The Power of Choices
by Reverend Edward C. Ford Jr., 2025 Clergy & Religious Leaders Fellow
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God;” for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)
As I walked through Auschwitz, I felt a weight that made each step heavier, each breath slower, and my mind acutely aware that I was standing on the grounds where millions of people lost their lives. I could not fathom that these ruins were once where people went to die, where entire families—men, women and children—who thought they were being resettled were led to their last moments on the floors of gas chambers. My God. My mind didn’t want to face the reality that where we were standing was a place of such horror, such insidious violence and evil. How could an entire nation of people allow this and become complicit? This was the question that rang in my mind throughout the duration of my FASPE experience. As we neared the end of the trip, a semblance of an answer began to emerge for me (not that I have an all-encompassing answer to explain this evil). I began to think of how seeds are planted, grow, and become the manifestation of what lies in the Sower’s heart. Seeds of grace can sprout into love, life and unity. Seeds of hate sprout into death and destruction. The prophet Jeremiah writes in chapter 17, verse 9, “The heart is deceitful above all things. And desperately wicked; who can know it?” Here the prophet tells us clearly: we all carry the capability to perpetrate injustice. We must be sober and vigilant regarding our tendency to preserve ourselves. And the motive of self-preservation only intensifies in uncertain times, times of expediency in which there is not only justification for preservation but also gain.
For Germany, losing World War I was an embarrassment. As the United States experienced the Great Depression, Germany also bore harsh economic conditions. There was a sense of shame and defeat looming above the nation. Hitler preyed on these feelings of shame, defeat and economic anxiety. He used the Jewish people as a scapegoat, blaming Germany’s loss in the war and economic downturn on them. In times such as these people will look to the scapegoat presented to them, and whatever seeds that have been planted in their hearts will begin to sprout and reveal themselves. The Holocaust did not start with concentration camps. It began with Hitler dismantling the German democracy. There came an attack on Germany’s social, political, financial, and governmental “others.” Those considered elites such as academics, political opposition parties, as well as religious and financial institutional leaders came into Hitler’s line of sight. His regime then coopted or eliminated anyone who potentially had the power to oppose it. This structured and intentional campaign to capture public opinion through fear, death, destruction, anger and hate successfully gave Hitler the approval he needed from ordinary citizens to begin carrying out his agenda, pushing the “other” out of German society. Shortly after Hitler took power, the first concentration camps were built, primarily with the purpose of incarcerating the political enemies of the regime, imagined and real. A few years later, also so-called asocials and professional criminals were sent to these camps. In addition, in 1939 the T4 program was launched, aiming to murder patients the regime deemed not worthy of life. This was determined to be people who were physically and mentally disabled.
A few days before our visit to Auschwitz, we went to a site in a town called Brandenburg, where political prisoners were first sent. The facility eventually was repurposed as part of the Nazi regime’s euthanasia program. . This site was located in the middle of an ordinary town, surrounded by homes and shops. How could anyone turn a blind eye to this? I wondered, spurred to thought about the people living around later extermination camps: did they see the smoke rising and smell the ash of burnt flesh entering their backyards? Did the presence of suffering not disturb their morning tea? Again, I ask the question: how could anyone allow this to happen? Imagine if the townspeople rose up, walked over and demanded these gross violations of humanity cease. Imagine if instead of allowing Hitler to play off their suspicion and fear, the people of Germany collectively decided to rebuke him and vowed to protect the very people he sought to kill. How many lives would have been saved? How many families would’ve stayed together? What would the history books say? Today, we might read about a nation that intervened, prevented the Holocaust.
Instead, we read how a nation was complicit. Complicity can take different forms. For example, fear in the heart of a person can become a tool used to manipulate someone into silence. Suspicion is another gateway to complicity. It leads to fear. Fear leads to hate, and hate leads to violence and death. Mass complicity is violence. It is sin. It says nothing in the face of injustice for the sake of self-preservation. Human psychology tells us about the Bystander Effect, which posits that most people witnessing a crisis will not do anything to stop it because they believe someone else will step in. This part of human psychology undergirds authoritarians’ committing atrocities. They bank on it. Unfortunately, so many lives are lost because people fail to end evil at work.
During my trip, there were many times my mind turned to the United States right now. In the U.S. today, we see blatantly negative attitudes towards groups of people considered “other.” We witness the rotten fruits of an intense rise in nativism, religious nationalism, and long-simmering racism. Undergirding these attitudes is greed. Fear that the “other” will harm you, will take away your economic prosperity or is the reason for all your problems stands as an infectious lie that has swept across this nation with an unholy fervor. People are mistreated every day in this country simply because they don’t pass the false test of what many think a “True American” looks like or should be. Individuals are denied due process rights at an alarming rate.
Unfortunately, such mistreatment and dehumanization are not new in American society. This is a tale that goes back to before the Founding. We have, however, taken the better path at certain critical junctures. Those moments provide glimpses of what America can be. But sadly, when we have taken “one step forward,” we have then taken “two steps back.” Once again, we face an inflection point, a point at which we the people can decide how much farther the mistreatment and dehumanization of fellow human beings will go.
Will we live up to our highest ideals? We must find the resolve within us to appeal to what President Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.”1 And we as the American Church must decide whether we are going to allow religious nationalism to continue tainting the witness of Christ, whether we are going to rebuke this heresy with the power of God’s word. Are we going to adhere to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, where Jesus tells us to care for “the least of these,” the disinherited of the world? We must be faithful to what we claim to believe. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus says, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” This is a critical piece of who we are as the church. The core of the Gospel requires that we speak clearly and boldly from a place of agape, love for anyone who is dehumanized and treated as “other.” Jesus identifies with the “other,” and so should we.
Consider this today: will you be a bystander who is complicit? Or will you stand in the gap, even at the risk of your own comfort and convenience? I remind you of the words of Dr. King that “the ultimate measure” of someone, “is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of chaos and controversy.”2 So, will you follow the command to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” as the prophet Micah says (Micah 6:8)? Will you make a decision to choose love over hate and fear? Love is radical. It forsakes self-preservation and intervenes on behalf of others. Jesus gave up his own life that we might have life more abundantly. The way of love is not self-seeking. It is selfless. Let us never forget that justice is love in action. Will you choose love, even when it’s not popular? This is the essential question I leave you with. For although a nation makes collective decisions, we will be judged for our actions individually as well as collectively.
By way of closing, I recount when our guide at Auschwitz, Paul, offered a surreal and challenging statement to us. He said, “There are atrocities happening all over the world right now. Forty years from now, what will history say you did during this time?” Where will you stand in these chaotic times? I implore you today to stand on the side of love, not hate, hope, not fear. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past, but instead imagine new futures where justice, dignity and love are given to all people of the earth.
Reverend Edward C. Ford Jr. was a 2025 FASPE Clergy & Religious Leaders Fellow. He is pursuing an M. Div at Yale Divinity School.
Notes
1. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp.
2. Luther King Jr., Martin. Strength to Love, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1981, 35.