As a Bonhoeffer scholar, I am often asked about how his life experiences can be instructive for us today. The question is usually focused on Bonhoeffer’s actions in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and on the ethical question of whether Bonhoeffer did the right thing in his involvement as a double agent in that conspiracy.
I understand this question and why people ask it, as it is an interesting question to ponder. But I don’t think the focus on “Bonhoeffer as ethical case study” is the most fruitful way to approach his example for us today. Rather, I believe that the most instructive part of Bonhoeffer’s witness is his engagement with the German church in the mid-1930’s, when he challenged the church’s attempts to defend its own power in society. Though I am reluctant to make the “Nazi” comparison, as it is too often thrown out as an accusation that shuts down conversation and the opportunity to learn, I do think that Bonhoeffer’s experience with the church in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s can give us insight into our task and calling today as God’s people. This experience can help us to see how the American church has been captured by the idolatrous project of self-protection, and the theological perversion that creates that project.
A little historical context: Hitler came to power in January of 1933, and immediately began consolidating his authority across German society. In doing this, he set out to Nazify the church by having pro-Nazi bishops and pastors appointed. Many in the church resisted this, as it was a violation of the Lutheran theology of the Two Kingdoms, which declared that the Church and the State were understood to have authority in their own spheres. According to Luther, God ruled the world through the Church, which he called the Kingdom of his right hand, and the State, which he called the Kingdom of his left hand. As such, it was understood that the Church and the State had authority under God, but that these were separate spheres of authority, not to be confused. When Hitler used his power to appoint pro-Nazi church leaders, many church leaders resisted, forming a group ultimately called the Confessing Church, which opposed the group called the German Christians, the Nazified church that rallied around Hitler.
It’s easy to think, then, that the Confessing Church were the good guys who resisted the Nazis and the German Christians were the bad guys who didn’t. But it’s not that simple. Many in the Confessing Church did not oppose Hitler or his policies. In fact, many viewed him as the one whom God had raised up in order to restore Germany to her rightful place of glory, which was, in their mind, cruelly stripped away by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which laid full blame for WWI on Germany, and also strapped the country with massive debt due to war reparations. Germany had lost its glory, and God raised up Hitler to be His instrument to restore that glory.
So, if many in the Confessing Church weren’t against Hitler and Nazism, what were they against? To put it quite simply: They were against losing power. They were against losing their place in society, a place they believed was marked out for them by God. They resisted Hitler’s transgression of the boundaries laid out according to the Two Kingdoms theology, even as many cheered on Hitler’s project of restoring German greatness. Their theology declared that they would have a prominent and powerful role in society, and when they felt that their power was being challenged, they pushed back, but their theology also allowed them to view Hitler as an instrument of God to establish the country in glory.
Bonhoeffer saw that the church's defense of its power was rooted in a theological perversion that was keeping the church from her true calling to be present in the world. Rather than being a community who was committed to serving through weakness, the church was theologically rooted in a viewpoint that convinced her that power was her rightful inheritance. For Bonhoeffer, the Church Struggle (“Kirchenkampf”) caused him to reflect deeply on the Jesus’s call to follow Him, and to stress in his classic work “Discipleship” that the call of Christ is the call to cross-bearing, a call that fundamentally reorients our relation to the powers of the world.
Cross-bearing is not merely a statement about the “spirituality” of individual Christians, but rather is a declaration of the church's call to be present in the world; the church is called to be weak according to the categories of the world, and this weakness is essential to our witness to Christ. As those who are Jesus’s disciples, we are called to walk with Him by walking in His weakness, following the one who did not hold onto the power that was His as the Second Person of the Trinity, but rather became an obedient servant in the weakness of human flesh. For Bonhoeffer, this means that the church is to walk in the way of Jesus by refusing to seek the places of power in the world (which Jesus consistently refused), instead laying down our strivings for power in order that we might demonstrate the weakness of Christ crucified, through which salvation has come to the world.
Bonhoeffer’s experience in the 1930’s sheds light on the American church’s experience today: The American church has subscribed to a vision of Christianity that is deeply embedded in a nationalist theology that has falsely shaped the church to expect a place of power in society, a place that we have sought to secure through the powers of this world, placing confidence in political leaders who will protect us from those forces that threaten our power and our values. Sensing that this power is under threat, the church has too readily committed itself to the battle of protecting our position. In doing this, we have been blinded to the serious theological perversion that occurs when the church is focused on preserving power, a theological perversion that shapes us to be a presence on earth that is the opposite of Jesus's presence. Rather than following on the path that he walked, which was the way of renouncing worldly powers and principalities that are set in opposition to God’s rule, we have instead committed to a struggle of maintaining our power in the society that we believe should be built in our image and for our protection, believing this is our theological inheritance. This perversion has shaped the church to be one ideological interest group doing battle with others for supremacy, and adopting an acerbic and combative presence that demeans and defiles our witness to Jesus’s Peaceable Kingdom.
In the great pastoral and theological task that faces the American church in the years to come, we must untangle ourselves from the false promises of false theologies that have shaped us to believe that we are guaranteed power and a society that protects us and our "values." We are being called to bear the cross, allowing cross-bearing to shape our understanding of our call to be present in the world. To accomplish this, we will need courageous pastors who will recognize our theological perversions, repent of them, call them out, and preach the cross of Christ, even if, as it will, it offends. The church has been trained to believe in a God who wills our success, who promises us earthly triumph, who guarantees our power. But this is not the God revealed on the cross; it is this God to whom we are called to be faithful.
Joel Lawrence is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastor Theologians. He previously served as the Senior Pastor of Central Baptist Church in St. Paul, MN and as a Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the St. Anselm Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
