Text: Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury | Christmas Message | from The Daily Telegraph
Editors Note: First published in the Daily Telegraph (U.K.) December 21, 2008
Unconditional Loyalty to a System Not Worth the Human Cost
Forty years ago this month, one of the greatest religious thinkers of the 20th century died. In his long career in Switzerland and Germany, he had published millions of words, played a crucial role in inter-church discussions across Europe, denounced nuclear weaponry – and, before the war, done most of the work in drafting for the German churches a statement of open defiance against the Third Reich. Some of his most powerful lectures were delivered in the bombed-out ruins of the theological department in Bonn when the war had ended and he was able to return to Germany after being driven out by Hitler.
