BONUS BLOG: When Christians Don’t Listen to The Holy Spirit

Sky McCracken is a colleague and online friend. Here’s what he shared Sunday night —

Several have asked for the Bonhoeffer quote from this morning’s sermon. It was taken from the letter ‘‘After Ten Years’ in _Letters and Papers from Prison, Volume 8_. The context of the illustration was that when Christians don’t practice listening to and discerning the Holy Spirit, we will give into the stupidity of the moral failings of manipulation and conforming to worldly powers:

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or 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 a

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or 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 him as 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.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer