WWBD (What Would Bonhoeffer Do?)

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. 

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1933)

What Did Bonhoeffer Do in Germany?

On the 110^th 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 if he were 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.

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* 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.

Honoring the Memory of Bonhoeffer

Although I have long admired him greatly, quoted him in sermons and chapel talks, and included him in university/seminary lectures, up until now I have not written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in any of my previous blog articles (and this is my 499^th one).

Today, though, on the 110^th anniversary of his birth on February 4, 1906, I am happy to post this article in honor of Bonhoeffer’s memory.

As most of you probably know, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis in a German prison in April 1945, just weeks before the end of WWII in Europe. He was 39 years old, the same age as Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on an April evening 23 years later.

Bonhoeffer was born into an upper middle-class family and could easily have become a medical doctor or a lawyer. Instead, he chose to become a pastor and a theologian. And then he chose to become one of the leaders among the small percentage of Christians in Germany who stood up in opposition to Hitler and the Nazis.

Before Hitler’s rise to power, though, Bonhoeffer spent the academic year of 1930-31 as a student and teaching fellow at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For six months during that year he regularly attended the Abyssinian Baptist Church and sat under the preaching of Pastor Adam Clayton Powell (1865-1953).

Bonhoeffer, who turned 25 during the year he was in New York, was significantly influenced by his experience of attending that predominantly African American church in Harlem.

In January 1933 Adolf Hitler, Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Bonhoeffer, who was still just 26 at that time, soon began to oppose the fascism of Hitler and 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 Confession in 1934. They sought to make it clear that Jesus Christ was the Führer, their leader and the head of the Church, not Hitler.

Later that year, Bonhoeffer went to London to become pastor of a German-speaking church there. In 1935, though, he returned to Germany to become the head of the Confessing Church’s seminary.

In September 1937 that seminary in Finkenwalde was closed by the Gestapo and by November, 27 pastors and former students of Bonhoeffer were arrested.

That same November, Bonhoeffer published his most widely read book, Nachfolge (“following after”), which in 1949 was published in English as The Cost of Discipleship. In it Bonhoeffer sought to elucidate what following Jesus really means.

 

The first chapter of the book is titled “Costly Grace,” and there Bonhoeffer rejects what he terms “cheap grace.” That term was one he had heard in New York. Before Bonhoeffer was born, Rev. Powell had used the phrase “cheap grace” to refer to the dominant forms of religion that tolerated racism, sexism, and lynching in one form or another.

For Bonhoeffer, “cheap grace” was what he saw among the “German Christians” who accepted Hitler’s fascism. But he came to see that for him discipleship meant to stand up for the Jews and to oppose Hitler—and he even joined in plotting to kill Hitler in order to save Jewish lives.

Because of his anti-Nazi activities, Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned in April 1943. Two years later he was executed.

Bonhoeffer wrote in Nachfolge, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That, indeed, was the cost of discipleship for him.