Bonhoeffer's quest for a credible Christianity

 

     Prophets have always been critical of “religious” institutions – in ancient Israel, this meant the cultic life of the tabernacle/temple which was overseen by priests and which was intimately associated with the Israelite monarch from the time of King Solomon.  Of course, a formalized liturgical life could easily lead to hypocrisy and a “cultural/civic religion” which, as Marx would denounce many centuries later,^[1] could simply lend itself to the maintenance of the status quo, as opposed to producing real justice in society (cf. Micah 6.8; Jer. 7.1-15, etc.).  As opposed to religious practice that was merely “ritualistic”, prophetic religion was always concerned with faithfulness to the covenant with Yahweh – i.e. living a life of justice vis-à-vis God and your fellow humans (cf. Dt. 6.5; 11.13; 13.3; Lev. 19.18, 34).  The prophets of Israel were ruthless in their critique of religious observance that was not accompanied by a passionate concern for the most vulnerable members of society (cf. Dt. 10.17-19; Zech. 7.10; Mal. 3.5, etc.).

     Dietrich Bonhoeffer, due to the church’s failure to effectively counter Hitler’s genocidal policies against the Jews of Germany, became convinced that Christianity[2] – understood as the European Christian establishment from the 4^th—18^th centuries – had lost its relevance now that humanity had “come of age”^[3] with the advent of modernity.  In his Letters and Papers from Prison^[4], Bonhoeffer shared his personal thoughts (in letters to his confidant Eberhard Bethge^[5]) about the state of Christianity and what it meant to follow Jesus in a world that no longer made reference to God and in which radical evil could advance unchecked.  The enthusiasm for the Nazi regime shown by the majority of German Christians, as well as their indifference to the fate of the Jews^[6], had deeply disturbed Bonhoeffer and made him question the very credibility of Christianity.^[7]  Everything needed to be thought through afresh – and Bonhoeffer planned to write a short book to that effect.^[8]

     Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900) had (in)famously proclaimed the death of God.^[9]  Bonhoeffer, for his part, declared the death of the established church.  Indeed, it looks as though Bonhoeffer took Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity seriously^[10], and in his letters, seems to concur with his eccentric countryman that for all intents and purposes, God is dead.  That is to say, Bonhoeffer was convinced that the professed “belief in God” of his fellow subjects of the Third Reich was useless.  By and large, it had done nothing to change Germany’s situation and nothing to defend their Jewish neighbours.  God’s “existence” had done nothing to stop Hitler.  Bonhoeffer seems to have concurred with Nietzsche that “God” was no longer shaping European culture and public life.  God was gone, though, as Nietzsche had sardonically pointed out, people continued to go to church.  What Nietzsche had set out to do for philosophy, Bonhoeffer would have liked to do for theology – Nietzsche had undertaken to destroy “the idols”^[11] of the previous 2,300 years of Western thought, while Bonhoeffer desired to perform a similar iconoclastic purge of Christian thought in order to recover authentic discipleship and faith.  Modernity represented a break with the past, with tradition, with the usual way of thinking about things – in this sense, Nietzsche was the quintessential modern.  However, Bonhoeffer’s experience of the impotence of the church faced with the menace of Hitler drove him to analogous conclusions about the continued usefulness of the Christian tradition as it had been transmitted and lived in Europe for long ages previous to the 20^th century.

     Bonhoeffer’s malaise with the Christianity in which he had grown up went beyond a simple critique of the churches of Germany.  In his prison letters, he expresses his conviction that “religiosity” had been destroyed by the forces of modernity; i.e., religious vocabulary no longer made sense to people, they no longer felt a “need” for God, for forgiveness, salvation, etc.  Bonhoeffer told Bethge that “religiosity” could no longer be a prerequisite for faith.^[12]  Since 20^th-century Europeans no longer had a “religiously-informed mindset”, Bonhoeffer projected to reinterpret the biblical-theological terminology in a “non-religious, worldly” way.  Bonhoeffer’s repeated reading of the Old Testament during his imprisonment had led him to understand the “this-worldliness” of the kingdom of God.  The biblical hope, Bonhoeffer came to realize, was not to escape the world, but rather to live fully in it as the people of God while waiting for the full manifestation of God’s kingdom “on earth as in heaven”.^[13]

     Indeed, Bonhoeffer was adamant that we had to live in the world “as if God didn’t exist” – yes, that God called us to live this way!^[14]  Bonhoeffer was convinced that the “God of religion” – the strong, respectable God – was no longer of any use.  The true God had made himself weak, and had indeed died on the cross.  “Only the suffering God can help”, Bonhoeffer wrote to Bethge.  Bonhoeffer interpreted modernity as having destroyed false conceptions of God which were associated with human power, and prepared the way for a new apprehension of the God who conquers through weakness and suffering, and who calls us to live in this world and thus to share his sufferings.^[15]  To “overcome” evil à la Jesus is to suffer (cf. Rev. 2.7, 11, 17, 26, etc.).  For Bonhoeffer, this was the ultimate apologetic – the credibility of Christianity, he had become persuaded, could no longer be based on arguments or intellectual critiques of modernity; rather, it all depended on whether it led believers to live a “true” life in the world, i.e., a life lived (and perhaps lost) in the footsteps of Christ.

     Rowan Williams speaks of those who “take responsibility for God”, for making God credible in the world (more often than not, through their suffering and death).^[16]  This is what I call “prophetic apologetics” – identifying with God in such a way that one becomes a living argument, not only for the existence of God, but also of God’s character.  He who speaks the word of God makes God present to his people.^[17]  As A. Heschel said, there are no proofs for the existence of the God of Abraham; there are only witnesses.

