I so enjoyed getting to interview Dr. Paul House for the Tennent blog this week! As it turned out, his words were incredibly relevant for this moment in our lives, an unintended side effect of our conversation. Dr. House has spent many years analyzing Bonhoeffer’s seminaries. We tend to think of Bonhoeffer as a resistance pastor during Nazi Germany (true), but one his more significant projects was his work in seminary education. Our conversation covered some of Bonhoeffer’s (and Dr. House’s) convictions about theological education, but also touched on a deeply resonant theme for our time–investing in the ruins. How do you spend your time when the world is crashing down around you?
Please hop over to Light & Heat to check out the interview. You might also want to read the story in Jeremiah which Dr. House is referring to (Jer. 32).
On the heels of that interview, we watched the brilliant 2019 film, A Hidden Life, this weekend. What a beautiful depiction of the cost of discipleship. Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer and conscientious objector under the Nazi regime, is an incredible picture of faith and courage. I heartily recommend it.
The film concludes with a great quotation from George Eliot: “..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” May we all live faithfully, investing in the ruins, living out a quiet faith, undeterred.
Photo credit: Paul House
Catherine's Letters 