Bonhoeffer 3.0

The first time Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to America was 1927. He studied at Union Seminary in New York City for nine months. His second trip was in 1939 and he only stayed for 27 days. He was troubled that he was out of God’s will, therefore, he returned home. Six years later on April 9,1945 he was executed in a Polish prison yard in Flossenburg by the direct order of Adolf Hitler. His body, along with several others, was incinerated and there is no grave to visit.

But I consider his book, The Cost of Discipleship, his third visit to America. This book was published in the United States during the middle of the 20th century. His teaching in the early chapters of the Cost of Discipleship now provide Christians with courage and direction for confronting the growing encroachment of the state on the church’s freedom to preach and practice the gospel. The controlling elite do not fear a toothless gospel that speaks only of forgiveness of sins and a perfect eternity. They do, however, oppose a gospel that challenges its authority to rule society.

Bonhoeffer was a son of privilege, even nobility through his mother, Paula, who was part of the von Hase family, members of the German elite. His father, Karl, was the most famous neurologist in Germany and Chairman of Neurology at the University of Berlin Medical school. Dietrich, along with his seven brothers and sisters, grew up in the leafy suburb of Gruenwald. His family had several servants, nannies, and tutors. This high-strung piano playing, Bible reading, contemplative often dressed in lederhosen as a boy and was not an expected choice for becoming a revolutionary and radical. Yet at age fourteen he shocked his family by declaring he wanted to be a theologian. This seemed out of step with his family who rarely attended church and his brothers who chose law, science, and medicine. The idea of a life of theology seem irrelevant and benign. This of course reveals the bias of the elites, and for that matter, the hoi polloi as well, that theologians and theology have nothing to do with making a difference.

Christ alone is my Führer.

As a brilliant young man of high culture and influence, the 26-year old Bonhoeffer was chosen to give the Reformation Day sermon, October 31, 1932. Within three months Hitler would become chancellor of the nation. The service was held at Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was Germany’s equivalent to The National Cathedral. It was a national treasure, the center of the Germanic spirit. Before Hitler there was no sign that Church and State could not work together for the common good. There was not the fear in Germany that there is in the United States—that eventually the state would want to control the church. The German secular elite had no fear that the church would take over the state. This is because when the church opposed the direction of the state, the state made a bee line to the church to restrict it. Young Bonhoeffer was concerned for his church and accused them powerfully when he wrote, “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” Bonhoeffer saw the National Socialist vision and his church’s reluctance to stand up against it as a failure. The church had failed to stand up to these trends, but he was pretty much alone in his assessment. He was considered an idealist, a hothead, an extremist. He thought that German nationalism was a threat to a healthy national pride under the authority of an even higher power, God.

Bonhoeffer’s chosen text was from Revelation, a warning from Christ himself to the seven churches, most specifically, the Ephesian church.

 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” Revelation 2:4,5 NLT.

The young theologian had the audacity to call a church that was celebrating their rich heritage that started with Martin Luther—to repent—because they had fallen and now they were failing to preach the gospel. It could be said they were expert on preaching the gospel about Jesus but had failed preaching and living the gospel of Jesus. The gospel about Jesus is well known and preached regularly, even today in American churches. It is the birth, life, suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, expected return, reconciliation, judgment, and the establishment of the eternal state.[1]

The failure is the neglect or ignorance around the gospel of Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus is what Jesus actually taught, what is recorded in the gospel accountants of his life. What he taught us about life, about faith, good, evil, being his disciples, making disciples, and about life in the Kingdom of God. It is the latter gospel of Jesus that dominates the gospels that his disciples knew best, and that dominates the early chapters of Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer calls out his own church then (and our church now) and says that if you don’t follow Christ in discipleship when it really counts, then you make his grace cheap. It is not only cheap grace, it is cheap faith, and it is cheap and useless Christianity because it is without Christ, without power, without relevance, it’s a pile of dung. Therefore, Church, the church of Luther, repent of your sins.

That Reformation Day sermon still resonates.

Bonhoeffer was saying that unless they did repent, Christ would take away their lampstand, their light, their bona fides that they were a church. This was no small item, for Christ himself said, “I have this complaint against you.” And it came with a threat, “I will remove your lampstand from among the churches.” This was the Ephesian church, the mother church in that region and to whom one of the most famous letters from Paul was written. The letter is a glorious masterpiece in literature and describes the magical heights of spiritual truth and experience. But Christ was ready to cancel them out! This is something that very few pastors, theologians, writers, teachers dare to even bring up in presentations. The prospect opens various cans of theological worms—no one wants to talk about this kind of mayhem.

