Thoughts on Eberhard Bethge's "Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography"

I've recently finished reading the nearly thousand page biography written by Bonhoeffer's close friend, Eberhard Bethge. It was fascinating reading, even though the writing style is a bit challenging, no doubt because it was translated from German, and also because its meticulous detail, particularly regarding Bonhoeffer's participation in ecumenical gatherings, is often ponderous.

I admittedly tackled the book now because I thought it would provide guidance in the midst of a challenging time in our own country's collective life. Many people are deeply concerned about perceived challenges in the new administration to religious and ethnic minorities, the rule of law, free press, and the relationship between faith and culture. Bonhoeffer has been depicted as a hero, a pastor and theologian who navigated fidelity to the Gospel in challenging times. My hope was that this life and teachings could inform the way forward. Bonhoeffer's story has been helpful for these issues and for many more.

I was struck by how much Bonhoeffer's concern was consistently for the witness of the church as the church rather than using the church for advocacy in the midst of political controversy. Bonhoeffer was consistently opposed to Hitler. But his central concern was not to oppose Hitler, at least initially. His central concern was that the state would not so influence the Church that the Church was not longer be the Church.

The perfect example of this concern was the issue of the Aryan Clause. The Aryan Clause required that German government officials prove their Western European ethnic heritage. German pastors were employed indirectly by the nation because Germany had (and still has) a state church. Confessing Church Christians affirmed that ordination must be sealed off from the power of the state because only the Christian community could determine fitness for ministry. The Church must welcome all people, so it cannot use an ethnic test for ordination. Otherwise, the Church, even if it does religious things, is nothing more than an organ of the state and is no true community of the living Christ.

I find this helpful. Though the Church has a responsibility to advocate for all people, I don't think that the Church faces an existential crisis in the way that the German church did in Bonhoeffer's time. Bonhoeffer never said that a disciple couldn't be a Hitler supporter. He certainly never said that Christians couldn't support the German nation in the war effort--many Confessing pastors and many of his own students served in the war and even volunteered for service. There is a place for people of every political persuasion in Christ's community, even people who are profoundly wrong in all kinds of ways. The line we must draw is in making the church an arm of any political movement, even a good one. The Church must not be coopted into making Christ the servant of an earthly purpose, even a good one, and certainly not a bad one. This is an important line to draw as Christian people are so polarized in our churches. It's the line that the Barmen Declaration draws. I am hopeful that one unexpected benefit for the Church in the midst of our current cynicism about politics is that people who have strong political opinions will recognize that their views are not necessarily God's views and  that God will not be brought into our political disputes. It seems to me that most Christians are less likely to claim that their politician or movement is God's person or movement than they were in the Messiah-talk I heard with President Bush or, contrarily, about President Obama. I hope I'm not wrong about this. But it looks to me that though the times are difficult they may actually be good for breaking our habit of equating leaders or political parties with identification with Christianity.

Something completely different--Bonhoeffer's little seminary at Finklewalde was, as Bonhoeffer enthusiasts have so often celebrated, a beautiful experiment in Christian community. It was also an experiment in a different way of doing ministerial preparation. Bonhoeffer was a product of academia, but he came to believe that academic training needed to be done in intentional and small community. And that community needed to be a community of spiritual formation and active collective discipleship. After Finkenwalde was over, he expected that if he survived and the church survived, he would take part in new experiments in re-imagining and re-creating ministerial preparation. We live in a time that we are seeing the limitations of the seminary model and its tendency to shape clergy as people who are disconnected from the community of faith and unsettled in their spiritual lives. Bonhoeffer should inspire us to look to other models that are community based, collegially based, practice based, and founded upon prayer and worship rather than purely intellectual pursuits.

Something else--Bonhoeffer walked every step of a terribly difficult road seeking step-by-step to know the most faithful way forward. He embraced the lack of clarity of all his choices even as he continued to act. So often, we seek clarity--what side should we be on? What crusade should we take up? What is the right group to join? Who should we resist? How long should I go until I split from people who interpret things differently than me? Bonhoeffer himself was marked by a rare combination of humility and courage. He was burdened by the decision to participate in a plot against Hitler, burdened by what the Confessing Church must do or not do to maintain its integrity, burdened by choices of vocation. He was constantly squeezed by circumstance. And yet, he found his justification not in being right but in Christ's justification. He could move forward boldly and even lovingly.  He was a rare person who could love his enemies even as he resisted them. Even the guards who mistreated him in prison, and even, in a certain sense loving an enemy like Hitler. If we are honest, even the most headstrong crusaders among us harbor deep doubts. Maybe those who crusade the most virulently do so to mask our deepest doubts. We must always recognize that we may turn out to be wrong. And so, we must have humility and love in our all actions. But even in humility and love, we must act. In the case of Hitler, Bonhoeffer struggled with the determination that when a madman drives a car down the road and runs over pedestrians, at some point a bystander is called not only to help the victims but stop the car. There are no easy answers here. Bonhoeffer did not pretend otherwise. But he still stepped out.

And something else--Bonhoeffer himself would have been horrified by the way he has been deified since his death. Death was certainly very good for his "brand." If he had survived, his final views of "religionless Christianity" may have been actually harmful to Christian theology. I'm not smart enough to know that for sure, but I think it's a mistake that so many modern people have swept his later views under the rug. Certainly, his death made his life and views interesting to a world who would have never known him if he had grown into an old theology professor or pastor. Who knows if he could have found employment if he had survived and had been condemned as a hypocrite whose participation in an assassination plot was inconsistent with his pacifism? He certainly expected so. but terrible times allowed him to say some of the most beautiful and powerful things we know any Christian ever said. And they allowed him to back them up with faithful actions.  We all try to avoid suffering. Bonhoeffer himself did all he could to avoid suffering as he faced it gracefully and bravely.
The next book I read is going to be a novel.  No more than 250 pages.

Pastoral Prayer following the US Presidential Inauguration

Holy God:

We give you thank for the gift of your Son, who has given us new life, who has offered us a new way of life.  We thank you that through our shared love of the living Christ, we have become true family with one another.  Jesus, you said that to know you is to have eternal life.  And so, teach us today what it means to live in the fullness of that life, to walk as a heavenly people, to live with heaven in our hearts, to share the eternal life of the eternal kingdom in all our living in this world.  Help us to tread lightly on this good earth, to remember where we have come from and where we will go to, to taste the eternal banquet even now as we live this life in living loving relationship with you and with your people with whom we will live forever.

You have blessed us to be a blessing.  We thank you for the gift of living in a good land.  On this inaugural week, we offer intercession for the new president, Donald Trump, his family, his administration and all who advise him. We pray for our federal legislature, especially those newly elected. Shape all of their hearts, guide their thinking, help them to have just courage and compassionate sensitivity, to care and advocate for all citizens, to speak with wisdom, clarity, and discretion, to act with the highest ethical standards and rise above even the appearance of corruption.  We also ask that you would bless our outgoing president, Barack Obama, and his family. May he feel the gratitude of the nation for his service and may you bless and guide him in his service to come.  

Forgive us, holy God, when we have succumbed to the temptation to enter into the increasingly uncharitable partisanship of our culture.  Help us to rise above, to speak the truth in love, to listen more than we speak, to find solidarity with those who are different than us.  May we never give in to the contempt so often expressed in our culture.  May we always remember that we serve a Lord who commanded us to love our enemies and demonstrated his love to us while we were yet sinners and rebels to your kingdom.

Amen.