Is Bonhoeffer a Christian martyr? In the introductory chapter to his Bonhoeffer and South Africa John W De Gruchy answers in the affirmative, I am not however convinced.

As Gruchy notes negative responses to the alleged martyrdom of Bonhoeffer centre around the political nature of Bonhoeffer’s death, as indeed do my reservations. The response of Meiser and Bender is representative of this response:

Bishop Meiser of the Lutheran Church, though he was himself imprisoned by Hitler in the early days of the Third Reich, refused to attend a memorial service for Bonhoeffer at Flossenburg because he regarded his death as political – not Christian martyrdom. Harold Bender, an influential leader among post-World War II Mennonites, was initially strongly attracted to Bonhoeffer by his call in The Cost of Discipleship, but he changed his mind on discovering that Bonhoeffer had forsaken pacifist principles and participated in the conspiracy on Hitler’s life. (P. 16).

What is interesting is that both Meiser as a Lutheran and Bender as a Mennonite (it was Bender you will remember responsible for the characterisation of anabaptism as an uniformlyy pacifistic – and schleitheimic – movement); although in different ways both affirm a two kingdom theology whereby the political and the spiritual are demarcated.

Quite rightly De Gruchy criticises some of the assumptions such an approach can often exhibit by questioning this political/religious demarcation:

Moreover, the cause of Bonhoeffer’s death and his testimony in dying cannot be separated. His death resulted in the name of Christ to the denomic power of Nazism and his struggle to restore a just social order in Germany. Yet the full significance of this political involvement can be appreciated only when read in the light of his witness in his prison cell and before his fellows prior to his death … the decision [Bonhoeffer] made to become involved in the plot [to assassinate Hitler] cannot be separated from his Christian Commitment. (P. 17).

In other words, politics and theology cannot be separated into different spheres. As Rasmussen (Reality and Resistance) has shown this conviction of of the gospel’s import for the whole of life resonates throughout Bonhoeffer’s oeuvre. It is also an irrelevant. There is not doubt Bonhoeffer’s actions were consistent with his developing theology, in particular his ecclesiology and christology, the latter taking prominence over the former. No one so far as i am aware seriously thinks there was for Bonhoeffer a conscious change in mode of operation from theology to politics.

It is not that Bonhoeffer died as a result of his attempted furtherance of a political aim that casts doubt on his status as a martyr of the Church, it is the manner of that action, namely the resort to violence that should provoke pause for reflection ( I wrote about this in more depth and still by and large agree in this PDF file). The clearest analogy is that of Martin Luther King, in my view undoubtedly a martyr of the Christian Church. Why? Because MLK witness was one that resounded with the politics of Jesus without the ambiguity of Bonhoeffer’s complicity in murder (although, as has been pointed out before although I forget by whom MLK’s success was partly attributable to the violence of some who shared the aims of the Civil Rights Movement that the failure of MLK could have brought to the foreground).

I’d like to thank Richard for asking me to contribute to The Bonhoefferian. My name is R.O. Flyer and I blog at Rain and the Rhinoceros. At the moment, I’m writing a Master’s thesis on the ecclesiology of Bonhoeffer and John Howard Yoder. As I study for my thesis and work through Bonhoeffer, I’ll be posting reflections on here periodically. The following is a crosspost of something I wrote a few weeks back reflecting on the legacy of Bonhoeffer:

I’m beginning to realize that part of what I find intriguing about Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the mysterious character of his legacy. Out of all the great figures of twentieth century theology no one is perhaps more well-known, and therefore also probably more misunderstood, than Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer is an iconic figure all over the world for his involvement in the Confessing Church, his participation in the resistance against the Nazi-regime, his involvement in a plot to kill Hitler, and his execution by the German state. Like other iconic figures, Bonhoeffer’s life story has been told in a variety of different media from biographies, plays, and films. Bonhoeffer has become one of those kind of figures–like MLK or Gandhi–that you simply must appreciate and honor regardless of your political or theological persuasion.