But we are still pretending, aren’t we? When it comes down to it, we know very well that it is not about “A mighty fortress.” Not about “Here I stand.” This is not the protest we are talking about. We know full well about God’s protest against us, and we know that, most of all on Reformation Day, God is out in force against us. But we don’t want to admit it, either to ourselves or to the world. We are afraid we would look foolish in the eyes of God and the world if we admitted any such thing. That’s why we make so much noise about this day. October 31, hammering wrong ideas into the hands of thousands of school children, only so that they don’t notice our weakness, so that we can forget it ourselves.

No, our time has run out for such solemn church feast days on which we put on an act for ourselves. Let us stop celebrating the Reformation that way! Let us lay the dead Luther to rest at long last, and instead listen to the gospel, reading his Bible, hearing God’s own word in it. At the last Judgment God is certainly going to ask us not, “Have you celebrated Reformation Day properly?” but rather, “Have you heard my word and kept it?”[2]

Most of those in attendance that day considered Bonhoeffer a 26-year old scion of privilege, a brilliant rising star who would calm down as he matured. His words seemed impertinent, idealistic, even endearing in their innocence. But he was not heard—and in ten years the government had closed his seminary, banned his books, fired him from his lectureship, and denied him the right to preach in any church. He would spend the last two years of his life in prison. It got that bad because the church was silent. Bonhoeffer was reported to have said, even though it cannot be proven, that: “not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act.” Another famous statement attributed to him and his participation in a plot to kill Hitler was, “Better to do evil than to be evil.” Twelve thousand Lutheran clergy were convinced that it was too early to revolt, it wasn’t that bad, this too will pass, and supported the government. The Nazi flags and banners in their churches were signs of support. After all, the Bible says that Christians should support their government, the Fatherland. Only two-thousand clergy rebelled and broke away from the state church and called themselves the Confessing Church. And among them, only a minority refused to sign the loyalty oath to Hitler.

The American church faces a similar challenge.

Yes, there are significant differences between Germany in 1930s and American in the 2020s. Germany had been defeated in the Great War, they had been humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. They had gone through a deep depression and were looking for a savior, a national figure that could match their historic and mythical Fuhrer figure. They were very susceptible, even desperate for a strong man. Their national church was much more liberal than America’s churches. America has no national church. It is a free market religion with the most appealing to the public that becomes the most influential. Clergy are not paid by the state and their retirement is not tied to their governmental adherence. 

America is now a few years away from such tyranny.

There are early signs of tyranny that exist in several states and from the federal government. The covid pandemic opened the door to regions where single party rule took control of society under emergency powers. We witnessed mandates that violated the constitution of the United States—and it was frightening to see how easily most Americans went along. For our purposes in this column, we will talk specifically about the attempts to control the church. Rules were made by Governors regarding who could go to church, when they could go, the conditions under which they could go. I think everyone gets a pass on the first six months, no one really knew what we were dealing with. But the idea that strip clubs, marijuana dispensaries, and liquor stores could be open and churches closed did communicate what the government believed to be essential services for a good life.

America has become a combination of what George Orwell wrote about in 1984 and what Aldous Huxley predicted would happen in Brave New World. Earmarks of what is called Orwellian is essentially the government weaponizing its power to control private life of its citizens. Citizens are not important to such tyrants, they are needed to serve the government’s hunger to remain in power. Such things as controlling speech, labeling all news that contradicts governmental policy as misinformation—this is essential to manipulation of public opinion.

1984 pictures a room full of workers who rewrite history and then shove unwanted history down the memory hole. In 1984 citizens are punished for telling the truth, for exposing lies, and even for thought crimes. Needless to say, one only need to observe serious attempts by Big Tech, Big Media, the academic world, the business world, and the sports world to shape a public narrative that quite often denies reality. Reality is what eventually kicks all this to the curb and dominates. Regardless of how much a denial of reality is propagated by the powerful, reality has a voice of its own. The truth will always destroy lies in the end.

 The other part of danger in American society is what Aldous Huxley foresaw in Brave New World is that we would assume ourselves to death.[3] Huxley didn’t think that book banning or burning would be as big a problem as that people would stop reading. He saw a world where entertainment would take over and no one would think, write, discuss, or study. To his credit, a good part of society has become this way. Since most people get their news from social networks on their phones, controlling the flow of that information will determine who wins.

A privatized church

The church finds itself in the middle of a culture war. Who and what will win? This is what Bonhoeffer was talking about. Would the church stand by and just watch, or would it step forward and make a difference? The lesson in Bonhoeffer’s example is clear, the church should not keep its faith private! The advice I grew up with was stay out of hot social issues, political debates and just preach the gospel. Keep your head down, your nose clean, and get people saved. What if William Wilberforce had kept his mouth shut, what about Martin Luther King? Our enemy wants a naked public square where he can roam free—to lie, steal, cheat, and destroy with impunity.[4]

During the 1990s and early 2000s James Davison Hunter’s “Faithful Presence”[5] recommendation to the church was well received. It seemed like a good solution to a sticky problem and how to avoid culture wars. Faithful presence essentially means to be the salt and light, be the shining city on the hill, the city of God. And as we live work and play, do so by penetration into society as individuals who make a positive difference. This is true. It remains the fundamental strategy that is akin to Willard’s Divine Conspiracy. But it is simply not enough. Bonhoeffer is advocating something more aggressive. Something more aggressive has to do with making disciples who are brave enough to speak up and stand up in their arena.

