The German pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo nearly 79 years ago, on April 5, 1943. He was implicated in the plot to overthrow the German government under Hitler and sentenced to die—and, indeed, he was hanged on April 9, 1945.
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| (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1933) |
What Did Bonhoeffer Do in Germany?
On the 110th anniversary of his
birth on February 4, 1906, I posted a blog article titled “Honoring
the Memory of Bonhoeffer.” Thus, this post focuses on Bonhoeffer’s activity
as a part of the resistance to Hitler from 1933 until his arrest by the Nazis ten
years later.
Bonhoeffer was one of the first prominent German
Christians to speak out in opposition to Hitler. Two days after Hitler was
installed as the German chancellor in January 1933, Bonhoeffer delivered a
radio address in which he criticized Hitler.
In April of that year, he raised the first
voice for church resistance to Hitler's persecution of Jews, and in the
following year he joined with Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth, and others to form
what came to be known as the Confessing Church.
These anti-Nazi Christians in Germany drafted
the Barmen Declaration in 1934. They sought to make it clear that Jesus Christ
was the Führer, their leader and the head of the Church, not Hitler.
In 1940, Bonhoeffer
became even more active in the German resistance and finally he was arrested because
of that activity. At that time, he was charged with avoiding military service, advising
his students to do the same, and also for helping some Jews escape Germany.
Despite what is often said/believed about
Bonhoeffer, he was not arrested for participating in any assassination
attempts. The main attempt to kill Hitler came on July 20, 1944, and after that
plot failed, some 7,000 people were arrested and nearly 5,000, including
Bonhoeffer, were executed.
Bonhoeffer was, indeed, a part of the
resistance and until his arrest worked closely with those who devised the July
20 assassination attempt, especially with his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi,
who was accused of being the "spiritual leader" of the conspiracy to
assassinate Hitler.
It is obvious, though, that Bonhoeffer was not
directly involved in the 7/20/44 assassination attempt itself, for he was
imprisoned fifteen months before it occurred.*
What Would Bonhoeffer Do Now in Ukraine/Russia?
It is difficult to know what Bonhoeffer would
do in Ukraine if he were living there now, for he lived, wrote, and was
martyred in a country that was waging war, not one suffering from the horrors
of unprovoked invasion.
Being a Christian in Ukraine now is far
different from being a Christian in Germany in the 1930s. We know what
Bonhoeffer did there then; we don’t know what he would do in Ukraine now.
However, I think we do know what Bonhoeffer
would do were he a Christian living in Russia today. He would undoubtedly become
a part of—and likely the leader of—a resistance movement that would agree with
Pres. Biden’s moral outrage: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
It is not evident, though, that all Christians
should do the same—or that we who safely live in this country should “tell”
Christians in Russia what they should do. (This issue is dealt with at some
length in the March 11 posting in Christianity Today: Do
Russian Christians Need More Bonhoeffers?)
What Would Bonhoeffer Do Now in the U.S.?
With some certainty we can assume that were
Bonhoeffer alive in the U.S. today he would speak out strongly against those American
Christians who advocate Christian Nationalism—as, thankfully, some American Christians
are. (See Christians
Against Christian Nationalism.)
More specifically, he would doubtlessly oppose
efforts to “make America great again” and the growth of White Christian
nationalism since 2015.**
Bonhoeffer’s most widely read book is Nachfolge
(1937; Eng. trans., The Cost of Discipleship, 1949, and Discipleship,
2003), the theme of which is faithfully following Jesus and living by his
teachings, especially as found in the Sermon on the Mount.
That, surely, is what Bonhoeffer would do here
now—and what he challenges us to do also.
_____
* Bonhoeffer’s persistent pacifism is
a central theme of a new book by Mennonite scholar Mark Thiessen Nation, Discipleship
in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(2022).
** White Christian Nationalism and the
Threat to American Democracy (April
2022) by Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry promises to be a helpful analysis
of the latter; see this
interview with Gorski in the March 15 post of YaleNews.