At first glance, this seems like a good thing, but I wonder if this type of widespread popularity doesn’t come at a great cost. I wonder if such symbolic popularity actually has the obverse effect of deadening a powerful message, of softening it–or better, of “cheapening” it. Does everyone love Bonhoeffer because no one understands him? To the popular imagination, why does his witness transcend politics? Let me just say out front that I am almost always skeptical of stuff that seems to help us transcend our differences. One of the reasons I’m skeptical is because this a characteristically liberal maneouver–a maneouver that has the effect of stifling the confrontation of real difference.

Think of the MLK example. MLK is an almost universally recognizable icon for good, so much so that the U.S. takes a day to celebrate his witness. Whether your a republican or democrat you must honor King and all that he represents. What is silly about this is that King was decidedly not republican or democrat. Not that he somehow “transcended” these differences, but rather he was highly critical of both parties. MLK was critical of the American project altogether–in fact, in his later years he even became quite vocal in his opposition to capitalism. Of course, the divisiveness of King’s message must be fully downplayed in order for it to adequately transcend, and so we uphold this vague, but powerful image, of a figure that represents America’s great struggle for racial justice. Thus, King’s legacy binds us together precisely because he reinforces the notion that we are at heart a good nation, a light on a hill–a nation that has overcome racism. What King’s legacy does not do is break us and divide us. In short, King’s legacy doesn’t do what it should: expose us as racist liars.

I think that Bonhoeffer’s popular legacy is similar in this way. What is interesting to me is how Bonhoeffer’s theological legacy is so appreciated by so many theologians of differing persuasions. To some, Bonhoeffer represents a sort of political realism akin to Reinhold Niebuhr. For others, he exposes the weaknesses of pacifism and demonstrates why it is sometimes necessary to kill. Thus, Bonhoeffer has been in employed to bolster support for the war on terrorism. To others, at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s work is a commitment to radical discipleship and Christianity community. Or, for those who read Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison out of context, he becomes the quintessential advocate of a ’secular’ or religionless Christianity. To be fair, Bonhoeffer’s work is extremely difficult–something that I am keenly aware of at the moment–which is partially at the root of the differences in the way people have chosen to take him. But, Bonhoeffer can’t be everything for everyone–if we all love him, perhaps we don’t understand him. Perhaps we’re all in some way “cheapening” his message in advance, in order to avoid confronting the real cost that his message demands of us.

Heinz Eduard Tödt. Authentic Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics in Context. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. 291 pages.

If the ideas articulated and life lived by Dietrich Bonhoeffer have captivated your thinking and challenged your soul, then you would do well to take the time to read thoughtfully and reflectively this collection of Professor Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer’s theology, ethics and resistance. First published fifteen years ago in his original German, this compilation of Tödt’s insightful scholarship spans the latter half of his academic career as professor of systematic theology, ethics and social ethics at the University of Heidelberg and as the chairman of the editorial board of the German edition of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Tödt’s student, Glen Harold Strassen, captured the tenor of his writings when he stated: “Tödt’s publications have an analytical sharpness, an ethical incisiveness and a genuine truthfulness that is rare even among the best.” Strassen served as the editor of the English edition of Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer published here in the United States in 2007. It is this new edition that is the subject of this review.

This collection of essays by Tödt makes a significant contribution to the ever-growing corpus of Bonhoeffer scholarship. Unlike that of many who have come before and after him, though, Tödt’s analysis expounds the major dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s ethics by examining the political, ecclesiastical and family context in which Bonhoeffer wrote. His essays, however, reach an even deeper level of profundity as Tödt subjects himself to scrutiny of Bonhoeffer’s ideas by transparently wrestling with issues of guilt and forgiveness about his own experience of the German context during the Third Reich when he served as a soldier at the front during the Second World War and then was subjected to detention as a prisoner-of-war in a Russian camp for five years. Above all, in his engagement with Bonhoeffer, Tödt sought an ethic that can provide wise guidance in the face of contemporary schemes to manipulate faith for ideological ends.

