shouldn’t feel guilty. At the same time, you know that staying home from work, over time, hurts your job. So you get back to work as soon as you can.

Likewise, as you think through your own church-attendance situation, hopefully in conversation with your pastors, maybe you remain providentially hindered from attending. The Lord shows mercy and grace. He makes provision for the stranded, the soldier, the shut-in, and the high-risk senior saint.

But as you weigh out all the variables, I want to leave a pebble in your shoe. If you can’t attend, I want you to be a little frustrated that you can’t attend, lest you get comfortable. If you’re not frustrated, something’s wrong. The Lord has commanded us not to forsake the assembly (Heb. 10:25). And absence from the gathering does affect our spiritual state, even if we have a legitimate reason for not attending, like being sick or quarantined. Jesus designed Christianity and the progress of our discipleship to center around gatherings. The math is therefore simple: Gathering with the church is spiritually good for you. Not physically gathering with the church spiritually hurts you.

A WORD FOR PASTORS

To pastors, let me say, I’m raising the topic now—in the winter of 2021—because I’m hearing from some of you that a few of your members have grown complacent. You’re telling me that members aren’t attending when they probably could. They’re a little too comfortable with the virtual option.

Indeed, this is why some churches never offered the live-stream service in the first place. They didn’t want to risk encouraging an appetite for a much-less-healthy substitute.

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Politics, Patriotism, and the Pulpit

Link to the Podcast

Interview with John Piper

Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

Audio Transcript

And we’re back again for another week and for another Fourth of July on the podcast. I think it’s the fourth time an episode has landed square on the holiday — at least our fourth. So happy Independence Day for those of you here in the States. If the inbox is any indicator, questions over politics, patriotism, and the pulpit are perennial concerns. When better to broach the topic than on a day like today?

Jamison, a pastor in Virginia, writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I admire your approach to politics and patriotism. You seem to be very careful here. Even when the heat is turned up in election times, and pastors feel social pressure to endorse specific candidates, you notoriously refrain from participating. As you have watched this impulse in American Christian life for many decades, this impulse among Christian leaders to periodically endorse candidates and to get involved in politics, what observations have you drawn from your decades of refraining?”

Maybe the most important or helpful thing that I can do in response to this question is to point to passages of Scripture that capture the emphasis I think is needed, not just in the American church, but in the global church, the church around the world. Because the tendency to confuse and combine Christian identity and its earthly expression, the church, with political identity, ethnic identity, national identity, or any other earthly identity — that conflating tendency is so strong, and I think so destructive to the radical call of the gospel, that it needs steadfast resistance generation after generation.

Christian Identity in a Politicized World

So my burden is to join forces with the Bible (as I understand it), and millions of faithful Christians, to encourage and nurture a faithful Christian identity that will survive and thrive with faith and hope and joy and love and purity, whether America survives, or Brazil survives, or Britain survives, or China survives, or Russia survives, or India survives — or not.

So let me point to six kinds of passages that shaped my passions in that direction.

1. Not of This World

Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). From which I infer that we’d better be very, very careful before we undertake any processes that involve force or coercion to put the kingdom of Christ in place. Any identity that we can put in place by force or weapon or law is not the kingdom of Christ. In this age, King Jesus is creating a people a very different way. That’s number one.

2. Hidden with Christ

Paul said in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And again,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4).

So our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth. It is the right hand of God, not the right hand of any earthly power. Our most essential life is Christ, and only when he comes will we be openly known for who we really are.

3. Citizens of Heaven

Philippians 3:20–21:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So no earthly citizenship, whether American or Russian or Chinese, has any ultimate allegiance over those who are in Christ Jesus. Our political allegiances are to Jesus. No party, no nation, no ethnicity, no ideology has any ultimate claim on us. Our decisive constitution is the word of God, and no human document.

4. Chosen Race, Holy Nation

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” These are ethnically and politically shattering words. Born-again Christians, real Christians, are a chosen race (genos eklekton), a holy nation (ethnos hagion). The kind of human we are and the kind of nation we belong to is not any longer our essential identity. We are a new kind, a new nation. None of the existing human realities, ethnic or national, is God’s chosen and holy people. Christians are a new thing, a new reality, a new people, a new nation, a new ethnicity and race. And we should bear witness to it.

5. Resident Aliens on Earth

Therefore, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Christians are not first Americans, or Canadians, or British, or Russians, or Nigerians. In every nation, we are exiles. Let that sink in. I want to scream that from the top of the buildings to every nationalistic tendency. In every nation, we are exiles.

Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). If you are going to run for office, be sure to inform your constituency that you are a resident alien. Your primary citizenship and allegiance are the kingdom of Christ.

6. Servants of God

Peter said in 1 Peter 2:13–16,

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

“We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding.”

In other words, realize as Christians that you are free — free from emperors, free from governors, free from presidents, free from worldly powers and parties. We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding. And when the human state tells us to pay our taxes and keep the speed limit and shovel the snow off of our sidewalks, we do it, not because the state is our authority, but because God is. We submit for his sake and in his limits.

