Heroes and Reformers of History … No. 5

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER: A MAN FOR OTHERS

While in the title we identify Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a man for others he could be identified several other ways, such as a modem martyr, since he was executed by the Nazis as a leader of the Confessing Church in Germany which opposed Hitler almost from the beginning of his despotic rule. Or the term “Cheap Grace,” which he coined, would point to his concern that the church has compromised the gospel of the grace of God by lack of any real commitment. Or if I used but one word, discipleship, it would go far in summarizing both Bonhoeffer’s life and thought.

Jesus Christ was at the center of Bonhoeffer’s heart, thought, and action. He often referred to his Lord as “The Man For Others,” and he followed Jesus with such devotion and commitment that his friends came to see that descriptive phrase as applicable to him as well. So, Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a man for others is our hero and reformer for this installment. He is a hero because he willingly laid down his life for his faith, for his country, and for the church. He is a reformer, particularly in theological thought, in that he sought to give deeper meaning to the basics of the faith, especially for the rank and file of the church.

The thing that impresses me most about Bonhoeffer is that even though he had followed the advice of American friends by fleeing the hostility of Hitler and finding refuge in this country, he could not bear to leave the church’s struggle against Nazism for others to fight alone, so he returned to Germany to what he must have known was certain death. And the peace and resignation with which he faced death is one of the great stories of martyrdom in the history of the church. Near the end when death was imminent he might have escaped, his friends having arranged it, but he let the chance pass lest he endanger his family. One of his brothers had been arrested for conspiracy in an attempt on the life of Hitler.

Those who saw Bonhoeffer die report that he faced the gallows with such an exemplary faith that that alone was enough to convince one of the claims of the Christian hope. Shortly before the War’s end, even when the advancing Allies’ big guns could be heard in the distance, Hitler in his madness still had to wreak vengeance on his presumed conspirators. So on April 3, 1945 two men approached Dietrich’s open cell at an extermination camp in the Bavarian forest and said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us.” All the prisoners knew what that meant. He moved quickly to place certain mementos and instructions in the hands of friends. One note was to an old friend, a bishop of the church in England, which read: “This is the end —for me the beginning of life.”

The German camp doctor who witnessed his execution afterwards wrote: “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” He penned this account:

“Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds.”

He was only 39. A month later Nazi Germany fell.

Born in Breslau, Germany in 1906 of gifted parents (His father was a professor at the U. of Berlin), Dietrich was exposed to excellence in his youth. Noted scholars, such as Adolf von Harnack (church history) and Ernst Troeltsch (philosophy), were frequent guests in his home. Yet his home was not all that religious, and when he decided at 16 to enter the ministry his parents were indifferent and his brothers opposed it. When his brothers complained that he would waste his life with a vacuous and ineffective church, Dietrich replied, “If the Church is feeble, I shall reform it.” It may have been an unduly bold remark for a youth, but it presaged his stormy and tragic life in the church.

He made his way through Tuebingen and Berlin universities in a breeze, precocious and independent. In class he would politely challenge the revered von Harnack to the amazement of his fellow classmates. He presented his doctoral thesis when only 21, which Karl Barth, who became both a friend and admirer, described as “a theological miracle.” He worked for awhile as an assistant pastor of a German-speaking church in Barcelona, Spain where he related so well with the common folk that the church was resurrected in spirit and doubled in size. At 23 he presented his inaugural dissertation to the U. of Berlin and was given a faculty position teaching Systematic Theology.

Before launching his academic career in his native Germany he came to America to study for a year at Union Theological Seminary in New York, which left him unimpressed with American theology. He was amazed that the students had so little interest in real theology, and, being a Lutheran, he was particularly puzzled that they would laugh in class when Luther was quoted on sin and forgiveness. But he was impressed with their concern for the poor and needy, and he shared in some of the efforts to relieve some of these problems. While in New York he became aware of America’s racial problem and for a time attended a large black church and visited with blacks in Harlem. These are experiences that he afterwards shared with the youth in Germany.

While in America he was asked one question, not by a professor but by a student from France, that moved his life in a different direction: “Do we believe in the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of the Saints?” His French friend insisted that one can’t be a Christian and a nationalist at the same time. From that time on Bonhoeffer became interested in the church universal, and while he had been critical of the Ecumenical Movement he now became involved in its work. He eventually served as international youth secretary for Germany and central Europe for the World Council of Churches. He is today honored as one of the “Men of Unity” in the history of the Ecumenical Movement. Stephen Neill wrote a book by that title in which he has a chapter on Bonhoeffer along with the likes of John R. Mott, William Temple, and Pope John XXIII as heroes of ecumenicity. Too few churches today have men of unity in their ranks.

