By Katrina RoeMonday 28 Apr 2014Hope MorningsInspirational StoriesReading Time: 2 minutes
‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil,’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer said. “God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is loved by Christians as both a theologian and a double-agent during the second world war. At a time when much of the German church was complicit in supporting the racist Nazi regime, Bonhoeffer spoke out, gathered intelligence for the resistance and was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler.
Tragically, Bonhoeffer was killed in a concentration camp in the final stages of the war, however his voice has lived on through his writing.
While his theological, moral and philosophical ideas have continued to inspire Christians, his love letters to his fiancé, Maria, reveal the passionate heart of the man. And it is this love story which shines in a new play, Lies Love and Hitler, now showing in Sydney.
According to the writer of Lies, Love and Hitler, Elizabeth Avery Scott, Bonhoeffer’s story ‘forces us to take stock of our own inactivity in the face of evil’.
In the play, Professor Paul Langley, aged 39, struggles to make sense of his complicated romantic relationship with one of his students. Langley finds himself ill-equipped to face his moral choices and turns to the voice and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to make sense of his situation.
More information
Lies, Love and Hitler is showing at The Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo until May 3.