7. People from All Nations

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19–20,

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Now that does not mean, “Go and turn pagan cultures into whitewashed tombs with the paint of so-called ‘Christian’ externals.” We know that. We know it doesn’t mean that, because Jesus defines “discipling nations” — which is the neuter plural Greek word ethne, “nations” — by “baptizing and teaching them,” and the “them” is masculine plural. That’s crucial. You don’t disciple political entities. You don’t disciple ethnic corporate realities. You disciple “them” — autous, plural in Greek — people that you can baptize.

In other words, our job is to so magnify Jesus and his saving work, among all the peoples of the world, that individual human beings are brought from death to life and formed into the image of Christ. In every race, ethnicity, nation, this new people, this chosen race, this holy nation among all the nations are to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

You Don’t Need to Know It All

Now I have no illusions, Tony, that until Jesus comes, Christians will ever agree on precisely what it looks like in professional life, and political life, and cultural life for the church to be the kingdom of Christ — a kingdom, Jesus says, that’s not of this world.

But my encouragement to pastors is that you don’t need to figure that out.

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After Roe, Choose Compassion over Culture War

JUNE 28, 2022  |  JAMES FORSYTH

“I’m pregnant.” My girlfriend’s words left me in shock.

We sat in the grass at a park on a beautiful spring day, but my feelings didn’t match the setting. I understood her words, but I couldn’t wrap my heart or mind around them. This can’t be right. Surely there’s been some mistake.

In seconds, the shock gave way to fear. As teenagers, we didn’t understand a percentage of the implications we’d later live through, but we immediately knew life would never be the same. My thoughts and our conversation began to race. How could this have happened? Was she sure? What on earth should we do next?

Fearful questions soon led us to despair. We both lived with our parents. How could we be parents? We were both kids. How could we have a child? We knew we didn’t have the maturity to deal with this, and we certainly didn’t have the financial resources to make it work.

Unsure of what to do, our first step was an appointment with a doctor. Here our shock, fear, and despair were confirmed. Then, the doctor offered a way out, a deceptive word of hope: “You know, you could have an abortion.”

How I wish I could now write about our deep commitment to life, of how we rejected the suggestion immediately and boldly blazed a different path. But that’s not what hopeless teenagers do. When you have no options, abortion feels like a solution.

After the Ruling, What Now?

In last week’s 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court found there’s no constitutional right to an abortion. Access will now be determined by each state, with roughly half poised to eliminate or significantly restrict the number of abortions performed within their borders.

Christians on both sides of the aisle should welcome this ruling. Our views on abortion aren’t to be shaped by our politics but by the value God places on life. He made humanity in his image; every human soul possesses unspeakable value, dignity, and worth.

But as we welcome this ruling, we must be measured in our response. Now isn’t the time for the church to beat its chest in celebration of a victory in the culture war. This is a moment for us to step up in love. What might this look like? Here are three suggestions.

1. Disarm with compassion.

As access to abortion becomes more limited, an untold number of women—sometimes supported by partners but typically alone—will find themselves in crisis. In shock, fear, and despair. They’re now without the only option that seemed to offer hope. Let’s be clear: These women are not and have never been the enemy. Our heart toward them must be loving.

Now isn’t the time for the church to beat its chest in celebration of a victory in the culture war. This is a moment for us to step up in love.

The celebratory fanfare of a political culture warrior may make judgmental Christians feel better about themselves, but it does little to help these women. Worse, it may serve to make the church the last place a hurting woman would turn for help.

This is the time to be like Jesus, who is gentle and lowly in heart. Let’s show women in crisis the same compassion Christ has shown to us.

2. Act personally.

Millions of Christians, in America and across the world, work tirelessly and heroically to care for unwanted children, provide for single mothers, and love those in distress. The notion that evangelicals won’t lift a finger to help hurting people has been weaponized to dismiss Christians, but it’s a lie. The world’s poor, sick, vulnerable, marginalized, and displaced receive immeasurable help from believers.

Yet now is not a time for the church to pat itself on the back. Instead, it’s time for us to redouble our efforts.

Reach out to your local pregnancy center. Pray for and encourage those who’ve been on the front lines. Find out about their needs. Increase the amount of money you give, and volunteer to serve. Also, reach out to foster and adoption agencies, consider fostering or adopting yourself, and find ways to offer practical support for families in your church who’ve done so.

Support pro-life ministry like lives depend on it. An army of believers has already taken to the field. Now it’s time for each of us to act.

3. Organize corporately.

Is your church ready to help the hurting in your community? If not, this is the moment to get our houses of worship in order. Put structures for mercy ministry in place so those with needs receive prompt attention and care. Cover rent, buy groceries and diapers, and host events to pamper single moms. Build friendships so no one is left isolated or alone.

Broadcast your desire to help too. Advertise it. Help your community see that your church is the place people should come when they don’t know where else to turn.

The Church at Its Best

A church community that did all these things saved our pregnancy. They saved my daughter’s life. They helped fearful teens become delighted parents. The first time I held my little girl and she stared up into my face, I felt the weight. Though our small gift was only six pounds, her life is a lasting glory.

