I recently read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and marveled at how Nazi Germany could have gotten so bad. And it was considered normal. A few days later I went to the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC and saw films of our country during the 1960s’ civil rights’ movement activities. I wondered how we go to the point where white people turned hoses, guns, and hate on black people. And how it was considered normal.
And I wondered if there might be blind spots in our culture right now. Just as I sit and look back at unspeakable things merely 50, 60, or 70 years ago, I consider what people will look back on our time, 50, 60, or 70 years from now, and shake their heads.
It’s possible that they won’t do so. There’s no axiom insisting that every age has its own unfathomable evil.
But it’s worth asking. Where are today’s Buchenwalds? Who are today’s Bonhoeffers? I have some hunches but I’ll let the question settle for a bit.
