The Hardness of Our Hearts

The documentary Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State shows various interviews with people who are associated with the death camps and with World War II.  Some of the interviews were with the Nazi SS guards who actually ran the camps.  I was particularly disturbed to hear some of the SS guards who, even as they acknowledged their part in the atrocities that took place at the camp, seemed to express no remorse.  Many of those interviewed spoke of what they did as just being part of the events that were going on.  It was much like listening to someone recount their days at college some 40 years ago.  Whatever "mischief" took place, well, that's just what happens in college.  It seemed to be a kind of "boys will be boys" mentality.  One guard even chuckled as he recounted stealing the valuables of the Jewish people who were being sent into the gas chambers.  

I wondered as these men talked, if there callous attitude even some 50 years later, was true to who these men are.  I wondered, had they really not learned anything in the 50 years since this war ended?  Had they not realized what an horrendous violation of human dignity the holocaust was?  Or perhaps their callousness was merely a coping mechanism?  Perhaps it had become easier to have a cavalier attitude about the whole thing then it was to honestly face what they had been a part of? 

I also wondered, to what degree do we become cold and indifferent to the suffering around us?  To what degree do we "cope" with the suffering by becoming as callous as these men appeared to be?  Even as I believe that most of us find it disgusting that a man would laugh about stealing from Jews going to a gas chamber, I also have to wonder if we  often harden our hearts to those who are suffering in our world because the reality of facing the truth is more then we can bear.  

But let us be clear, that what we cannot bear is not the truth of people suffering for we all live with the knowledge that people suffer.  We know (and if you didn't know this you do now) that nearly 30,000 children die each DAY from preventable causes. Yet what we, if we are honest, cannot bear is our unwillingness to do something about it.  You see, our hearts grow hard toward the suffering of others because we are protecting ourselves and what we our protecting ourselves from is the knowledge that we could do something.  And when we don't, we know it is wrong and it is selfish and no one what's to be thought of as being wrong and selfish.  So we dismiss the suffering.  We dismiss the idea that we can do something about it.  We say the problems are too big and perhaps too far away.  We put it aside and perhaps even promise that we will somehow get involved later.  

So let me say this: Don't let your heart be hardened.  You can do something.  Yes it may hurt.  You may have to sacrifice.  You may not be able to change the world for everyone, but you can change the world for at least someone. Open your heart.

Auschwitz

I started watching this week a documentary titled Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State.  In the first two episodes the documentary looks at the beginnings of Auschwitz and for that matter how the "Final Solution" came to be the Nazi doctrine for the extermination of the Jews.  The film not only looks at the actually planning of the death camp through such things as architectural designs but it explores how people who are basic ordinary people, much like you and I, with families, hopes and dreams and even, dare I say, a sense of ethics and morality, how they become planners, perpetrators, and participants in one of the world's grandest atrocities of all of history. 

The answer seems to lie within the fact that the German people for years before the death camps began were taught that the Jews were less than human.  This seems to be the starting place for the death camps.  Genocide does not begin in the railroad cars going to the camp.  Genocide does not begin with segregating people into ghettos.  Genocide begins with the entertaining of the thought that a person and by association those who share a commonality with that person are less than me.

So how does one prevent genocide?  One would think remembering the holocaust would suffice but history has shown us that genocide continues today.  A panel discussion at the end of episode two of the documentary has a professor who teaches on genocide saying that there really is no way to end genocide.  I was particularly interested in the fact that he said religious morality could not even stop genocide.  I thought about that for a moment and realized that I had to agree.  Religious morality, especially that which is most pervasive in all religions of people trying to be "good" by whatever standard of good their religion requires will not stop genocide.  However, a people, a group of people, a sacred community that embodies Christ, yes, the true Church can and should, at the very least be prepared to lay down their lives to speak to the evil of regarding one group of people or many groups of people as less than themselves.

We must understand, that this is not simply about racial reconciliation or even the recognition of the sanctity of all human life.  This is about the community of believers acting in accordance with the renewing and the transformation of their minds and their hearts to be like that of their Lord and Savior.  This is not about, if the Church will be the Church, then genocide will end.  Truth be told, until the Lord returns, evil will continue to thrive on the face of the earth and evil men will continue to do evil things.  What is being said here is that in the midst of this evil and darkness, it is the Church, this sacred, set apart community, that is to be a light.  A light that reveals the evil, pushes away the darkness, and brings hope and life.

The Church must be the place where no one is considered less and yet everyone considers themselves a servant and not a master.  For in the Church, we count others more significant than ourselves (Phil. 2:3).  These others who we count as more significant must not be just those that are our friends, our families, our neighbors who look like us, talk like us and act like us.  These others who we count as more significant must be those who do not look like us, who do not talk like us, dress like us, act like us, or even like us.  For this is the mind of Christ.  For while we were still sinners (rebellious ones, enemies of the Father, unholy), Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8)