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The Dark Side of the College World Series

NCAA World Series Attracts Large Crowds and Sex Trafficking

• By: Ben Forsgren
• June 30, 2017

Baseball fans came in droves to celebrate America’s favorite pastime this month with a record-breaking 357,646 people in attendance at the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

However, not all those in attendance had cause for celebration.

Among the fans, hidden victims of sex trafficking also headed for Omaha, not to watch the game but to be sold.

“It’s really not that hard to buy and sell a human being in Nebraska,” sex trafficking survivor Rachel Pointer shared on the show Speaking of Nebraska, which aired just before the World Series. Under regular circumstances, any given month approximately 900 people are involved in Nebraska’s commercial sex industry; however, the World Series promises to substantially increase the number of persons trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation through the state.

Meghan Malik, Trafficking Project Manager for the Women’s Fund of Omaha, commented on how the World Series can increase trafficking in Nebraska in the same Speaking of Nebraska episode. Speaking of those who fuel the demand for sex trafficking, Malik commented, “When you bring large groups of individuals together, especially if individuals are coming from out of town, we know that there are often times where [one says] ‘I can do this and no one will find out,’ and ‘I’ve got disposable income,’ and so it definitely just naturally increases the sex trafficking that happens.”

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I Agree with Rory about LIV Golf…

‘It’s the right thing to do’: Ahead of trying to end major victory drought, Rory McIlroy explains his role in leading resistance against LIV Golf

(Photo: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports)

Steve DiMeglio 

June 14, 2022 10:36 am ET

BROOKLINE, Mass. – To no one’s surprise, the first question Rory McIlroy fielded in his gathering with the media Tuesday at The Country Club ahead of the 122^nd U.S. Open dealt with the Saudi Arabia-backed, Greg Norman-led LIV Golf.

This despite McIlroy’s scintillating victory last Sunday in the RBC Canadian Open, where he outdueled Justin Thomas and Tony Finau over the last 36 holes for his 21^st PGA Tour title. That number was significant to McIlroy, for it is one better than the 20 Tour titles Norman won, which the world No. 3 gleefully pointed out on more than one occasion.

It was his latest salvo at the rival league that held its first tournament last week and has lured top stars away from the PGA Tour including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Bryson DeChambeau with its enormous signing bonuses, huge purses, 54-hole individual and team formats with no cut and a shotgun start.

McIlroy, along with Thomas, has been the face of the PGA Tour’s resistance to LIV Golf, frequently speaking out against it and voicing disappointment in those players who joined (PGA Tour members who joined or will join have been or will be indefinitely suspended from the PGA Tour) despite the alleged human rights violations by the Saudi Arabia regime and charges the country is using its billions of dollars in a sportswashing attempt to overshadow those same atrocities.

“It’s the right thing to do,” McIlroy said when asked why he has been so outspoken. “The PGA Tour was created by people and Tour players that came before us, the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer. They created something and worked hard for something, and I hate to see all the players that came before us and all the hard work that they’ve put in just come out to be nothing.”

He also noted the “massive legacy” of charitable dollars the Tour has doled out.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Life Within the Womb

We can learn from Bonhoeffer on abortion

By Justin Bower, May 09, 2022

On the first Monday of May, the ever-popular Met Gala was eclipsed by some of the most shocking and relevant news: the Supreme Court is in talks to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In the short time since then, pastors, doctors, politicians, activists, and practically everyone else has thrown their opinion on the matter into the whirlpool of chaos that is social media. If the nation has not been polarized enough, a monumental decision like overturning an almost 50-year-old decision legalizing abortion will cause more strain. Amidst the drama and information, the words of past generations prove helpful and sobering, a present help in remembering the foundations of the pro-life movement.

One of the most confounding theologians of recent history is the German pastor-spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His faith confronting the rise of Adolf Hitler is spectacular, especially given that he was previously a devout pacifist. In his short, 39 year life, he accomplished many admirable things for the Kingdom of God. He was the first person to give the rest of the world information on the eventual rise of Hitler in Germany, though for other political reasons, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt would not assist Germany against this power. In addition to these heroic deeds, he wrote many essays and two powerful theological books: The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939). He also wrote Ethics, which would go unfinished due to his martyrdom but be edited and published later.

Amidst the overwhelming, overstimulating amount of debate, points, and counterpoints of the now-revived pro-life/pro-choice discussion, a simple truth from Bonhoeffer’s unfinished Ethics is vital to remember:

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And this is nothing but murder.

A great many different motives may lead to an action of this kind; indeed in cases where it is an act of despair, performed in circumstances of extreme human or economic destitution and misery, the guilt may often lie rather with the community than with the individual. Precisely in this connection money may conceal many a wanton deed, while the poor man’s more reluctant lapse may far more easily be disclosed. All these considerations must no doubt have a quite decisive influence on our personal and pastoral attitude towards the person concerned, but they cannot in any way alter the fact of murder.”

Bonhoeffer’s words do not encompass the nuance of abortion, but his key points remain foundational and fundamental: the embryo is life inside the womb, and therefore abortion at early stages and thereafter is murder of human life.

Even highly respectable scientists and medical professionals agree that life begins at fertilization with the embryo’s conception.

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