Fourteen of Tödt’s essays are presented. The earliest essay dates from the 1970’s, and the latest to one year before his death in 1991. A deepening of both insight into the underlying essence of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts as well as an appreciation for the authenticity of his faith-inspired actions is evident. The first eleven essays analyze themes in Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics. For example, Tödt tackles the ever-perplexing notion of “religion-less Christianity” that marks Bonhoeffer’s later letters to Eberhard Bethge from his Tegel prison cell. In contrast with those progressive theologians who have latched on to Bonhoeffer’s language only to fill it with a self-conceived meaning inconsistent with the whole of Bonhoeffer’s thought and life, Tödt finds that Bonhoeffer was here conceiving a Christianity not confined to ideals for merely private life or to the gaps where we cannot solve problems, but rather a Christian faith that gives concrete guidance in the center of life.

In other essays, Tödt focuses attention on an important question that has not been examined by other scholars of Bonhoeffer. He asks what was about Bonhoeffer’s ethics that enabled him to discern so clearly and speak out for the Jews and against war more decisively than other theologians and church leaders even from the very onset of Hitler’s chancellorship. In his exploration of this question, Tödt demonstrates Bonhoeffer’s insights in naming the sources of evil and self-deception as well as warning against the ways and means by which the leader becomes the misleader. Tödt also clarifies Bonhoeffer’s articulation of the vocation of the churches in speaking concretely and the vocation of groups in acting concretely as an assertion of checks and balances against authoritarianism not only in the context of Nazi Germany but also with application for responsible action in the midst of contemporary expressions of authoritarianism. Tödt’s extensive analysis of the social, theological, and ethical characteristics of the resistance movement, in which Bonhoeffer and family members played integral roles, provides both information and insights that go well beyond what can be found in other scholarship to date. This comprehensiveness in his treatment of Bonhoeffer’s resistance is the product of thoroughgoing research project that Tödt led at the University of Heidelberg.

The final three essays in this collection address contemporary history, in which Tödt examines, with an authenticity born out of Bonhoeffer’s ethics, the guilt and responsibility of Christendom in Germany. What particularly marks Tödt’s approach and the insights he offers is his resolve not to be devoted to merely an interpretation of past positions, but instead to find in Bonhoeffer avenues that advance both the present tasks of theology in the church and a better understanding of our own way of life. In 1985, Tödt himself expressed the force of Bonhoeffer’s life and words upon him in this way:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has come nearer and nearer and become more and more important for me – not merely with one single flash of light – but in a continuing process over twenty years. Of his many remarkable character traits and abilities, the concentration with which he exposed his faith in Christ to the tests that life brought, all the way to the extreme situations of resistance, and then thought through theologically what happened him and those involved, occupies me most of all. I perceive this theology as deeply authentic and as showing the way for me as a theological teacher . . . . Bonhoeffer is not right in all things, but from no theologian am I now learning so much as from him, and, to be sure, with my intellect and with my heart.

Tödt, though, was greatly distressed by those self-proclaimed scholars and would-be theologians who did not follow the whole way through Bonhoeffer but would rather “tear out individual elements of life and thought and [either] progressively instrumentalize them or conservatively distort them,” and then advocate that the guilt for the deficits in the modern churches lies in Bonhoeffer’s guidance. In an effort to expose and counter these misuses and abuses, Tödt presents a thoroughly studied and attentively perceived exposition of Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics both in the context of his life experiences and for application in our own.

Although some portions in the English translation occasionally render the complexity of Tödt’s German syntax in stilted and strained constructions, the substance of the insights and analyses of Bonhoeffer offered by Tödt make any extra time required to slow down and re-read such passages abundantly rewarding. No other book has more opened my eyes or deepened my appreciation for Bonhoeffer’s guidance in living responsibly in the concrete realities of life than Tödt’s.