Thanks, Leroy, for lifting up Bonhoeffer for us again. I've been a great admirer of Bonhoeffer since, as a young Christian in the 1960s in the Southern Baptist Church, I read his The Cost of Discipleship. It seems to me he's a great exemplar of what it means to be both a Christian and a citizen, much like Gandhi, much like MLK, Jr., albeit perhaps not the pacifist they were. (I read once that he would have been a pacifist in different circumstances. Were he involved in the plot to kill Hitler, we can only imagine the misery such an involvement would have meant for him.)
ReplyDeleteYears later, I read his Letters and Papers from Prison, and one of those letters has been my own cornerstone for reflections on ethics ever since. If I may, I quote it here at length in the English translation:
"We will not and must not be either outraged critics or opportunists, but must take our share of responsibility for the moulding of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished. One who will not allow any occurrence whatever to deprive him of his responsibility for the course of history—because he knows that it has been laid on him by God—will thereafter achieve a more fruitful relation to the events of history than that of barren criticism and equally barren opportunism. To talk of going down fighting like heroes in the face of certain defeat is not really heroic at all, but merely a refusal to face the future. The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live. It is only from this question, with its responsibility towards history, that fruitful solutions can come, even if for the time being they are very humiliating. In short, it is much easier to see a thing through from the point of view of abstract principle than from that of concrete responsibility. The rising generation will always instinctively discern which of these we make the basis of our actions, for it is their own future that is at stake."
Thanks, Anton, for your comments and for sharing the lengthy quote from "Letters and Papers from Prison." I read that important, and somewhat enigmatic, book long ago, but I didn't remember the significant statement about responsibility.
DeleteConcerning Bonhoeffer's pacifism, I would suggest you take a look at Nation's book that I mentioned in the footnote--and also Andrew's comments below. (Did you ever get to know him when he lived in the Kansas City area?)
I don't think I met him. but I'm not good with names. Even though quite a challenge to do as a Southern Baptist (because it was not a "peace" church as such), in the 1960s I applied for and acquired a noncombatant draft classification based on my pacifism. It was not the alternative service classification, which, as a Baptist, I suspect would have been declined, based on some things a member of the draft board said to me. I don't think I was ever an absolute pacifist, such as one of my friends who argued that even if someone broke into his home to kill his wife and children, and he had the power to stop it by killing the intruder, he wouldn't do it. Though I've not read Nation's book, over the years I've loosely followed the debate between those who marshal evidence that Bonhoeffer likely was in on or knew about the assassination attempt and those who argue against it. I find it not of great interest. Whether Bonhoeffer knew about it and refused to reveal it or actually participated in the plot or didn't know about it at all is a bit beside the point, it seems to me, when assessing the man's character. Whatever he did/didn't do, he did with that sense of responsibility toward the coming generations that he promotes in Letters and Papers from Prison, and I, for one, greatly admire his brave stands in the face of Nazism. If he had been somehow directly or indirectly involved in the plot, I would still applaud him.
DeleteThanks for your further comments, Anton. And, like you (even though I am probably a stronger pacifist than you are), I would still applaud Bonhoeffer regardless of his involvement in the attempt to assassinate Hitler.
DeleteThe issue, though, is whether pacifism can be maintained in the "real world." Was the Sermon on the Mount and what Bonhoeffer wrote about it in Nachfolge/The Cost of Discipleship just an unrealistic ideal that in the midst of war had to be replaced with the realism that was propounded by Reinhold Niebuhr?
It is sort of flippant, but the other day I read where someone wrote that being a pacifist only during times of peace is like being a vegetarian only between meals.
Here are further, meaty comments received from Anton by email, but they are so germane to this important discussion that I am posting them here for others to read--and for me to find when I may want to read and/or cite them later.
Delete"That is very funny, the vegetarian who is only vegetarian between meals! I hadn’t heard that one. . . .
"Yes, pacifism is a complicated issue, as I’ve discovered over the years. It seems to me that, at this time since MLK and Gandhi, the primary question is whether it is a best method of achieving social change or a method to keep the individual’s hands clean of killing people (or, of course, some combination of the two). When I declared my pacifism, I think it was a matter of simply what Jesus and Paul taught. I have no doubt that the positions and implications of the New Testament are pacifist, which is why, over the years, I’ve claimed that only the 'peace' churches deserve our respect for strict adherence to the teachings of the New Testament with regard to this issue. And in fact, one of my first papers in seminary was a critique of Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism.
