Faithfulness in tough times

For Such a Time as This

Hannah Reichel
Eerdmans, 2025.

The Soulwork of Justice:

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
Orbis, 2025.

The first church I pastored, in inner-city Chicago, just moved its worship services online because the Mexican congregants fear Sunday morning ICE raids. Signs of tough times are all around. Two recent books don’t just counsel against despair, but suggest ways to move forward while deeply rooting ourselves in our faith.

Towards resistance

Hannah Reichel is a systematic theologian at Princeton. Originally from Germany, her country’s history informs her “emergency devotional.” She reflects on the resistance legacy of individuals such as Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller and Etty Hillesum along with groups such as signers of the Barmen Declaration, the Confessing Church and the White Rose movement. Reichel does not claim that history precisely repeats itself, but notes striking parallels: “Hitler posed in front of churches and spoke of a divine calling to redeem the nation and lead it to greatness. After narrowly escaping assassination attempts, he claimed special protection by the providence of God.” Sound familiar?

The title, For Such a Time as This, comes from the book of Esther where the unlikely queen is encouraged to risk royal dignity to save fellow Jews, a call to moral responsibility. We face grim circumstances now: Christian nationalists south of the border denounce strangers and foreigners; social media counsels hatred amidst disagreements; and the largest military in the world looks intent on obliterating other nations. It’s essential for North American believers to discern responsibilities during troubling times.

Reichel reminds us that in building God’s reign we look for unity, not uniformity. (In Dutch WWII resistance, Calvinists and Catholics often cooperated.) Reichel diagnoses contemporary ailments, including deep loneliness and eroding community, and suggests countering them by building relationships, support and mutual aid. We all need – and need to be – neighbours.

Each of Reichel’s 28 chapters is a few pages long. Readers can take in a theme at a time, perhaps as part of daily prayers. Reichel calls for courageous nonconformity, even in small things, because the “church’s primary calling is not to survive but be faithful.”

Rooted faithfulness

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, author of The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action, knows a thing or two about long-term faithfulness. I first read him in the 1970s when he was an editor for Sojourners. His storied career includes being Director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches and serving as the General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America for almost twenty years. In this work Granberg-Michaelson was “propelled to seek change, to pursue social, political, economic, cultural and religious transformation.” He argues that transformation in the larger world also depends on “change in ourselves” and “ongoing attention to [the] inward journey.” Seeking and making justice requires soul-work.

This makes so much sense. As a senior citizen now, I perceive that too much of my own early ministry and activism was rooted in self-righteousness or other wounds. I was frequently not sufficiently grounded in God’s grace. Granberg-Michaelson reminds us of disciplined tools and practices for being transformed. Along the way he encourages us to move: from self-sufficiency to belonging, from certainty to connection, from grandiosity to authenticity, and from control to trust.

Soulwork articulates what our Reformed ancestors knew instinctively: we do such work because we deeply believe, as Granberg-Michaelson says, “that this world belongs to God.”

Many headlines these days are disheartening. Reichel and Granberg-Michaelson reinforce our capacity to move forward in faithful boldness, no matter how long hard times last.