Cordell P. Schulten, M.A., J.D. <cschulten@fontbonne.edu>

Lecturer, Contemporary Studies

Fontbonne University

Saint Louis, Missouri

Two interesting posts have appeared in the last week concerning Bonhoeffer’s religionless christianity, here, and here.. Here is a selection from the latter post:

Bonhoeffer’s great insight in LPP as far as I can see, was to dimly perceive that, while religion was a predominant guise for Christianity throughout history this did not need to be the case – that Christianity could affirm all its central tenants without religion as he defined it (God could be affirmed without metaphysics – again he was not saying that this was ontologically better but rather was becoming historically nessesary). He saw religion as having served its time well, but which had finally reached its twilight.

This is interesting to me because I think it allows us to understand Fundamentalism in a different way. Namely, as an impotent reaction to the loss of religion. The attempt to place it back in the centre. Fundamentalism can thus be seen as the very evidence of the growing redundancy of religion. It is the violent kickback against the continual loss of ground that religion has had to concede in recent years. But for Bonhoeffer there is a way beyond an anemic religious Christianity that places God at the edge and a violent fundamentalism which impotently seeks to place religion in the centre and this is what he was hinting at.

jps

At long last, I put the final touches (and blows) to the thesis today, and it is ready to be shipped off for grading. Quite a relief to have this monkey off my back and to be on to other projects. Below I’ve posted the abstract to the thesis; if you are interested in a copy of the whole thing then drop me an email.

Knowing the difference between good and evil seems central to any account of ethical thought. Yet Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that Christian ethics’ “first task” is to supercede this knowledge. Rejecting the knowledge of good and evil, Bonhoeffer regards modern ethics as continuous with Adam and Eve’s illegitimate meal in the garden of Eden. Grasping at wisdom apart from God, the earliest humans brought death and division into the world. Bonhoeffer’s account of Christian ethics is inimical to the self-justification, judgment of others, and autonomous notions of individual freedom that the knowledge of good and evil provides. Human beings employ their knowledge of good and evil in efforts to unify their lives and communities, but Bonhoeffer sees that these actions spring from the divided state of fallen humanity. Yet if Christian ethics really involves “un-knowing” good and evil, on what basis can Christians confront the complex and difficult decisions that they face daily? How are Christians to respond to violence, destruction, and immorality—both in their own lives and in the acts of people around them? How are Christians (and others) to teach their children how to behave without recourse to some conception of good and evil? This thesis explores the knowledge of good and evil in Bonhoeffer’s writings and traces the development of his ethics as an alternative account of moral knowledge. The ethics of the church, in Bonhoeffer’s understanding, is grounded in the knowledge gained through being incorporated into the body of Jesus Christ, through extending his mission, and through proclaiming his gospel.

Originally posted at: a few words.

Halden announced yesterday the beginning of what is sure to become a long and illustrious tradition—a Bonhoeffer blog conference. The profundity of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics lies in its insistence on pushing theological meditations toward the most concrete expression possible. Unlike many, his drive toward concreteness was not the result of an insipid focus on the “practical,” falsely contrasted to the abstract and theoretical; rather, he saw that proper theological work underlay the faith that leads to action. He is a tremendously attractive figure to so many of us because we have a sense that his life held together with a unity and integrity that most of us only strive to imagine.

In the last couple of years we have witnessed a substantial rise in collaborative theological scholarship via the blogosphere. The recurring Karl Barth Blog Conference promises to be an excellent staple among theo-bloggers, as does the forthcoming Balthasar Blog Conference. In the spirit of fostering further substantial theological scholarship in the blogosphere, I am happy to announce the First Annual Bonhoeffer Blog Conference. The topic for this conference will be: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics and Contemporary Theology. The aim of this conference is to foster sustained reflections on Bonhoeffer’
s last major theological work, Ethicsand to explore its implications within contemporary theological, ecclesial, and political contexts. While some spots are already filled (which will be announced later), there is plenty of room for submissions and proposals. Any submission related to this general focus would be open to consideration. Creative approaches to the work of Bonhoeffer is encouraged.