"There were many people—especially fellow church members and seminarians—who challenged my position. One of the most difficult for me was the work of law enforcement. A member of the Baptist Student Union at my university was also a policeman with whom I had several conversations, and his position was that in his vocation he could not rule out having to kill someone in certain circumstances. That was hard to argue with. As you know, the first couple of centuries of Christianity have no or little evidence of Christians serving in the military or law enforcement. (When struggling with these issues, I was not aware of the Buddha’s teachings in this regard. He seems to have excluded anything like law enforcement as a vocational option for his followers.)
"The other issue I had to struggle with was the issue of revolutions in colonized countries. This is what Gandhi and friends faced. Of course, it was similar to MLK and friends who were dealing with something like a domestic colonialism. Fortunately, both were dealing with fairly 'civilized' Western powers who had some sense of honor and fair play. It didn’t keep people from being killed, even MLK and Gandhi themselves. But, except for the horrendous slaughter between Muslims and Hindus at the partition of India, it appears to have been a better option than armed revolution, at least in those circumstances.
"At this point in my life, I guess that where I am is (1) that, of course, everything possible should be done to prevent war and avoid people killing people. (2) I don’t think that we pacifists can tell those who are not that they should not be combatants in any circumstance, even if they claim to be Christian. (3) Niebuhr’s arguments are not easily dismissed, along with many others I read at the time in the 1960s and 70s. (4) Ideals are probably always beyond the immediate historical circumstances but must be held, in any case, however impossible to implement at this time. (5) My own sentiments for me are still with noncombatant status in war, although, quite honestly, Russia’s invasion of and actions in Ukraine are testing me, in that it’s the first war in my lifetime, I think, that seems to me relatively unambiguous in terms of who is the aggressor and who the unjustly treated; i.e., just war. And (6) there is no such thing has having 'clean hands' so long as we participate in a country paying taxes, etc."
Thanks so much for these comments, Anton. I agree nearly 100% with the six points in your last paragraph.
DeleteA few minutes after Anton posted his comments, I received the following brief comment from Bruce Morgan, another local Thinking Friend:
ReplyDelete"I concur wholeheartedly. Thank you, Leroy."
And then just a few minutes later, I received these comments from Thinking Friend Andrew Bolton in England, where it was just past noon.
ReplyDelete"Thank you for this blog on Bonhoeffer. I have read Bonhoeffer’s 'Cost of Discipleship' twice – the second time I made copious notes. I think this is the best book on the Sermon on the Mount that I have ever read.
"It is commonly understood that Bonhoeffer was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. This is comforting to Lutherans and Anglicans who hold to the just war tradition, and they are keen to keep telling this story. However, I really appreciated the arguments of Mark Thiessen Nation et al. in "Bonhoeffer the Assassin?: Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking" (2013). The fact that Bonhoeffer had been in prison 15 months before the 1944 assassination attempt is important to note.
"Great picture and quote of Bonhoeffer about putting a spoke in the wheel of injustice. I think those protesting the war in Russia are doing just that. All our Russian church members that we have spoken to are against the war. One has been arrested for protesting. He was released and then was out the next day protesting."
Thanks so much, Andrew, for amplifying the point about Bonhoeffer's pacifism. I have not read any of "Bonhoeffer the Assassin?" but the new book by Nation I mentioned in the footnote further emphasizes the consistency of Bonhoeffer's position despite the widely held perception that he was directly involved in the attempt to assassinate Hitler.
DeleteIt is heartening to hear about the Bonhoeffer-like Russian Christians who are speaking out against Putin despite the danger of doing so.
Later I received another email from Andrew, which included this:
Delete"I have ordered the new book by Mark Thiessen Nation. I know him. He was at the London Mennonite Centre for a number of years here in Britain – a lovely man."
Here are noteworthy comments from Thinking Friend Jerry Summers, who wrote from a hotel in Arkansas on his way to Baylor University.
ReplyDeleteYou present an intriguing question that I need to think about before responding, though I am sure Bonhoeffer would see the confusion of Christianity and Nation—he surely saw its perils in Nazi Germany, where the tendency was in the national psyche at least since the 1850s.
