What do you do when you see something evil? Maybe it’s someone being assaulted in the street, someone being bullied by police, or someone’s car being stolen; what do you do? I’ve heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer say, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.”
What does that say about those who video an assault rather than trying to break it up or at least call for help? How about when we observe a government actor breaking the law? Are we willing to say something, or do we not want to get involved? If Mr. Bonhoeffer is correct, and silence in the face of evil is itself evil, what does that say about the American people who simply keep going along with the evils we see today?
I believe much of the trouble we see in America today is the result of our general silence in the face of evil. We thought someone would do something, but because of that, no one has done anything. As I hope you know, all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, and in America, nothing is exactly what most of us have done.
It can be daunting, looking at the state of the union and thinking you have to fix it all. However, you don’t need to fix the nation; you don’t even need to fix your state. All you really have to do is fix your home, your town, and hopefully your county. Speak out about the evils in those three areas, and things will get better. If you do so in your county, and I do so in mine, we can change our states. Once we expose and deal with evil in our states, Washington, D.C., will take care of itself. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:
“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”
Rather than focusing on what type of society our parents have left us, let’s focus on the world we are leaving to our children.
