January 24, 2025

People who know me well may sigh at the title of this essay. They’d be right. Regret is a familiar presence in my life. I replay most of my disappointments in my memory quite often. I don’t “solve” them. I don’t develop theories about how I might have influenced a different outcome. I just… regret them.

Those who know me well might encourage me to shed regret, but neither they nor I expect me to do so.

I hope to prevent regret. Well, no. I hope to prevent one kind of regret.

In 1946 the Rev. Martin Niemoller addressed the Confessing Church in Frankfurt, Germany. In his speech he confessed the failures he and other church leaders had made as the Nazis consolidated their power in the 1930s. Later, his words were set poetically. This version is displayed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Niemoller’s confession is a sigh of regret for his silence.

I pledge that I shall not regret my silence.

I believe that the return of Donald Trump as President of the United States marks the end of this nation’s republican form of government. I do not believe that there will be another Presidential election, at least one in which anyone other than a single candidate can possibly emerge as victor. Frankly, I’d love to be demonstrated wrong about this, but the evidence is grave. In 2021, Mr. Trump’s words inspired thousands of people to invade the seat of the legislature as they were counting votes: the signature activity of a republic. With his first-day pardons of those criminally indicted and convicted, he has demonstrated that he will not tolerate limits upon his claims of power. Instead, he will promote those who support him with words, and also those who support him with violence.

How will this be accomplished? I do not know. I can think of more than one way, and I will not write them here. I don’t need to give anyone any ideas.

Already the President and his supporters have called for the punishment of a religious leader who dared to ask him – ask him – to act with mercy. The President himself insulted the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC. One of his followers, a member of Congress, called for her to be “deported.” Others have decried the use of a religious setting to make “political” statements, as if Christianity had no connection to, and no obligation to call for, mercy.

Let me be clear. Christians, and Christian leaders, have an obligation to call for mercy. They have an obligation to call for justice. They have an obligation to speak for those at risk of harm. Niemoller knew it – too late. Bishop Budde knew it, and spoke the truth of the Gospel.

May she inspire me.

In the weeks I have been considering this essay (it is weeks in the writing), I had initially intended to take as a guide the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another of the German Confessing Church leaders but one whose words landed him in prison. He was executed after he was implicated in the 1944 assassination plot in which a bomb injured Adolf Hitler. Earlier than most, Bonhoeffer spoke against German violence against Jews, and passed up several opportunities to leave Germany for safer posts in England and the United States.

I will not leave.

More recently, however, I have reread the story of Sophie Scholl, a twenty-one year old university student executed by the Nazi German government for “treason” in February 1943. She and other students published The White Rose, naming the government’s sins and urging resistance. Caught after only seven months, she and two others, one of them her brother Hans, were executed within days.

They spoke out, and they paid the price.

I will speak out.

To be honest, I doubt that my words will have much influence. I doubt that my words will dissuade the administration from its administration of evils. I doubt that my words will prevent the dissolution of the republic. I even doubt that my words will annoy them enough to bother to silence me.

Nevertheless, I will speak out.

No regrets.

The image is the booking photograph of Sophie Scholl, taken in 1943 by an unknown German police officer – Stadtarchiv München[1]; Quellen zur Weissen Rose, 20.2.1943[2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114539963.