Adolph Hitler was only in power for a short number of years but millions of people were slaughtered by his Nazi socialistic and totalitarian government. This government could have been stopped if more people had stood up against it sooner. One of the most hated enemies of Hitler was a Lutheran pastor by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was executed by Hitler’s goon squad by firing squad on April 8, 1945.  When Hitler knew he had lost the war, he quickly ordered a kangaroo court to have Bonhoeffer tried and executed. He himself died a short time later –or at least it is thought so.  It was never proven for sure that Hitler died.  I am sure his demons hid his body so the world would never know for sure. The next time the world will see Hitler is at the Great White Throne Judgment of Christ when he will receive his eternal sentence to the Lake of Fire.  “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).  

You see, the Bible clearly teaches that you need to be born twice to only die once.  If you are not born from above in a true salvation experience—like I was at 21 years of age—then you will die twice which is the second death described in Revelation 21:8 above.  Death is simply separation from God and His life.  God is true life and if we are separated from Him and his creation, it will be everlasting death or separation.  There is a place out in the expanses of the universe called the Lake of Fire that all departed dead people will go who have never been born twice.  I know one thing, I do not want to go to that place as it is described.   Those born twice will enjoy the coming ages of paradise that God wants all of mankind to enjoy.  God sent his Son to die so we could receive the gift of his love and salvation in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.   

While Bonheoffer was in prison waiting for his fate, he wrote some essays on different subjects called My Essays from Prison.  The one I want to address is his Essay on Stupidity.  I truly believe that our culture today suffers deeply from the malady of stupidity.  We have had an entire generation who have barely learned reading, writing, and arithmetic and most of what we have learned has been gotten by sitting in front of a television or some other device that did all of our thinking for us.  We then entered into careers where manuals and bureaucrats have dictated our existence under the betterment of safety or the environment but it has conditioned all of us as non-thinkers or a generation of stupid non-thinkers.  We let CBC, CTV or CNN do our thinking for us. We think what they are telling us is the truth because we have never learned to use our brains as God intended, to study and think through things to proper conclusions. Bonheoffer wrote in his Essay on Stupidity: 

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against stupidity we are defenceless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.

In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

‘If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.

We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.

It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.

The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings. 

Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.

This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.’”

--Dietrich Bonheoffer, from ‘After Ten Years’ in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010

I would like to invite you to connect with our Live Stream services at 11:00 am and 6:00 pm each Sunday at www.pabaptist.ca If you would like your own Bible to study please contact us and we will mail you one for free.  

The content of this article is solely the personal opinions of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Prince Albert Shopper.