A question on Bonhoeffer's religion

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[Chad Fairbanks]

He was in what was referred to as "The Confessing Church". but I had always thought him to be some form of Lutheran...

[AnnaZ]

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1906-1945

Dietrich Bonhoeffer--along with his twin sister, Sabine--was born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, Germany. Later a student in Tubingen, Berlin, and at Union Theological Seminary in New York -- as well as a participant in the European ecumenical movement-- Bonhoeffer became known as one of the few figures of the 1930s with a comprehensive grasp of both German- and English-language theology. His works resonate with a prescience, subtlety, and maturity that continually belies the youth of their author.

He wrote his dissertation, Sanctorum Communio, at the end of three years at the University of Berlin (1924-1927) and was awarded his doctorate with honors. Act and Being, his Habilitationsschrift, or qualifying thesis allowing him to teach at the University of Berlin, was accepted in July 1930. The following year, 1930-1931, Bonhoeffer spent a postgraduate year at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He assumed his post as a lecturer in theology at the University of Berlin in August 1931. In the winter semester 1931-1932 Bonhoeffer presented the lectures that were published as Creation and Fall. His final lecture courses at Berlin--published as Christ the Center--along with a seminar on the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, were taught in the summer of 1933. His authorization to teach on the faculty of the University of Berlin was finally withdrawn on August 5, 1936.

Bonhoeffer served as a curate for a German congregation in Barcelona during 1929-1930. Following his ordination at St. Matthias Church, Berlin, in November 1931, he was to help organize the Pastors' Emergency League in September 1933, prior to asssuming the pastorate of the German Evangelical Church, Sydenham, and the Reformed Church of St. Paul in London. During his sojourn in England, Bonhoeffer became a close friend and confidant of the influential Anglican Bishop, George Bell. After the Confessing Church was organized in May 1934 at Barmen, Germany, Bonhoeffer returned from England in the spring of 1935 to assume leadership of the Confessing Church's seminary at Zingst by the Baltic Sea--a school relocated later that year to Finkenwalde in Pomerania. Out of the experiences at Finkenwalde emerged his two well-known books, The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, as well as his lesser known writings on pastoral ministry such as Spiritual Care. His work to prepare pastors in the Confessing Church continued all the way to 1939.

Bonhoeffer's early travel to Rome, his curacy in Barcelona, and his post-doctoral year in New York (including regular work at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, as well as travel to Cuba and Mexico), opened Bonhoeffer to the ecumenical church. In 1931 he as appointed youth secretary of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches, and in 1934 he became a member of the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work. At conferences throughout Europe he vigorously represented the cause of the Confessing Church and challenged the ecumenical movement about its theological foundations and its responsibility for peace.

Bonhoeffer's theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism first made him a leader, along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church (bekennende Kirche), and an advocate on behalf of the Jews. Indeed, his efforts to help a group of Jews escape to Switzerland were what first led to his arrest and imprisonment in the spring 1943. His leadership in the anti-Nazi Confessing Church and his participation in the Abwehr resistance circle (beginning in February 1938) make his works a unique source for understanding the interaction of religion, politics, and culture among those few Christians who actively opposed National Socialism, as is particularly evident in his drafts for a posthumously published Ethics. His thought provides not only an example of intellectual preparation for the reconstruction of German society after the war but also a rare insight into the vanishing social and academic world that had preceded it.

Bonhoeffer was also a spiritual writer, a musician, and an author of fiction and poetry. The integrity of his Christian faith and life, and the international appeal of his writings, have led to a broad consensus that he is the one theologian of his time to lead future generations of Christians into the new millenium.

He was hanged in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, one of four members of his immediate family to die at the hands of the Nazi regime for their participation in the small Protestant resistance movement. The letters he wrote during these final two years of his life were posthumously published by his student and friend, Eberhard Bethge, as Letters and Papers from Prison. His correspondence with his fiance, Maria von Wedermeyer, has been published as Love Letters from Cell92.

Also See Christian History, Glimpses, #63

 

[Mon]

What I know of he was "Evangelisch" which is Lutheran in English. Most Germans were/still are either lutheran or catholic.

