Paralympics are declaring to the world that social value and human dignity are not rooted in physical perfection. 

Common decency says we should not liken anything today to 1930’s Germany. In light of what has happened recently and what may lie ahead, maybe it would be wiser if we did.

Today, we live in a world of indolence that strengthens people with sinister agendas, whatever their ideology or religion may be. 

Why do people assume that the freedom of speech and of religion will persist when those asserting their power are committed to a different morality? 

I don’t want to condemn the church in the 1930s without acknowledging how easily cowed the church in the 2020s might prove to be. 

When we assess evil, we always take the position of the judge who observes what is happening. Our problem is that our criteria are always flawed.

Society may be conditioned to support an approved narrative, but we are called to be men and women of truth. 

The pulpit is not a soapbox; we have something much more important to proclaim.  But let us not live in ignorance of what is happening in the world around us. 

I’d like to ponder what Nazi Germany might mean for how we preach and influence both church and society in our tumultuous times.

Hans Simon was the Lutheran pastor of the Zionskirche. He wore a turtleneck jumper and always had a pipe in his hand. The Stasi spied on his every move.

“There has never been a time in history where we needed to be reminded of the life of Bonhoeffer more than today”, say the producers of the movie, Angel Studios.

“We regularly see the monster of antisemitism rearing its head again”, says the Justice Minister. Protecting the memory of the millions who were killed under the Nazi has to do with “humanity and compassion”.

Hers is a story of sheltering Jews, of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, a surprise release and of her worldwide mission to spread a message of forgiveness.

Self-protection is probably the main reason why Evangelicals appeared unable to see the fatality of a regime which was responsible for millions of deaths all over Europe, amongst them 6 million Jews.

More than 45 world leaders gathered in Jerusalem to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. They publicly committed to never forget the lessons of the Holocaust.

Professor Richard Weikart explains how Adolf Hitler was opposed to Christianity and tried to whittle away its influence.

Power reveals who we are, and reveals even more the fundamentals of our worldview.

The European Jewish Congress says it is “the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights in Belgium since the Nazi occupation.” Denmark and Switzerland already prohibit this kind of slaughter.

The inhabitants of a little village, led by a Protestant pastor, saved hundreds of Jewish children during the the Nazi occupation in France. “We did what we had to do.”

The main character of Himmelweg is a Red Cross worker who is an accessory to manipulating History, by covering up the truth of what really happened in a Nazi concentration camp.

The graphic novel tells the story of a Jewish family that survived the Nazi holocaust. It focuses on the suffering and pain we bear.

Millions of people - most of them Jews - died in labour and extermination camps. Europe should not forget.