Relevant Quotes From Helmut Thielicke:

--The Gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing place of residence.

--In Germany, the question is asked who caused the war, the holocaust, who was responsible for Anne Frank, the camps. And everyone looks back to someone else: treaty of Versailles, unemployment, Wilhelm's big talk, German efficiency, national pride, Prussian tradition, Reformation views on authority. So from Hitler to Frederick the Great, to Luther ... what then, to God?

--But then came one of the most dreadful moments in the spiritual history of our nation when suddenly we began to say, `Others are just as bad as we.' Then suddenly our aloneness with God vanished, then repentance and spiritual renewal were gone, then began that fateful measuring of ourselves by looking downward and comparing ourselves with the hypocritical Pharisees among the victors.[of German guilt following WWII]

--I once heard of a child who was raising a frightful cry because he had shoved his hand into the opening of a very expensive Chinese vase and then couldn't pull it out again. Parents and neighbors tugged with might and main on the child's arm, with the poor creature howling outloud all the while. Finally there was nothing left to do but to break the beautiful, expensive vase. And then as the mournful heap of shards lay there, it became clear why the child had been so hopelessly stuck. His little fist grasped a paltry penny which he spied in the bottom of the vase and which he, in his childish ignorance, would not let go.

--Tell me how much you know of the sufferings of your fellow men and I will tell how much you have loved them.
--Jesus Christ did not remain at base headquarters, receiving reports of the world's suffering from below and shouting a few encouraging words to us from a safe distance. No, He ... came down where we live in the front line trenches ... where we contend with our anxieties and the feeling of emptiness and futility, where we sin and suffer guilt, and where we must finally die. There is nothing that he did not endure with us. He understands everything.
H.T.

Helmut Thielicke is a preacher's preacher, a truly learned pastor and theologian-- learned in both books and bomb shelters. Would that we had him with us in these tumultuous times.