Breaking the Veil of Silence

by Jobst Bittner

Overview

The Veil of Silence concerns you more than you think! You come across it at every turn, whether in your personal life, in your family, in your church or congregation, or in your cities and nations. The Veil of Silence is the reason for inner coldness, loneliness, and the sense of being lost in darkness. Once you break it, you will be able to receive the immeasurable blessing of God and the authority to change your surroundings with His love. Every nation carries its own burden of guilt and trauma that is passed down through the generations, while a Veil of Silence prevents reconciliation, healing, and restoration. The German pastor, theologian, and activist, Jobst Bittner, writes in the light of the experience of German history. Hitler and the Holocaust caused a spiritual eclipse in Germany and covered entire generations with a Veil of Silence. Today, Germany is blessed and the country of "unmerited grace". If Breaking the Veil of Silence was possible in Germany, how much more so in your life, family, and nation? Through a captivating blend of history, theology, and psychology, Jobst Bittner provides a brave, discerning perspective on this Veil of Silence and proves that the weight of history can be lifted. It is a powerful and practical intervention and spiritual guide to reclaim our authority by uprooting all destructive tendencies of covering up the past, uncovering our own family history, rediscovering the Jewish roots of our faith, and moving forward into action. Once the veil is lifted, true healing, restoration, and change can begin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783981244199
Publisher:	TOS Verlag
Publication date:	07/11/2013
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	268
File size:	454 KB

About the Author

Pastor Jobst Bittner has an M.A. in Theology, and together with his wife Charlotte he founded ministries all over the world. He is president of TOS Ministries and initiator of the international March of Life movement, which has taken place in more than 80 cities in 12 countries. One of the spin-offs is the March of Remembrance in more than 50 cities in the U.S. Next to this apostolic pioneer ministry, Jobst Bittner ministers as a conference speaker on five continents.

Read an Excerpt

But still, this veil of silence has not yet disappeared. There is an anti-Semitism that is deeply rooted in us, and that reaches back far beyond the time of National Socialism. This kind of anti-Semitism is like a negative seed that is deeply hidden in our Western culture and embedded in our thinking, so it can break out again and again. Whether it is in the form of downplaying the Holocaust, a denial of Israel's right to exist, or anti-Jewish attitudes - the common mark of this negative seed is silence. It is the same silence as at the time of the silent majority during the Nazi era. In the guise of indifference and passivity, it has found its way deep into our churches. Both are hallmarks of the "genetic defect" that Christianity has been carrying ever since it separated from its Jewish roots. In order to prove this assumption, we will take a closer look at the church history dimension of the veil of silence. Here our main question will be why the church in the Western world has lost its authority. Despite resistance in the mainly Hellenistic Mediterranean, the early church was able to spread very rapidly. At the cost of losing its Hebrew roots, it exchanged its spiritual power for secular authority, and finally became the source of centuries of suffering for the Jewish people. Another important question asked in this book will be why we can only regain the authority of the church through openly confessing the guilt of the Christians toward the Jewish people, and through publicly standing by our Hebrew heritage. This leads us to consider what it is that the church has to face, and what means to use. Before we fall into old patterns of thought, we should actually think again about the central part of "identificational repentance" and the controversial issue of "spiritual warfare". I am also using the term "Veil of Silence" as a synonym for the struggle with the invisible world. The Bible speaks about darkness that covers the land. It keeps pointing out that sin can darken a nation, and cover the earth like a dark cloud (Is 60:2). What this cloud is made up of actually seems irrelevant to me. What is crucial is to see that the sin of cities and nations will not be blown over, and so will not automatically become less or obsolete. It still affects people and their descendants, preventing healing and restoration. We found that despite years of earnest efforts in prayer, we were not able to overcome this darkness. The harder we tried and added more commitment to our efforts, the thicker and more impenetrable this veil seemed to become. I will tell you in this book how the ground was pulled from underneath darkness, and how it broke. Part of this is the testimony of our city, where I have been living with my wife for the past 30 years now. With our own eyes we were able to see the spiritual situation in the city change completely.

Table of Contents

Foreword Preface Chapter 1, The Story of a Former Nazi City Chapter 2, Where Does the Veil of Silence Come from? - A House Church Service in the Early Church - Is Israel Chosen? - Why Did the Early Church Lose Its Authority? - A Deadly Infection Chapter 3, The Veil of Silence - The Veil of Silence in the Light of the Bible - The Veil of Silence over Cities and Nations - The Veil of Silence over Churches - The Veil of Silence over Marriages and Families - The Veil of Silence through the Sins of Our Forefathers - The Veil of Silence over Your Personal Life Chapter 4, The Silent Generations - the Victims - The Survivors of the Holocaust - The 'Child Survivors' - The Children of Holocaust Survivors - The Third Generation Chapter 5, The Silent Generations - the Perpetrators - The Generation of Perpetrators - Children of the War - The Grandchildren of the War - The Fourth Generation - Hand in Hand! Chapter 6, Can We (Still) Repent for the Sins of Our Forefathers? - The Level of Cities and Nations - The Ancestral Level - The Personal Level - The Level of the Victims Chapter 7 - How the Veil of Silence Can Be Broken - Visitation - Open Stopped up Wells! - Hanukkah - The Veil of Darkness - En Route to Greater Authority - How to Do It? Chapter 8, The March of Life - The Death Marches - On the Road to Dachau - The Warm Coat of the SS Officer - Mom, Do I Have to Fight against the Germans? - In the Woods of Zhitomir - The March of Remembrance - The Pittsburgh Declaration - The Former Roll Call Yard Appendix - Bibliography - Important Facts about the March of Life - End Notes