Three things.

Bonhoeffer advocated some practical things we can do with regard to the spiritual and cultural wars. There were three things that Bonhoeffer recommended that Christians could do to engage the state or culture. The first was to question the state. The second was to aid the victims of the state. Third, was to put a spoke in the wheel of the state.[6]

The first is to question or challenge the state.

All one needs to do is watch the Presidential Press Secretary’s daily briefing to understand that they don’t intend to answer questions. The Press Secretary attempts to deflect and to redirect the discussion to cover or to favor the President. For most of us the questioning we can do is local and personal. This is particularly true for parents of school age children regarding the war against the family and against our children. The issue of Cultural Marxism, the critical theory which is the mother of Critical Race Theory, abortion, and the sexualization of school age children. All of these issues should be questioned and all authorities held accountable by those with a coherent moral base.

The second is to aid the victims of the state.

During Bonhoeffer’s time the victims were clearly the Jews. But later it became Christians and especially the Clergy who lost their salaries, benefits, retirement, and freedom to preach and write. The victims of our authorities are the underclass that government has created, especially minorities. Young women who are coached to have abortions should have an alternative. There are so many more, even refugees who illegally come into our country because of irresponsible bad policy, should be cared for if they are permitted to stay.

Third, Bonhoeffer spoke of putting a spoke in the wheel of the State.

This means to retard, to work against the state to impede its progress. So what one can do legally to stop progress that is actually morally wrong and regressive? Bonhoeffer went as far as to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Violence is not acceptable under normal conditions. Bonhoeffer was working on becoming a pacifist, but he made a tough decision to engage in such a plot. I believe the use of force for Christians should only be in self-defense. But making it more difficult for those who would teach falsehood, destroy the family, and promote policies that weaken the character, will, discipline, and determination of Americans should be opposed.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had escaped Germany in mid 1939, his special friends in the United States had arranged for his residency in New York. He would write, lecture, and preach on an ad hoc basis until the Nazis were no longer in power. No one knew how long this might take, but this brilliant mind and revolutionary would be saved and safe for future ministry. His friends in Berlin had talked him into living in exile because he was banned from writing, teaching, publishing, lecturing, or speaking in churches in Germany. What was not included in his friends’ counsel was the reality of Christ’s presence in Bonhoeffer, and that God would be weighing in on the decision to stay in NYC. Bonhoeffer was welcomed by Henry Sloan Coffin, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and many others.

He was safe, but uneasy. At his leisure, but guilt gnawed at his soul. Most of his friends and soon to be colleagues were on summer break and he passed the hot summer days and sultry evenings reading and walking the streets of New York. He was troubled that he was not present where the real action was for his people and his church. He had what we call a “Bonhoeffer Moment.” When a person is faced with a major moral decision that is costly, it qualifies as a “Bonhoeffer Moment.” He only stayed in New York 27 days, he booked passage on the last Ship out of New York for Europe before the start of World War II which ensued when German forces invaded Poland in September of 1939. Given a normal life span for a chain the smoking theologian, Bonhoeffer could have launched an international career that would have extended into the 1970s. But he got the hangman noose on April 9, 1945.

Bonhoeffer is in America right now because he left it back then. He left this earth at age 39 and like with Martin Luther King—a seeming short life can bring an incredibly long ministry. Whenever I walk past Westminster Abby and I stroll over to the back, the less famous side near the giftshop, I look up and what do I see? Stone figures of Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose lives are still inspiring millions.

Bill Hull

November 2022

Please consider using my video series Choose The Life, based on my bestselling book, Choose the Life: Exploring a Faith that Embraces Discipleship. May it inspire you as you interact with those around you where you live, work, and play.

Read about it here:

https://thebonhoefferproject.com/ctl

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[1] I Corinthians 15:1-58.

[2] Victoria J. Barnett, ed, The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vol. 2 Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017, page 95

[3] Assuming Ourselves to Death was a best-selling book by Neil Postman

[4] John 10:10 speaks of a false and evil shepherd, Satan himself who accuses, and attempts to destroy the church because when he does, he has free reign in public life.

[5] I have interacted in several of my books on Hunter’s theory. I disagreed with some of his approach, but finally settled on “faithful presence” as a good idea. I think it worked then, but not now, we need to move ahead with a more aggressive approach.

[6] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer,  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2010, page 153