Unexploded WWII bomb stops high-speed trains in Europe

If you heard that Eurostar high-speed trains between Paris and London and Brussels and Paris were canceled today due to a bomb, you would likely think terrorists are at work. Such a disruption will cause enormous financial and practical disruptions, which is precisely what terrorists seek to do in the service of their cause.

In a way, you’d be right. But the terrorists in this case did their work more than eighty years ago.

Workers doing earth-moving work near Eurostar train tracks in a region bordering Paris to the north discovered a bomb. Police immediately stopped all rail traffic, and bomb disposal experts were sent to the site.

Bombs left over from World War I or World War II are often discovered around France. However, it is very rare to find them in such a populated location. In this case, the hub affected regularly sees seven hundred thousand travelers per day, making it the busiest rail hub in both France and Europe.

The juxtaposition is startling: modern trains traveling up to 186 mph are idle because of a bomb built with long-outdated technology. The story leads us to wonder: How many other unexploded bombs are out there? How safe are travelers?

And it raises another point, one worth pondering for our society and our souls today.

Meeting a Holocaust survivor in Jerusalem

The German air force bombed Paris and its suburbs on June 3, 1940, killing 195 civilians. I don’t know if the unexploded bomb was one dropped by the Nazis at this time, or if it was dropped later by the Allies in response to the German occupation of the city. But since authorities identified it as a “World War II-era bomb,” I assume it was part of the war Hitler unleashed on Europe and the world.

As such, it is a stark reminder that the sins of one man continue to plague humanity.

In my many trips to Israel over the years, we typically took our study group to Yad Vashem, the museum in Jerusalem dedicated to the memories of the Holocaust victims. Each time, I asked our guides, two of my best friends in the world, to tell us their personal stories in this regard. Both lost family members to the Nazis, as did nearly every Jewish person in Israel I have ever met.

On one occasion, I talked at length with an elderly woman in the museum cafeteria. She was there to speak to a group about her concentration camp experience; she showed me the number tattooed by the Nazis on the inside of her arm.

The world will forever be impoverished by the loss of six million Jews, a fourth of them children. Think of the contributions they could have made to society. Think of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren they never had. And think of the fifteen to twenty million people who died in the European theater during World War II, including 250,000 American soldiers.

It is even possible that without Hitler’s war in Europe, the US could have focused on Japanese expansionism in the Pacific in a way that deterred them from attacking Pearl Harbor. In that case, another twenty-five million lives would have been spared.

“The only nation founded on a creed”

One of the most inspiring of John F. Kennedy’s many public quotations was this assertion: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” We typically take his meaning to encourage us in framing ideas that advance the common good, and we’re right to do so.

But terrible ideas live on as well.

Karl Marx’s economic theories led to the Communist oppression of a third of the world’s population. My many friends in Cuba continue to struggle under the financial and personal tyranny of their failed Communist government. China’s ascendancy under Xi Jinping’s socialistic ideology is often seen as the greatest threat to the US today.

Not to mention Russia under Putin’s tsarist autocracy, North Korea’s enslavement of its own people, and Iran and Hamas with their genocidal antisemitism.

By contrast, America’s founding declaration, “All men are created equal,” continues to motivate our best actions and challenge our worst. As GK Chesterton observed, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.” And that creed justified and mobilized our independence and rise on the world stage.

“Sow a thought and you reap an action”

Three responses follow.

One: In understanding geopolitics, seek to identify the ideas motivating nations and their leaders.

The brilliant analyst George Friedman has made popular the concept of the “metanarrative,” the cultural “DNA” that frames and forms nations and their aspirations. To illustrate: Vladimir Putin’s metanarrative is to restore “Mother Russia” to her glory among nations; Iran seeks to rebuild the Persian Empire by constructing a “Shiite Crescent” across the Middle East; China’s leaders believe the West has constricted its rightful ascent to world domination.

When we identify a nation’s metanarrative, we can more accurately understand its past and predict its future.

Two: Evaluate metanarratives by the truth of Scripture.

Human minds are finite and fallen. By contrast, our God is omniscient and omnibenevolent. He has revealed his mind to us through words that are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Just as a traveler through the woods calibrates her hike by a compass, so we should calibrate our thoughts and the actions they produce by the truth of Scripture.

Imagine the difference if Hitler could have been persuaded to view the Jews through the lens of God’s word. Or if the Japanese had understood the biblical prohibition against murder. Or if the white supremacists who championed slavery in America had seen Africans as God does (Acts 10:34; Galatians 3:28).

This is one reason why proclaiming, defending, and applying God’s word to the issues of our day is so vital to our common good. The more you and I help our secularized society think biblically, the more we love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39) and lead them to their best flourishing.

Evangelism and biblical proclamation are not the imposition of personal opinion but the gift of truth that saves souls and changes eternities.

Three: Submit our personal ideas and beliefs to biblical authority.

Marcus Aurelius was right: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” This is why Paul urged us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Scripture teaches:

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8, my emphasis).

Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

What “destiny” will you sow today?