We don’t live in a time as fraught with such obvious, immediate peril as Churchill did, of course. But I believe that Darkest Hour may still hold some lessons for us.
Christianity, especially the Evangelical wing of Christianity, may be at a crossroads now. The decisions we make today will have ramifications on Evangelicalism in the future.
And I wonder, sometimes, whether we, like Viscount Halifax, are making choices based on the short view of history. We make decisions based on what seems to protect and preserve what influence we have now. And I wonder sometimes if we forget that we’re being watched—not just by God, but by the very people we hope to save. And when youth look into this strange Christian subculture of ours, they don’t see the wild, messy, sometimes errant goodness that I might: They look at what we say, and then they look at what our (statistically) favorite politicians do, and they see hypocrisy.
Can I blame them for looking for solutions elsewhere?
Churchill inspires me, even though I can’t and don’t follow his example very well. He reminds me that while the right choice might not always look smart, it is always, by definition, right. In my world, that “right” choice doesn’t mean fighting Nazis or crafting wonderful speeches. It means, I think, listening to God as best I can, following the example of His Son and trying to show a little hope and kindness in my small circle. And sometimes it means speaking up about things that I think are wrong, inside and outside the Church, too.
We’re all being watched by someone, somewhere. And Darkest Hour tells us that the choices we make matter.
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