A Post-Holocaust Warning to Religious People

This article was written for all those who, during the events of the Second World War in Nazi Germany, preferred to keep silent. For those who found it irrelevant to protest because of these words of Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world.” For those people who do not feel concerned by worldly affairs and who, by principle, do not engage in politics. This article was written for the church. In answer to its silence.

Are we Christians today still faithful to the New Testament understanding of peace?

During the period of the Second Temple, ancient Jewish letters began with the greeting, “Peace!”—Shalom in Hebrew, Eirênê in Greek—in whatever language they were using. But “peace” did not mean the same thing to Greeks as it did to Jews.

Children are natural cosmogonists, and one of them has never asked, “How did the world begin?” That question is addressed at the very beginning of the Tenakh: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The uniform teaching of the Scriptures is that God alone creates. The verb used in the first verse of the Bible, bara’, is always predicated of God alone, who also formed man from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7).

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (Isaiah 22:13 NIV).

What is this quest for health? Health is the quest for life—for a longer, fuller life. It is something we work for. It is also something that is supposed to last. What we seek in health is permanence and longevity. Health is finally something we sacrifice for. It is a discipline; it is asceticism.

The book of Ecclesiastes has a totally different outlook on life than our modern conception of health does. Instead of health, we find pleasure. Instead of longevity, we find the ephemeral.