“…the fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the divine pathos…which comes about through the prophet’s participation in the divine pathos…prophetic sympathy is the assimilation of the prophet’s emotional life to the divine…the emotional experience of the prophet becomes the focal point for the prophet’s understanding of God.  He lives not only his personal life, but also the life of God…”^[18]

---

[1] “Religion is the opium of the people”.

[2] Though he taught that Christians are called to “live among their enemies”, Bonhoeffer believed that Christian community was an amazing privilege and source of spiritual strength.  During his tenure as pastor of two German congregations in London (1933—34), Bonhoeffer had visited some English monastic communities and became enamored of the idea of a “new monasticism”, which would enable Christians to learn how to follow Jesus in a communal and embodied way.  Bonhoeffer was convinced that the best defense of genuine discipleship was to create a community in which such faithfulness to Christ could be learned in the context of “life together”.  Indeed, service to one’s fellow community members was considered service rendered to Christ and was a way to learn humility and to allow oneself to be “interrupted by God”.

     Bonhoeffer’s vision of monasticism was not that of a retreat from the world, but rather of a ever-deeper engagement with the world, all the while grounded in Scripture and prayer.  Indeed, Bonhoeffer consistently expressed distaste with ecclesial culture and what he perceived to be the all-too-often irrelevance of the church when it came to actually making a difference in the wider culture.  These insights and intuitive musings about “worldly Christianity” would find fuller (yet far from complete!) expression in his “letters from prison” and would give rise to much misinterpretation following Bonhoeffer’s death.  Bonhoeffer had no patience for any approach to Christian life that would segregate one’s “real life” from the practice of one’s faith.  Christ ruled over all of life, and the totality of one’s life was to be lived in obedience to Christ.  Bonhoeffer told his confidant Eberhard Bethge that believers should familiarize themselves with the Old Testament before reading the New Testament.  Bonhoeffer was convinced that the Hebrew Scriptures provided the hermeneutical key to the New Testament.

[3] Cf. Immanuel Kant’s opinion that the 18^th-century “Enlightenment” marked the end of humanity’s tutelage to the church (and to God).

[4] Bonhoeffer was imprisoned from April 5, 1943—April 9, 1945 (when he was executed).

[5] Bethge had been Bonhoeffer’s student at Finkenwalde Seminary before the war.  While Bonhoeffer was in prison, Bethge was serving in the German army which was fighting to defend Italy from the Allied campaign which began with the invasion of Sicily on July 9, 1943.  Bonhoeffer’s last letter to Bethge is dated August 23, 1944.

[6] “Here the decision will really be made whether we are still the church of the present Christ.  The Jewish question”: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, No Rusty Swords, London: Collins, Fontana Library, 1970 [1958, 1965], p. 320.

[7] Cf. Ibid.

[8] Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, pp. 163-66.  Bonhoeffer never did get the chance to write this book, but the contents of his letters to Bethge give us a good sense of the “flavour” this book would have had.  Also included in the Letters volume is Bonhoeffer’ outline of the never-written book.

[9] Cf. Hollingdale, R.J. Nietzsche: The Man and his Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 [1965], pp. 138-41.

[10] Bonhoeffer’s letters are peppered with allusive phrases that evoke Nietzsche’s work – “the transformation of values”, “morality of the inferior”, “Appoline vs. Dionysian” art, etc.  “In ethical decision, we are brought into the deepest solitude…in which a man stands before the living God.  No one can stand beside us there…because God lays on us a burden which we alone must bear”: Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, No Rusty Swords, p. 40, cf. Ibid. pp. 37-40 for Bonhoeffer’s remarks about Nietzsche’s ideas of “beyond good and evil” and the “Superman”.

[11] Cf. Nietzsche’s 1889 Twilight of the Idols.

[12] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, London: Collins Fontana Books, 1959 [1953], pp. 91-92, 110.  To make this point, Bonhoeffer drew a parallel between “religion” in 20^th-century Europe and “circumcision” in the letters of Paul, an aspect of Jewish practice that Paul adamantly insisted was not necessary for a Gentile’s faith-commitment to Christ.

[13] Cf. Ibid, p. 93, etc.

[14] Ibid., pp. 121-22; cf. Wilkens, Steve & Alan G. Padgett, Christianity and Western Thought 2: Faith and Reason in the 19^th Century, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000, pp. 172-73, for a description of Nietzsche’s position that belief in God is a symptom of weakness, an inability to face the world on our own.  Whereas G.K. Chesterton (1874—1936) dedicated (the Christian phase of) his life to a refutation of Nietzsche’s refutation of Christianity, Bonhoeffer seems to have taken Nietzsche’s critique on board and responded with a call to live as a disciple of Christ in a Europe where Christianity had failed to prevent the horrors of the first half of the 20^th century and in which religion had been proven all too often to be a puppet of the state and in which “God” was, practically speaking, dead.  Bonhoeffer called for people to follow Jesus without the support of either the church-as-institution or a religiously-informed ambient culture – in short, to be disciples (and possibly martyrs!) in an overtly hostile world, with only the God-abandoned-God for a companion.

[15] Ibid., pp. 122-25.

[16] Cf. Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Louisville: WJK, 2007, pp. 20-26.

[17] Cf. Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, New York: HarperCollins, 2001 [1962], p. 27.

[18] Ibid, p. 31.