April 28

Nichiren, Oskar Schindler, and James Cone

Author

David Barnhart
April 28, 2025

Fresh eggs. April, 2025. Own photo.

Today in 1294, the Japanese Buddhist monk Nichiren chanted in praise of the Lotus Sutra, marking the beginning of Nichiren Buddhism. 

Today is the birthday, in 1908, of Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party who rescued over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust by bribing officials and using the bureaucracy to his advantage. He spent all his wealth to rescue others, and relied on the charity of those he saved into his old age, thus becoming a living example of the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16:9. 

Today also marks the death, in 2018, of James Cone, a giant of black liberation theology. His book God of the Oppressed was one of the most powerful eye-openers in my seminary education. 

Reflection: 

Nichiren wrote: 

Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity,decline,disgrace,honor,praise,censure,suffering, and pleasure.They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline. The heavenly gods will surely protect one who is unbending before the eight winds.

James Cone wrote: 

The blackness of God means that God has made the oppressed condition God's own condition. This is the essence of the biblical revelation. By electing Israelite slaves as the people of God and by becoming the Oppressed One in Jesus Christ, the human race is made to understand that God is known where human beings experience humiliation and suffering. ... Liberation is not an afterthought, but the very essence of divine activity.

James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation

Of his actions during the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler said,

I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it. Really, nothing more.

Prayer: God of the Oppressed, you are never neutral in the face of human suffering. Help us to respond with compassion—not to become heroes, but to become fully human. Amen.