Summary: Not really a devotional, but more of a Christian version of On Tyranny.
I listened to this as an audiobook. I put it on in my car and listened when I had short drives by myself. It wasn’t a “one chapter a day listening”, but it was roughly about a month of occasional listening.
My initial impression is that this is a book about discernment more than anything else. There are definitely chapters that are explicitly about discernment, but most chapters have some aspect of understanding the world how it is.
Hanna Reichel is a German academic and theologian with a history of studying the theological response to WWII. There is one other book she has in english about theological method, but otherwise her books and articles are in German. She most recently is a systematic theology professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. That matters to the context of this book because she is writing particularly to United States Christians from her background. She is widely familiar with Bonhoeffer and Barth and other Christians within Germany who responded to Hitler. I know that the comparisons between pre-WWII Germany and current US can be over played, but there are a number of academics who study Germany who think that the parallels are worth drawing, as this Bonhoeffer scholar does.
I saw that one reviewer on Goodreads suggested that this was a Christian version of On Tyranny and I thought the same as I was reading it. I thought On Tyranny was worth reading and I think this is worth reading. So that is not a complaint, but I think you need to know that going in, it is not a devotional in the traditional sense. Although the chapters are very short and devotional in length, each was about 5 to 7 minutes in audio.
Stylistically, I think Reichel is trying to warn the reader of the what is potentially coming so that we can be prepared. And like much wisdom literature, biblical or otherwise, there are points where she seems to give diametrically opposed advice. In one place she talks about how to work inside the system to slow it down and oppose oppressors from the inside. And in another place she talks about how we should never give in or participate in the least bit. There are places where she is explicit in saying that we have different callings and we need to have grace for those who are called to a different task than what we are. But I also think that this is part of what discernment and wisdom are, if we have different backgrounds and skills and histories, then we will have different roles and understandings going in.
Much of the underground movement that Bonhoeffer was connected to was made up of the German elite, often with military connections. Some of them objected to the human rights abuses against Jews and others, but many of them had political objections, not theological and human rights objections. Those in the Confessing Church may have had theological or ecclesiastical objections (they didn’t want the state running the church) but may have agreed with the antisemitism. Demographics plays a role in what we see and how we see it. And a large part of discernment is being self aware enough to know when the tide around us seems to be moving us.
I have seen some objections from Black Christians about how white Christians seem to be more inspired by Bonhoeffer, than by the Black church’s historic response to oppression within the US. And I think it is a very valid critique. But I also think that in this case, Reichel is writing what she knows and that isn’t the Black church. Black Church historians and theologians should be writing what they know and white Christians should be reading both (or all because there are other examples like Native American theology, or the critique of Catholic imperialism and colonialism in Central and South American which are also valid and necessary.)
As someone who read On Tyranny and who has read more than about two dozen books by or about Bonhoeffer there was not much here that I thought was particularly new. But I thought this was a good introduction to thinking theologically about how systems of government can be used to oppress. And how we should respond when we see it.
For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional by Hanna Reichel Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook