Posted 11:23 pm Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bonhoeffer’s Spiritual Legacy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor who participated in the German Resistance during World War II and was executed by the Nazis less than a month before the war ended. I had a chance to learn about Bonhoeffer in a Womenary seminar I attended last weekend.
I knew that the German people were largely silent about the Nazis’ despicable ideology and treatment of the Jews and other groups. I always assumed that silence was born of cowardice. I was horrified to learn that many German Christians approved of the Nazi ideology.
The German church was so deluded by nationalism that they considered the words of Adolf Hitler more authoritative than the teachings of Christ. Some went so far as to advocate removal of the Old Testament and support the idea of an Aryan Jesus.
It is one thing to fight an oppressive regime when you have the support of a community. It is quite another to speak out against the people who supposedly share your faith.
That is a whole new level of courage, and it is a lonely place.
I knew that the German people were largely silent about the Nazis’ despicable ideology and treatment of the Jews and other groups. I always assumed that silence was born of cowardice. I was horrified to learn that many German Christians approved of the Nazi ideology.
The German church was so deluded by nationalism that they considered the words of Adolf Hitler more authoritative than the teachings of Christ. Some went so far as to advocate removal of the Old Testament and support the idea of an Aryan Jesus.
It is one thing to fight an oppressive regime when you have the support of a community. It is quite another to speak out against the people who supposedly share your faith.
That is a whole new level of courage, and it is a lonely place.
Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller organized the Confessing Church in 1934, pledging loyalty to Christ alone. He eventually went from speaking out against Nazism to taking part in the resistance as a double-agent in German military intelligence.
All of Bonhoeffer’s convictions and actions rose from the interpretation of his faith. He was “one of the few Christian martyrs in a history otherwise stained by Christian complicity with Nazism,” wrote Victoria Barnett for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“The church, he wrote, must fight evil in three stages: The first was to question state injustice and call the state to responsibility; the second was to help the victims of injustice, whether they were church members or not. Ultimately, however, the church might find itself called ‘not only to help the victims who have fallen under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself’ in order to halt the machinery of injustice.”
Toward the end, Bonhoeffer’s friends got him out of Germany to America, but he knew he belonged in the fight. He went back overseas less than 30 days after he arrived in New York.
All of Bonhoeffer’s convictions and actions rose from the interpretation of his faith. He was “one of the few Christian martyrs in a history otherwise stained by Christian complicity with Nazism,” wrote Victoria Barnett for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“The church, he wrote, must fight evil in three stages: The first was to question state injustice and call the state to responsibility; the second was to help the victims of injustice, whether they were church members or not. Ultimately, however, the church might find itself called ‘not only to help the victims who have fallen under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself’ in order to halt the machinery of injustice.”
Toward the end, Bonhoeffer’s friends got him out of Germany to America, but he knew he belonged in the fight. He went back overseas less than 30 days after he arrived in New York.
“I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America,” he wrote shortly after he arrived. “I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people … Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroy our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose, but I cannot make that choice in security.”
He was arrested in 1943 when money used to smuggle Jews to safety was linked back to him.
Bonhoeffer spent several months in concentration camps and prisons, and was hanged in April 1945.
Many great men of faith have contributed through their intellect, and Bonhoeffer was certainly one, but that wasn’t the crux of his legacy.
“The heart of Bonhoeffer’s spiritual legacy to us is not to be found in his words, his books,” wrote Robert Coles in his biography, “but in the way he spent his time on this earth, in his decision to live as if the Lord were a neighbor and friend, a constant source of courage and inspiration, a presence amid travail and joy alike, a reminder of love’s obligations and affirmations and also of death’s decisive meaning (how we die as a measure of how we have lived, of who we are).”
May there never be a time we have to practice what we learn from his example, but may we always be willing.
He was arrested in 1943 when money used to smuggle Jews to safety was linked back to him.
Bonhoeffer spent several months in concentration camps and prisons, and was hanged in April 1945.
Many great men of faith have contributed through their intellect, and Bonhoeffer was certainly one, but that wasn’t the crux of his legacy.
“The heart of Bonhoeffer’s spiritual legacy to us is not to be found in his words, his books,” wrote Robert Coles in his biography, “but in the way he spent his time on this earth, in his decision to live as if the Lord were a neighbor and friend, a constant source of courage and inspiration, a presence amid travail and joy alike, a reminder of love’s obligations and affirmations and also of death’s decisive meaning (how we die as a measure of how we have lived, of who we are).”
May there never be a time we have to practice what we learn from his example, but may we always be willing.