[MEG33]

I did some googling once on him and think you may find some answers there.

[cookcounty]

Everybody wants to claim him. I'm sure there's even some Bhuddists out there claiming he's one of their own.

Read the "Cost of Discipleship."

I don't think he was, in the beginning, a German pastor with a high view of Scripture (the German church was the most "liberal" in Europe----which is another story). But as he faced the reality of evil, he fled away, into a moment-by-moment faith in God, that one has to admire, whether he crossed all the evangelical "t's" or dotted all the "i's" , I don't think so. But he understood his absolute dependence upon God. I doubt there were many discussions of "young-earth cosmology" in the camps.

[fqued]

Bonhoffer wrote one of the great expositions of the Sermon on the Mount in which he developed the concept of "cheap grace" as opposed to actually trying to live the Christian Life.
Back in my college days, our Christian Fellowship studied this book. I was quite impressed.

So, yes, D.B. would be considered an Evangelical, though he might not share some of the wishy-washiness of modern American Protestantism.

He is, in my opinion a great Christian thinker, theologian, and one who grappled with how a Biblical Christianity should be lived out in the world.

[elbucko]

Thanks for posting that. Very interesting.

[beckett]

Here's a piece on him at First Things.

[swilhelm73]

He created the Confessing Church, IIRC, because he was upset that the German churches were not facing up to Hitler, and even willing to let the NAZIs change Christianity into a pagan/Christian fusion to suit their ends...

But what I am trying to get at is his specific religious views. Basically, from what I've read he was the equivalent of the American 'religious right' for his time and place, but I'd like a more diffenitive anaylsis then just my own conjecture.

Basically, over on NRO, Goldberg has a snippet sent to him from some bubblehead claiming Hitler was a Christian fundmentalist. I'd like to show not only that he wasn't...but that in fact the then equivalent of such in Germany were his primary domestic opponents...

[Chad Fairbanks]

I always thought taht Hitler and his cronies were Odinists...

[cornelis]

Liberal protestantism gets a lot of mileage out of D.B. in their colleges.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

besides being willing to stand up for Christianity in the face of NAZI atheism and attempted pagan/Christian fusion.

Exactly what is happening in the US and world today. Did you see that the "Bible as Hate Speech Bill" passed today in Canada? The Koran tells believers to kill Christians and Jews, but that somehow gets overlooked in the rush to condemn Christianity for it's stand on Homosexuality.

[Kevin Curry]

Bonhoeffer's theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism . . .

You could learn much from the life and death of this great man about standing resolute and refusing an easy accomodation with evil for the sake of short-term power and security.

[185JHP]

Please read "The Shame and the Sacrifice - The Life and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer" by Edwin Robertson. It's got lots of good stuff in it.

[FairOpinion]

Yes, but he wasn't going to take the entire state down with himself in the name of principle -- and what kind of principle is McClintock talking about, when he teams up with Bustamante, takes tribal money and actually states that he would rather if Bustamante won the election.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

It appears that Tom McClintock lied about a conversation he had with Dan Burton. At least Burton's clarification of that conversation, if he is to be believed, would indicate so.

Do "great men" lie, Kevin?

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Should have pinged you to my post above - sorry.

[ancientart]

We read Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship" in my "Foundations of Evangelical Thought" class when I was an undergraduate. A great book, and much liked by the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and other conservative Christian types in the class.

Years later, I assigned Bonhoeffer's "Ethics" to the students in my ethics class. I think it's probably the single best Christian answer to the modern academic misunderstanding of ethics.

Bonhoeffer may be a bit hard to get into on your own. A couple of his essays ("Creation and Fall" and "Tempation") used to be bound together in a short volume. An excellent intro. to Bonhoeffer's thinking.

Bohhoeffer is very Lutheran in his outlook, maybe more consistent in his Lutheran theology than Luther himself. As one of the other freepers says above, Bonhoeffer has, if anything, a higher regard for the authority of scripture than most American evangelicals/fundamentalists.

[AnnaZ]

Was it really necessary to ping them here? (Is nothing sacred?)