This conference will likely take place in early November, 2008. Submissions can be emailed to Halden at halden-at-wipfandstock-dot-com. Halden encourages you to promote this event on your own blog, if you are so inclined.

Union Theological Seminary’s podcast includes Larry Rasmussen’s August 6 lecture on Bonhoeffer offered in two parts. I downloaded it and found it to be an excellent addition to Rasmussen’s book Reality and Resistance. His stories from Bonhoeffer’s brother at the end of part two are particularly interesting.

I have just added a new “Recommended Reading” page to this blog with the deatails of recommended secondary literature on Bonhoeffer. This is no means an exhaustive list (intentionally so) but if you feel there are important books omitted that you can vouch for as being very good then please feel free to let us know.

C.S. Lewis makes several impassioned pleas for the universality of moral instinct in his writings. I’m most familiar with his appeal to the sense of “fairness” in an argument for God’s existence in Mere Christianity, along with his defence of what he calls the “Tao” in The Abolition of Man. At any rate, in both locations, Lewis is appealing to something like conscience or intuition as the ground of ethics. Ethics are built-in. Right and wrong find their foundation in some innate sense within us. That sense is God’s gift, and is ultimately grounded in God’s own moral character.

Of course, acknowledging the lingering wastes of sin in humanity, Lewis argues that our consciences, as well as our inclination to listen to them, are “bent.” We are not whole and healthy, but twisted and shadowy representations of what we were meant to be.

Working on Bonhoeffer’s moral epistemology, it struck me how different the picture that he describes is. For Bonhoeffer, conscience is only the voice of self-defence. Conscience is the tool by which we usurp God’s judgment, and employ it against ourselves and others. With our consciences–our personal knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3)–we alternately declare ourselves righteous and then cast ourselves on to the dung pile. Either way, this is an attempt to shield ourselves from God’s voice rather than God’s voice itself. The natural knowledge of good and evil, is nothing less than captivity to death in Bonhoeffer’s estimation.

For Bonhoeffer, the root of legitimate ethical thought is spoken rather than implanted. Ethical life is obedience to God’s command, and God’s command comes to us as fallen creatures. God’s voice is not innately present to creatures in any reliable way, it requires a reorientation of our being. Ethics is obedience, following Jesus. The command of God is to be found in Christ, not in each of us. Only in Christ is the command of God to be found unsullied in the world.

Bonhoeffer encountered Lewis’ argument in a twisted form in the settled liberal theologians who were his professors at the University of Berlin. Further twisted and coupled with Lutheran theology gone haywire, it was part of the worldview that enabled the majority of German Christians to dutifully serve Hitler. Bonhoeffer regarded the notion of an innate ethic to be theologically naive–and subject to disasterous perversion.

But, four years after writing the hyper-rigorous Discipleship (originally “Cost of…” in English), Bonhoeffer found room for “noble pagans,” and argued that the church must work together–for Christ’s sake–with all the promoters of peace, security, and well-being. This was not based on any re-evaluation and more positive assesment of natural knowledge of good and evil. Rather, Bonhoeffer expected to see Christ in strange places, at work for the good of the cosmos he joined himself to in love. Working side by side with atheists in the conspiracy, he found the project viable not on his own estimation of good and evil, but out of a theological intuition that this was where he might be most likely to find Jesus.

The ground of ethics is a crucial question. Locating the origin of our sense of right and wrong is a difficult and contentious task. The choice to legitimate it as it stands or distrust it and look to another model determines the entire shape of our ethical discussions, the shape of our culture, and the way we treat one another. While Lewis’ account is apologetically attractive, and very compelling, I wonder if it is grounded concretely enough in God’s self-revelation in Christ to avoid the kinds of abberations that the National Socialists and thier sympathizers were able to foist on Germany.

I’d be very interested to hear someone take the other side.

Originally posted at: a few words I want to thank the administrator of this illustrious blog for a generous invitation to leave a reflection here every now and then.