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.

_____

* 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.

Praying For and Opposing the President

So, what do we who are not conservative, white “evangelical” Christians do now that DJT is President? That is not an easy question to answer.

HOW DO WE PRAY?

I have found it hard to know how to pray with integrity for President Trump. Certainly I am not going to pray an imprecatory prayer, as some did for President Obama.

(If you don’t know what I am talking about, see this article in The Atlantic about David Perdue and his June 2016 prayer; he happens to be the first cousin of Sonny Perdue, Trump’s nominee for the Secretary of Agriculture.)

On the other hand, I find it hard to pray, “Bless President Trump.” Conservative USAmerican Christians make much of Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Tim. 2:2a, which says “Pray for kings and everyone who is in authority . . . .”—and I have seen references to those Bible passages in the past few days.

But what about the German Christians and the Japanese Christians in the 1930s and ’40s? They have often, and rightly, been criticized for not opposing their countries’ fascist leaders for whom they prayed.

Don’t misunderstand what I am saying: I am not comparing DJT with Hitler or Tojo, who was the Japanese prime minister from 1941 to 1944. Neither is praying for a country’s leader the same as approving everything that that leader does.

But it is difficult to know how to pray for and to oppose/resist a political leader at the same time.

WHY DO WE OPPOSE?

Some are saying, though, that the opposition to Trump is much the same as the opposition to Obama over the past eight years—and that those who didn’t like the way Republicans treated Obama shouldn’t support Democrat’s negative treatment of Trump.

The Kansas City Star editorial on Jan. 21 said, “Having criticized GOP resistance to Obama, we can hardly encourage similar resistance to Trump.”

But are they the same? In an online response, I wrote that “there is little similarity between the reason Pres. Obama was criticized and the many reasons DJT is being criticized.”

The massive anti-Trump marches last Saturday were not mainly partisan in nature. They were protests against threats to freedom, civility, inclusion, etc. 

A picture I took of a protester in Kansas City on Jan. 20.

WHEN DO WE OPPOSE?

There have been numerous calls for giving the new President a chance. On the one hand, that is probably not a bad idea. Much of the protest and negative things that have been said about DJT are based on fear of what might happen rather than on the basis of what has already happened.

On the other hand, the protest and negative statements against Trump are based on what he has said over the past year and a half. As the latest issue of The Economist says, there is “enough information . . . to take a view of what kind of person Mr Trump is.”

The historic Women’s March last Saturday was largely an attempt to protect women’s rights before the new President gives orders or the new Congress passes bills depriving them of those rights. As hard as it may be, it is still easier to keep things from happening than to change them after they are done.

In considering when to resist, consider the following prayer by Duke Divinity School Professor William H. Willimon’s prayer offered on MLK Day last Monday:

Lord, forgive the sin of our patience. Anoint us with a fresh spirit of impatience, that we might be half as angry over political injustice and human meanness as you are, and that, in our impatience, we might be given the guts to do something about it. Amen.

Happy New Year of Resistance

Not many hours from now, the world will welcome in a new year, 2017. At midnight, when I intend to be fast asleep, people at parties and in public places will be exclaiming, Happy New Year! For people in Japan and other parts of Asia, that will already have happened by the time this is posted.

So, I join in wishing you a Happy New Year! But especially to those of you in the U.S. and of like mind, my greeting is this: Happy New Year of Resistance! 

Concerns about the Trump Administration 

Soon after the presidential election in November, several times I said, Things won’t be as bad as most of Trump’s strongest opponents think, but they will be a lot worse than most of his supporters think. I still believe that will prove to be the case. 

But given the PEOTUS’s picks for his closest advisors and his Cabinet, many things may be pretty bad—especially for discriminated-against people and for the environment.

Concerns about Trump’s Nominees

Many people are justifiably considered these nominees/appointees, such as the following:

Rex Tillerson – Nominee for Secretary of State – CEO of ExxonMobil and with close ties to Vladimir Putin as well as with large financial interests in countries around the world.

Jeff Sessions – Nominee for Attorney General – Senator from Alabama who has a long history of opposition to civil rights and was once blocked from a judgeship because of racist statements.

Andy Puzder – Nominee for Secretary of Labor – CEO of CKE Restaurants; among other things, he is an opponent of raising the minimum wage.

Rick Perry – Nominee for Secretary of the Department of Energy – Even though he temporary forgot the name of it, in a Republican primary debate in 2011 Perry said he wanted to do away with the DoE.

Betsy DeVos – Nominee for Secretary of Education – Businesswoman who advocates private schools; her support for vouchers, including for Christian schools, is a threat to the separation of church and state.

Scott Pruitt – Nominee for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; he wrote in a May 2016 article that the global warming debate “is far from settled.” He adds, “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”

Steve Bannon – Appointed as Trump’s Chief Strategist; until recently he was executive chair of Breitbart News, which he claimed was the platform of the Internet-based alt-right.

Leading the resistance

There are various groups working on resisting problems that will probably become explicit under the new Administration. The Sojourners, a group I have learned from and supported for 45 years, is one such group. I encourage you to take a look at this article: “10 Commitments of Resistance in the Trump Era.” 

Two of the best books I have read this year are by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers, pastor of the Mayflower Congregational UCC Church in Oklahoma City. His stimulating book The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus was published in 2012.

Meyer’s book Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance was published last year. It was based on his Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School in 2013.

Those two books were written before the Nov. 2016 election, of course, but they are especially relevant now.

I also recommend careful consideration of “Joining the resistance: A 100-day counter-agenda for the Church” (see here) by Rev. Dr. Cody Sanders, pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Massachusetts.

These are but a few of the individuals/groups leading efforts of resistance to injustice and the political misuse of power. Let’s join together in this important endeavor. 

Happy New Year of Resistance!