Tomorrow afternoon I will present my paper at Baylor for the Biennial Conference on Faith and History meeting. Well, a 20-minute summary, you know how that goes. The title is “Hans P. Ehrenberg: Prophet for German Confessional Christianity.” I am really stretching for the ‘prophet’ bit as he is among many other things, an exhorter and theologian.
"It was HE who gathered friends, pastoral colleagues, to produce the Bochum Pentecost Confession in 1933, fully a year before the Barmen Declaration. Arguably, it was the first confession and in 1933 there were others independently composed and presented, presumably regionally and with varying emphases. Until lately or even now the Bethel Confession was considered my some the first. I was startled to learn about Bochum!"
And then a bit later, Dr. Summers sent these further comments:
"Also, Leroy, I see you used the term 'German Christians,' which works in our context, but in 1930s Germany the term referred to the Faith Movement of German Christians whose theology and ecclesiology tracked with the Nazis, and whom HE and Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church resisted. Something like that is going on with appropriation of the 'Evangelicals' today.
"And the trouble then was that in the Church Struggle all of the factions remained within the 'German Protestant Church.' — Brownshirts and all . . ."
Jerry, thanks for writing more about Hans Ehrenberg. (I think you mentioned him to me before, but I didn't pay much attention to him.) I have now read the Wikipedia article about him and some of the lengthy article at this website: https://jewinthepew.org/2020/06/03/4-june-1883-birth-of-hans-ehrenberg-pastor-philosopher-protester-against-injustice-and-anti-semitism-otdimjh/
DeleteI don't understand why Ehrenberg (1883~1958) is not more widely known--and am surprised that there is no reference to him in Charles Marsh's 500-page book "A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer" nor in Nation's new book introduced in my blog article. Your paper(s) on Ehrenberg and public presentations can perhaps help an important German pastor to become more widely known.
Thanks, too, for your comments about "German Christians." As you point out, those words can be used to mean "Christians in Germany" and inclusive of Christians of all kinds. But those words can (and often are) used as a translation of "Deutsche Christen," those "German Christians" who pledged their loyalty to the fatherland, and to Hitler. The Confessing Church of "German Christians" was organized in staunch opposition to the "Deutsche Christen," and I appreciate you helping to clarify this matter.
And your reference to Evangelicals ties in with what I was implying in the final part of my blog post. There are similarities, I think, between the American evangelicals who are promoting Christian nationalism--and allegiance to Donald Trump--and the "Deutsche Christen."
Then local Thinking Friend Bill Ryan sent these pertinent comments:
ReplyDelete"If Bonhoeffer were in Russia today, I believe he'd stand in opposition to the established Russian Orthodox Church leadership which reminds me of the 'German Christian' party which Hitler promoted as the National German Evangelical Church to support his cause (so thoroughly described in Arthur Cochrane's 'The Church's Confession under Hitler,' Westminster Press, 1962). Bonhoeffer, et al., opposed the 'German Christian' movement. In Rusia today, Patriarch Kirill (aka Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev) supports the war against Ukraine as a struggle to defend human civilization. Patriarch Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', has been the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church since 2009. I'm sure he has a strong alliance with Putin.
"I've been re-reading Bonhoeffer's 'Ethics'--a book he never finished--and find a strong emphasis on building Christian community where people respect each other."
Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago shares the following significant comments:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for your remarks about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a very courageous man and martyr. His book, "The Cost of Discipleship," has become a Christian classic and it should be read by everyone, both Christians and non-Christians.
"One religious tragedy of the war in Ukraine is that the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, the Patriarch and Bishop of Moscow and all-Russia, is a proponent of the unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia. His support is motivated by the establishment of a separate Ukrainian autocephalous patriarchate in 2019, putting the Ukrainian patriarch on the same level as Kirill, who had previously included Ukraine under his jurisdiction. This has divided the Orthodox church with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, who granted the autocephalous status, and the Greek and Egyptian churches supporting the Ukrainian church. The other autocephalous churches have withheld their support for the time being.
"This is sad. Kirill should have welcomed the independent status of the Ukrainian church with the open arms of a brother, but even more importantly, he should be loudly condemning the brutal invasion of Ukraine. Where are his Christian principles? Vladimir Putin has no Christian principles. He strongly opposed a separate autocephalous church in Ukraine because it reinforces the fact that Ukrainians are not Russians; they have their own sense of identity and culture as Ukrainians.
