“Lest we forget” - thoughts for Remembrance Sunday

Pope John Paul II rightly called the twentieth century the ‘Century of Death’, noting that in the last hundred years more people died violent deaths than in all the rest of human history put together. Notwithstanding higher population numbers in recent times, this is a sobering statistic. For the Christian there is also an additional often unspoken concern: how may the notion of a loving God be reconciled with the reality of human suffering?

In the past century many Christian writers have addressed the question of innocent suffering in warfare none more so than the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. As a young man aged seventeen Moltmann was conscripted into the German air force. He was trained as an anti-aircraft gunner, barely survived the Hamburg fire storm and was captured by the British in Belgium. Between 1945 and 1948 Moltmann was a prisoner of war in England and during this time he notes that he 'wrestled with God in order to survive the abyss of senselessness and guilt'. Following his return to Germany, Moltmann trained for ordination, served as a country pastor and eventually became a professor of theology at Tübingen University. Moltmann's whole outlook and theology has been forged by war and human suffering and, although other theologians, most notably his compatriot Dorothee Sölle have taken up similar themes, without doubt Moltmann's contribution has been the most influential.

In three books which have become classics (Theology of Hope, 1967; The Crucified God,1974 and The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 1977), Moltmann argues the following.

a. Drawing in part on the ideas of the English First World War chaplain, Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy (better known as Woodbine Willie and incidentally earlier in his life a teacher at Calday Grange Grammar School) Moltmann contends that the supreme moment in the New Testament is when Jesus utters the words from the cross; 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me' (Matt 27: 46). At that moment the God of the Trinity shares fully in the experience of human suffering. God does not will suffering, but shares it with humanity. God is not only the powerful creator, but is also the powerless victim and servant.

b. Just as Jesus in his death was identified with the present state of the world with all its negativity and suffering, so the resurrection both contradicts the cross and is both a promise for the total transformation of all reality and the hope for all people.

c. Strongly influenced by the Lutheran pastor and Nazi victim, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45), Moltmann argues that the work of the church should be to show solidarity with the poor and oppressed and to realise that its commitment should be to God alone.

Traditionally the church has been loyal to the state, but Moltmann argues that the Christian's loyalty can only ever be provisional, because the church must always be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Ultimate allegiance must be to God and neighbour. Loyalty to any secular institution, even to the church as an institution, can never be absolute. This was a particular problem for the Lutheran church in Germany in the 1930s, but was not absent from the reaction of English church leaders to both the First and Second World Wars. In the First World War, the Bishop of London - Arthur Winnington-Ingram - urged new recruits, for instance, to kill in the name of Christ and in the Second the Bishop of Chichester - George Bell - caused controversy by being the only major church leader to question the saturation bombing of Germany. In the nineteen-eighties Archbishop Runcie upset Mrs Thatcher and many in the church by calling for prayers for the families of Argentinian war dead.

In the forthcoming remembrance season we should not only remember the dead, but should also reflect on what Moltmann has called The Crucified God. If we really want to honour those who gave their lives we should confront in prayer and reflect upon those dark corners of our own personalities which harbour sins such as violent thoughts, prejudice of any kind, racism, ethic chauvinism, hatred of other peoples and/or those who follow other traditions of faith. When expressed in the political sphere it is these sins that lead to war and which cause God to suffer for all his children.

To paraphrase Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy:

‘The sorrows of God must be hard the bear, if he really has love in his heart, but the hardest part in the world to play must surely be God’s part.’

David Chester

November 2008