Religious Views
Her teaching focused on the Christian Gospel, with emphasis on forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of an encounter while she was teaching in Germany in 1947. She was approached by a former Ravensbrück camp guard, who had been known as one of the most cruel. She was reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. Corrie wrote,
"For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."
She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives. She appeared on many Christian television programs discussing her ordeal during the Holocaust, and the concepts of forgiveness and God's love. She rejected the doctrine that some asserted, of Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and wrote that it was without Biblical foundation. She believed that such a doctrine left the Christian Church ill-prepared in times of great persecution, such as in China under Mao Zedong. One of Corrie and Betsie's favorite sayings was, "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still."
Read more about this topic: Corrie Ten Boom
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or views:
“The English are probably the most tolerant, least religious people on earth.”
—David Goldberg (b. 1939)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)