"Putin says the purpose of the invasion is to de-Nazify Ukraine, which has a Jewish president. What needs to be de-Nazified is the Kremlin.
"Peace, and may it come soon to the suffering people of Ukraine."
Eric, I really appreciate your writing about Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. I had hoped to read more about him and his support of Putin and to write something about him and that support in the blog article but didn't, so your comments were a helpful supplement to what I did write.
Delete[Earlier today I posted the following comments--but I inadvertently wrote "Glenn Bonhoeffer" instead of "Glenn Hinson"!]
ReplyDeleteAnd here are brief comments from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
"You raise a difficult question, Leroy. I think you arrived at the only answer we can give: Follow Jesus whatever the cost. I doubt whether he would be a pacifist, however. He was a counselor of those who plotted to assassinate Hitler."
If I followed all the comments, it seems there is strong agreement if not consensus that the correct action is to not resist the Russians other than by speaking up against their actions. My perception of Russia is not resisting is acceptable, but speaking against Putin is not and is punishable by jail. So you are really saying you want (because God wants you) to spend time in jail and maybe martyred like Bonhoeffer. I am not sure what I would do, but I can certainly understand why Ukrainians who live right next to Russia and are fully aware of what life in Russia is like do not want to live under Russian rule.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Dennis. As you see in my article, I said I do not know what Bonhoeffer would do if he were in Ukraine now, for the situation there is much different from it was in Germany where he lived. I did indicate that I thought if he were living in Russia now he would be leading a resistance movement against Putin and those Russians who are supporting his war of choice (and his war crimes). But for those of us who live in the U.S., Bonhoeffer's words and example call us to speak out against those who are threatening democracy in this country and who are opposed to the civil and human rights of women and people identified as BIPOC or LGBTQ as well as the many who are trying to eke out an existence while living below the poverty line.
ReplyDeleteThank you Leroy. I agree with what we should be doing now, especially one on one because I do not want my silence to be perceived as agreement. Speaking of the U.S., there was a Washington Post columnist reprinted in the KC Star yesterday stating that Biden's defense budget increase of 4% is not enough. He prefers McConnell's 5% over inflation, which would be a 13% increase this year. As someone that thinks that portion of the budget is already too high, even 4% seems like too much. I will grant him his argument that the budget has been spent in the wrong places and must be redirected, so why not do that? He believes that misdirection goes back to Bush's war on terrorism and must quickly be caught up so simultaneous battles with China and Russia can be fought, or at least avoided because the U.S. would be too strong for them. That is scary thinking to me, but certainly great for the defense contractors, and why support for the impoverished is always a battle of priorities. I would appreciate some pacifist influence, or what I would call diplomacy.
DeleteI have just run across an article titled "Bonhoeffer's Non-Commitment to Nonviolence" by Michael P. DeJonge. It was published in the June 2016 issue of "Journal of Religious Ethics." (Here is the link to the abstract: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jore.12146?campaign=woletoc .)
ReplyDeleteIn his new book, Mark Nation directly rebuts the charges DeJonge made that he and Stanley Hauerwas misrepresented Bonhoeffer.
A fine article and an interesting thought experiment. What would Bonhoeffer do in Russia? As a German national, he would most likely have left by now. He would find it challenging to conduct his activities in the current environment. He would definitely be on the side of those who oppose the "special operation."
ReplyDeleteWhat if Bonhoeffer were Russian? He would not be the Bonhoeffer we know. The experience of growing up in Russia would impact his theology substantially.
Thanks, Dr. Shirin, for posting your comments here; I much appreciate you doing that.
DeleteI was thinking what would Bonhoeffer do if he were a Ukrainian living in Ukraine (and I don't know how to answer that question) or if he were a Russian living in Russia. So I was especially interested in your second paragraph. I wonder how you think growing up in Russia would have impacted his theology "substantially"?
As a Russian, he could have, theoretically, gone to Union Theological Seminary--and also been influenced by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in much the same way, I would think, that the German Bonhoeffer did and was. But mainly, Bonhoeffer was influenced by his reading of the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount. And that, I assume, could have been very similar if he had been Russian. In spite of distinct differences, it seems to me that there are also similarities in the Christian convictions of Bonhoeffer and Tolstoy. (In Malcolm Muggeridge's book "A Third Testament," 1976, the sixth chapter is about Tolstoy and the seventh, and last, chapter about Bonhoeffer.)
