In the late nineties, I got my hands on a book by David Mason called "Shadow over Babylon"
"The assassination plot is the brainchild of the most powerful men in government. It is manned by the most savagely skilled death team money can buy. It is armed with the most advanced weapons and technological systems on earth. It is assembled behind the backs of its own and its allies' intelligence agencies. And it is perfectly calculated to bypass the defenses of its target - President Saddam Hussein." \(Good Reads)
This fictional story account of the plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein was a game changer for me in so many ways. It changed my understanding that maybe one person couldn't be ultimately responsible for the tyranny that followed the dictatorial leadership of that person. We have seen in history so many leaders that have had their names synonymous with the destruction to their countries. We don't seem to look farther than the head cheese to blame all the problems on.
When I got to the end of "Shadow of Babylon", it provided me with an ongoing story after the man. There was something bigger than the name and face often blamed. There was something more ominous and unseen that arose after that name was taken out. There was a system, a seemingly lifeless organism that had been given life... not by the leader, but by the people that supported it. In the absence of the man, the system still had to live. It was the real leader.
My uncomfortability with Dietrick Bonhoeffer to this day is that he couldn't see past Hitler to the system that made Hitler what he became. What did DB figure he would accomplish if Hitler was assassinated? Did he think that all the cards to his country's tyranny lay in the hands of one man? Maybe it's a pipe dream to think that one person can change the world... but it's reality that understands that one person does not change the world alone. Hitler couldn't have done what he did on his own. He needed believers. He may have been the voice to the ideologies of his time, but he would have just been a fart in the wind if he didn't have people who came along side of him that embraced the same ideologies that he held to.
I'm not saying that people in their own selves are not capable of destruction. I am just understanding that the men we blame for the wars in this world aren't the only one's responsible. The blame needs to be shared and owned by a lot more.
This hasn't changed. We blame our politicians today for the chaos in our countries. We can't see past the media buzz to own our part in the mess. I think it goes beyond our vote. Once the tallies are in, we sit back and expect our leaders to be the best of our consciences. Then we bicker when they don't meet our expectations, but we don't own our part in the story.
I have no more answers as to how to fix our problems than anyone else does. I just don't blame the problems on one body anymore.
I did find some inspiration from Bonhoeffer in today's reading... so I will end this post with those quotes. I see a feeble attempt at restructuring a failed system in his attempt to redirect Christianity into a social justice religion. He's not the only one. Tony Campolo came to mind when I was reading this morning. But what still sticks in my mind is something Tony's son Bart shared at the Wild Goose festival in 2021
"When I see you progressive Christians at Wild Goose trying to remake Christianity into a gay friendly, inclusive, warm and wonderful, nobody's going to hell, universalist narrative... I think you guys are brilliant, but you remind me of a bunch of engineers trying to take a submarine and retrofit it to fly. I have no doubt that with the proper engineering skills you can take a submarine and make it fly. But wouldn't it be easier to just start from scratch and just build an airplane?" Bart Campolo
Christianity is and will always be a submarine. It wasn't built to fly like an airplane, it was built to be sunk in the oceans of doctrine, dogma, rituals and regulations. It's why there are thousands of denominational expressions that label themselves as Christianity's best expression... but they are all just attempts at flying a submarine.
"I should like to speak of God not on the boundaries but at the centre, not in weaknesses but in strength; andtherefore not in death and guilt but in man’s life and goodness." DB
"So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate
questions of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered ‘without God’?" DB
"It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must
completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a
saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!) a righteous
man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean
living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences
and perplexities." DB
