For Such a Time as This
An Emergency Devotional
For the better part of a year, I’ve hoped that someone would write a book that offers the right kind of wisdom to speak truth in the right kind of way to the wrong kind of political power the United States is growing accustomed to. My hope stems from a personal quest to keep seeking fresh ways to inspire beleaguered people tired of feeling powerless in the midst of disappearing democratic norms. When I’m asked how I respond to challenging times, I share my own convictions and Christian resolve, but never with the linguistic clarity or historical insight I’ve longed for someone to package.
That clarity has arrived with Hanna Reichel’s powerful little book, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional. It’s a small book, reminiscent in size and purpose to that funny series of little how-to paperbacks a couple decades ago that helped readers learn how to perform ridiculously challenging tasks like a self-appendectomy. Except Reichel’s book isn’t funny. Observant readers will notice the Morse code for SOS integrated into the cover design. The book does bear a how-to character, however; it is something of a first aid kit for “regular people” (Reichel’s term) who are trying to reckon with an imperial presidency.
Reichel is currently professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary but has lived around the world. Born and raised in Germany and trained at Heidelberg University, this scholar knows firsthand the historical burden of having relatives who were once a part of the Nazi enterprise. Reichel has studied the triumphs and failures of the German church as well as the tactics of totalitarian leaders who like to control public and private thoughts and feelings by creating various states of emergency. The impetus for the book stems from Reichel’s study of various 20th-century theological titans—Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Niemöller, among others—who resisted National Socialist ideologies by remaining faithful to their own deep religious convictions.
