There was little he could do except pray and wield a powerful pen. There was a helplessness in his situation that he recognized as a parallel to Advent, Christians' time of waiting for redemption in Christ. 'Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent,' Bonhoeffer wrote his best friend Eberhard Bethge, as the holidays approached in 1943.

We know that life is not perfect in this world, and can never be so. Utopia is a false dream. Political attempts at utopian social engineering are bound to fail. Ideological blueprints may work in theory but never seem to succeed in human experience. There are too many variables to consider, too many unintended consequences to solve. One man's program becomes another's burden. One gains at the other's expense.

"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" (Genesis 1:27,28)

Do you consider yourself "a random collection of molecules...the end process of a mindless process"? If so, nothing that you do really matters. No wonder morality and civility is under attack in our culture. This kind of teaching is ultimately destructive of personal relationships, marriage, family and civil society. It is nothing new. Those who think that recent scientific discoveries have created a new intellectual environment are ignorant of history.