Communists, rather than Putin, might be a better historical analogy with Hitler. Both Commies and Hitler were totalitarian, both quickly tightened their grip on society where they gained control, and both tried to control Protestant churches. Putin is authoritarian rather than totalitarian, and he did not try to control Protestant churches.
ReplyDeleteWith that in mind, it's telling that there were no Bonhoeffer-like figure among Russian Protestants in the Soviet Union.
Commies did control Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) via KGB. ROC has a long standing tradition of Symphonia, or cooperation with the state, and that provided road map for Orthodox in the Soviet Union. There was a push back from some Orthodox, Alexander Solzhenitsyn among them. But there are significant differences between him and Bonhoeffer.
Had Bonhoeffer been born in Russia in, say, late 1970s, and raised Christian, he would likely come to Union seminary with reflexive aversion to the left (like that of John Paul II). So, I am not sure how much he would agree with his Union professors, or whether Union would be a good fit for him at all. And if the Russian Bonhoeffer were a part of the Council of Churches ECB (to my mind, the closest analogy to the Confessing Church in the Soviet Union), he would not go to study overseas, as CC ECB did not encourage such studies.
I am not familiar with Muggeridge's book, so cannot comment on that.
Here are valuable comments by Thinking Friend (and my former student) Yamada Tetsuya (山田哲也) in Japan. I am not taking time at this point to translate his comments but am posting them in Japanese for my blog readers in Japan.
ReplyDelete「ボンフェッファーは、20世紀の殉教者である。」という方もおられますが、私はそういう風にボンフェッファーを捉えていません。彼は、キリスト模倣主義者（自分がイエス・キリストのように生きることが、キリストの弟子の務めと考えるキリスト論の持ち主）ではなかったのか？と考えています。
何故かというと、バルメン宣言の起草者であり、告白教会の一員であったカール・バルトが、「ボンフェッファーよ、ドイツから亡命した方がいいぞ」と忠告しているにもかかわらず、ボンフェッファーは、「母国ドイツを私が守る」と言い張り、その結果、ナチのゲシュタポに捕らえられ、処刑されてしまったのではないかと私は考えるからです。
それに較べて、カール・バルトは、ヒットラーへの宣誓書にサインすることを拒絶し、その結果、スイスに追放されることにはなりましたが、バルトは、ボンフェッファーのキリスト論とは異なるキリスト中心主義者（イエス・キリストこそ、この地上に現れた神であり、我々人間は、あのナザレのイエスの聖霊の導きによって、真のキリストの弟子となることが出来るというキリスト論）であったと私は思うのです。
ですから、シィート先生へのリクエストとして、「もし、現代にバルトが生きていたら、何を語り、いかに行動するか？」という記事を書いて頂けないものかなあと私は思いました。
勝手なボンフェッファー解釈と、私流のバルト理解からくるリクエストですが、私だけでなく、他のこのシィート先生のブログを読んでいる人たちも望んでいることではないかと、私は思います。
最後に、今、戦時下にあるウクライナの地にこそ、主イエス・キリストは共にいらっしゃると私は思います。「いと小さき者と共に生きて下さるイエス・キリスト！」、これこそ現代のキリスト論の入り口ではないかと私は思います。
山田さん、貴重な感想を書いて下さって、ありがとうございます。以下、日本語が読めない方のために英語で書かせていただきます。
DeleteYou asked what I thought Karl Barth would say and do if he were alive today. As you know, he and Bonhoeffer were both active in the Confessing Church from its beginning in 1934. Bonhoeffer, who was 20 years younger than Barth, first met Barth and became friends with him in 1931. Barth, who was Swiss, was deported from Germany in 1935 after he refused to sign the Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler and went back to Switzerland and became a professor in the University of Basel. Bonhoeffer was a German, so he spent the rest of his short life there (with some brief travels to other countries, including the U.S.).
If Barth were alive today and still living in Switzerland, I assume he would continue to do what he did during the years following his return to his native country in 1935: do research, write, and proclaim the importance of God's Word and of following Jesus Christ as Lord.