Friday, December 26, 2008

The Justice of Righteous Resistance




I just saw the new film Valkyrie (http://valkyrie.unitedartists.com/). The story of Colonel von Stauffenberg and of those he joined in the Resistance Movement confront us with the question of whether their acts were the practice of righteousness in the pursuit of justice against embodied evil in this world. I am compelled to the conclusion that their acts were both righteous and just yet at the same time those very acts were admittedly sinful. Like Bonhoeffer before them, their convictions required them to take concrete responsible actions to defeat the evil that was embodied in Hitler. To do less, would have been a denial of their conscience and for most, especially Bonhoeffer, their faith. While not guiltless, they remained faithful and threw themselves upon the mercy of God.