Soon after Bonhoeffer returned to his post at the U. of Berlin Hitler came to power. It was about this time that Bonhoffer gave his noted lecture on “The Church Is Dead” in which he called for renewal, commitment, and discipleship, themes that eventually made him an influential theologian. Another theme was the worldliness of Christianity in which he contended that the church must get out in the street and the business world and minister to people where they are. The church must become a suffering church, one that knows something of the cost of discipleship. It is ironic that it was the rise of Hitler and Nazism that created a special place for the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for Hitler forced the German church to decide whom it would serve, the Third Reich or Jesus Christ.

The commitment and discipleship that Bonhoeffer talked about in such persuasive language found their fulfillment in Nazi prisons and extermination camps for millions of Christians. While the world has properly not been allowed to forget that Hitler killed millions of Jews, it is a little known fact that millions of Christians died for their faith during the Nazi era.

There were two churches in Germany in those days: the “German Christians” were those who supported Hitler; the “Confessing Church” were those who insisted that they had but one Fuehrer, Jesus Christ, and they opposed Hitler’s evil designs, which they detected early on. Dietrich, still a young man, was a driving force in the Confessing Church —“Confessing” came to mean witnessing for one’s faith, even unto martyrdom. Surely the faith of the Confessing Church in Germany is one of the great chapters in the history of the church. After Hitler blew his brains out in his fortress bunker “the faith of our fathers” burned on in the hearts of millions of Germans, many of whom prayed for their Nazi persecutors in prisons and concentration camps. We can believe that among Dietrich’s last petitions to the Father was, like his Lord’s, forgiveness for those who murdered him. He was, by the way, a great believer in intercessory prayer, which he saw as vital for the renewal and unity of the church. No one can long hate the person for whom he often prays, he insisted.

While Dietrich was a pacifist, he modified his position to the extent that he could collaborate in an effort to assassinate Hitler. He was serving in the Abwehr (Intelligence Service) at the time, and there were those in the German High Command who wanted to eliminate Hitler and sue for peace with the Allies. Several elaborate plans were carried out in an effort to kill Hitler but they all failed. When the Abwehr’s secret files were found by the Nazis, executions abounded. Hitler delayed the execution of some of them, including Bonhoeffer, in hopes that torture would extract still more names of conspirators. It was a gruesome two years of imprisonment for Dietrich. Then came execution day, which was his “V Day.”

He was engaged to be married at the time of his imprisonment. His fiance visited him monthly. She and other of his loved ones did not know what had happened to him until some months after the War was over. The leaders of the Confessing Church announced that if Protestants canonized saints as does the Roman church that Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be a saint.

Bonhoeffer forged much of his theology in the fires of the underground resistance movement, in a secret seminary that trained ministers for the Confessing Church, and while in prison awaiting execution. His theology therefore has a ring of urgency. Faith, repentance, baptism, commitment, discipleship, the church as community are all vital terms in his thinking. And Jesus Christ is the heart of it all. Some of his writings that were smuggled out of prison continue to influence the church today, including Roman Catholic seminaries who see in Bonhoeffer the one Protestant theologian who really understood the catholicity of the church. Roman Catholics also appreciate his grasp of the church as the community where Christ is gathered with his people.

In my reading of the great souls of the church I always watch for the Scriptures that influenced them most. One of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s favorite passages was Is. 55:11: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

It may have been raining at 5:00 a.m. that cold April morning when Dietrich was summoned from his cell for the walk to the gallows. His favorite passage may well have come to mind, which is introduced by “As the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and waters the earth and causes it to bring forth and bud.” I can see drops of rain on his forehead as he knelt before the gallows to pray for the last time. Even as he prayed the rain fell gently on the dark shirt that he wore, dressed for execution. As he took those last steps he could remember that God’s word is like the rain, “So shall My word be . . . It shall not return unto Me void. . . but it shall accomplish what I please.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s word for us is that while God’s grace is free it is not cheap. There is a cost to discipleship. It may even cost us our lives. But he learned in the caldron that was Nazi Germany that he who loses his life shall find it. —the Editor
 
 
 

Give me the hope that will deliver me from fear and faintheartedness. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer