I recently finished The Light That Remains by L. E. Levens, the sequel to The Jewel of Berlin. The Light That Remains is a powerful WWII historical fiction novel about courage, bravery, and steadfastness in the face of persecution. Amidst this restless backdrop, L. E. Levens goes beyond simply another WWII fiction retelling to explore the beliefs of the persecuted Christians, especially pastors who were forced to preach from the Aryan Bible.
My favorite character was Sigmund Brynner, who is not only a doctor in Germany, but also an ordained pastor. When the church pulpit he is preaching in forces him to preach from the Aryan Bible, Sigmund is faced with the heart-wrenching decision to give in to Nazi pressure or preach the gospel from the true Bible while his family and friends could be taken away to concentration camps.
In light of this character and the themes Levens shows throughout her book, here are three things I learned from Doctor Sigmund Brynner about faith amidst persecution and hope in the face of spiritual attack.
Point 1: Faithfulness Requires Sacrifice
Too often, our modern culture celebrates and revolves around the idea of comfort, a perfect breeding ground for spiritual apathy. In The Light That Remains, we are shown a turbulent war-torn setting where the ability to hear preaching from the true Bible isn’t as simple as wandering to a local church on Sunday morning. The pastors who preach contrary to Nazi ideals are persecuted for their faith. And Dr. Brynner, a primary character in The Light That Remains, is one of these pastors.
Being faithful to what he knows is right will lead to the deportation of his family and the children under his charge to the Nazi concentration camps. And Dr. Brynner is faced with a question that many of us have never seriously been asked: are we willing to give up everything so that others may hear and believe the true and untarnished gospel of Christ?
Remaining faithful to Christ’s commands may cause Sigmund to lose everything for the sake of the pure Word of God to be preached.
Point 2: Compromise Is Never Easier
A unique piece of The Light That Remains was how the author chose to place two children under Dr. Brynner’s care at the time when he is instructed to preach from the Aryan Bible. Compromise becomes the only way to protect the lives of these orphans. But is compromise right? And will it truly protect anyone?
As Sigmund wrestles with the decision to give into Nazi threats or hand the children over to the concentration camps, he realizes that countless more men and women will die if he compromises. Standing for the truth and not compromising becomes the harder decision for Sigmund and his church as thousands of Jews are deported to Nazi concentration camps.
Point 3: God’s Word Is Worth More Than Comfort
The choice that Sigmund ultimately makes is one that will confront the reader’s potential apathy for Christ and the importance of God’s Word. It led me, as a reader, to reevaluate my own daily habits and value of Scripture. Do I see my daily Bible reading as a boring duty, or merely a habit that good Christians should have? Or, do I view it as a unique and divine blessing from the Creator, one which hundreds of men and women have bled and died so that I might cherish?
Like real men and women such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as fictional ones like Dr. Sigmund Brynner, would I be willing to die for what I know is right so that others may hear God’s Word untarnished by governmental oppression? Do I value Scripture so much that I, like these brave German pastors, would be unwilling to compromise?
These are questions that The Light That Remains challenges its readers to answer.
A Story That Challenges Faith & Fear
I love when historical fiction authors go beyond simply retelling a prominent historical fact to making it impactful in the lives of their readers. The Light That Remains was a book that for me did just that.
At the end of this article, you can find the Noteworthy Elements for The Light That Remains. If you are interested in reading a full review of the first book in the series, The Jewel of Berlin, you can click here.
I recommend this book, like the first, for readers ages 15+. There is no content in the story that prohibits recommending it for younger readers, but the gravity of the plot and the romantic subplot in the story would best be appreciated by slightly older teenage readers.
For now, I highly recommend that you place a copy of The Light That Remains on your bookshelf and into your teen’s hands. It may just be the fiction novel that gets you back into a daily Bible reading habit as you praise the Lord for men and women who were wholly unwilling to compromise on what they knew was right.
Noteworthy Elements from The Light That Remains:
- Violence: One of the resistance fighters, Isak, makes a reference to the Dachau concentration camp and remarks “they don’t keep kids long”. Later, Isak tells Sigmund, “Don’t even ponder for one second that no one suffered as much as you that day. I got to hide under a bed and listen to the dying screams as the only father I’ve ever known was shot to death beneath me and all our friends left this earth”. When standing in the abandoned house where Isak’s father and other resistance fighters died, Isak remarks, “the only thing that still lives here are their screams”.
- Profanity: There are no explicit swear words used in the story. “Drat the luck” is used one time. The phrases “in the name of everything holy”, “what in heaven’s name”, “thank the good heavens”, and “Lord knows” are each used one time.
- Spiritual: A child tells Sigmund that he looked like a ghost the first Sunday he preached from the Aryan Bible. When attacked by Nazis, Sigmund describes the Nazi uniforms as “skulls and crossbones grinned back at him from the black uniforms as if to say, ‘hell has won’”.
