One of my favourite stories/musicals/movies is the story of Don Quixote by Cervantes. The 'knight of the doleful countenance' has an impossible dream -- to conquer injustice via doing good and fighting evil, but all his effort turns out to be an illusion.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer references Don Quixote in his magnum opus, Ethics. He suggests that under normal circumstances people try to do good, as they see it, and try to avoid doing what is wrong. But in extreme circumstances, whether the issue is human sex trafficing, poverty in Haiti, or in Bonhoeffer's case, the evil of Hitler's Nazi Germany, purity of will, principles and good efforts are not sufficient. People of conscience become overwhelmed because the countless disguises of evil make us anxious and unsure of the best course forward, and so we are "finally content with an assuaged conscience instead of a good conscience."
Bonhoeffer suggests that the solution is not cynicism, an assuaged conscience, or 'more effort' but, in fact, to do the will of God, to do it radically, courageously and joyfully. To try to explain 'right and wrong' (ethics) outside of God and obedience to his will is impossible. He writes that often our tendency is to look at the world and try to imagine how to fix it via good intentions (Quixote/Obama) or to look away from the world and focus on personal piety and Christian community as a refuge against the world.
Only because there is one place where God and the reality of the world are reconciled with each other, at which God and humanity have become one, is it possible there and there alone to fix one's eyes on God and the world together at the same time. This place does not lie somewhere beyond reality in the realm of ideas. It lies in the midst of history as a divine miracle. It lies in Jesus Christ the reconciler of the world.
That is, what is God via the incarnate Jesus (the body of Christ/ekklesia) and the Holy Spirit as counselor, calling me/us to do today? That is is the right thing to do, and it will require obedience.
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