Advice From Dietrich Bonhoeffer
By: Emily Swan
Tags: Spirituality, Jesus, Christianity, Politics, Equality

What a man killed by the Nazis might mean to today’s Christian #resisters.

Wikimedia Commons — Dietrich Bonhoeffer in front

Bonhoeffer was a theologian and pastor in Germany before and during the Second World War. He was one of the few Christian leaders who vocally spoke out against the policies of the Nazi regime, from its early pre-ruling days up until he was killed in a concentration camp. This is a man who saw first-hand what happens when Christians, en masse, acted in self-preservation when others’ dignity and humanity (and lives) were on the line as the German Church folded into the Nazi party.

Much of the German Church folded into the Nazi party in the years leading up to the war. Churches in the United States are not in the same position as pre-war Germany — there are myriad significant differences. But there are enough parallels in how much of the American church has succumbed to the Trump-inspired nationalistic fervor that we’d be wise to hear Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on how to avoid similar mis-steps.

(Ken Wilson and I interacted significantly with the work of Bonhoeffer in our book, Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance.)

Wikipedia — Prussian Union of Churches: German Christians holding propaganda during the elections of presbyters and synodals on 23 July 1933

Bonhoeffer said that, when we foster the Spirit in us through prayer and action, we transform our desires to more closely align with the desires of God. As Romans 12 puts it, we are “transformed by the renewing of our mind.”

As a gay pastor I hesitate to use the language of Romans 12 — the idea of transforming our desires to become more like God’s — because many people, including me, grew up in evangelical settings being taught to tamp down our desires, including the helpful and life-giving ones. The language of “transforming” has been particularly weaponized against LGBTQ+ people in the church. We have been told we can transform our sexual orientation — a part of ourselves that is neither in need of changing, nor will actually change. Part of many LGBTQ+ peoples’ spiritual growth is learning how to not ignore our desires, and to treat our life-giving hopes and desires as good and God-honoring.

That’s not what I’m talking about when I write that our desires or our will can transform to more closely resemble God’s through the work of the Holy Spirit. I’m referring to the idea that the Holy Spirit can shape our desires so that we don’t act selfishly or in self-preservation when others’ dignity or humanity are on the line. This is the narrow road Jesus talked about — most people do not do it.

Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Mercer University, wrote his dissertation on the people who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust and later published it as Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust: Genocide and Moral Obligation. He found that less than 1% of the non-Jewish population helped Jewish people during World War II. And lest we pat ourselves on the back (if we identify as Jesus-followers), only about 12% of that less than 1% said they were compelled by a sense of “Christian duty”; non-Christians were more likely than Christians to help Jews

By the Spirit

In his writings, Bonhoeffer insists that Christians must be led, taught, and transformed by the Spirit — but that, for Christians, the Spirit can not be divorced from the idea that Jesus, in his human ministry, was a man in whom the Spirit of God dwelled in its fullness. Bonhoeffer saw that the understanding of the Holy Spirit in his time and place had been split off from an understanding of Jesus as the divine manifestation of God’s love and care for the poor, outcast, and oppressed. The Spirit that animated Jesus caused him to advocate for the marginalized, and should manifest in us in the same way, if we are of the same Spirit. (The Greek word for this Spirit is Paraclete, which translates as “Advocate.”)

In the same way, much of the American evangelical church washes its hands of what it pejoratively dismisses as “the social gospel.” And, even while some younger Christians — even in the conservative Southern Baptist denomination — embrace the idea of social justice, they are light years behind progressive Christian denominations in understanding intersectionality and what Bonhoeffer calls “the cost of discipleship.” Needless to say, the white supremacist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic theologies permeating evangelicalism prevent them from being anywhere near effective at enacting systemic change in the name of the vulnerable. Eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump and his racist policies, while more than half of historic-mainline Protestants did the same.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, white evangelical Protestants are some of the most unified in their support of Trump, with more than eight in ten (82%) saying they prefer him to be their party’s nominee. Three in four Republican and Republican-leaning white mainline Protestants (75%) and white Catholics (73%) say Trump should be the nominee. — PPRI

White, white, white. Trump, Trump, Trump. Notice how anti-Semitic hate crimes have increased, and how white Christians rally behind a man proven to be a misogynist, anti-immigrant, racist, criminal philanderer? The abhorant theology permeating evangelicalism translates into evangelicals aligning themselves with sin to further their ambitions. Power-seeking is never a good look for Jesus-followers.

But I digress.

God Is a Trinity of Persons

Bonhoeffer reminds us God is a Trinity — the Source, the Word, and the Spirit (sometimes called Father, Son, and Spirit). He reminds us the three are inescapably linked in the Christian tradition. From the beginning, the fullness of God was present. The Gospel of John opens like this:

In the origin there was the Logos [the Word, the second person of the Trinity], and the Logos was present with [the fullness of] GOD, and the Logos was god; this one was present with [the fullness of] GOD in the origin. All things came to be through him, and without him came to be not a single thing that has come to be. In him was life, and this life was the light of humankind. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not conquer it. There came a man, sent by GOD, whose name was John [the Baptist]; this man came in witness, that he might testify about the light, so that through him all might have faith — but only that he might testify about the light; he was not that light. It was the true light that was coming into the cosmos. He was in the cosmos, and through him the cosmos came to be, and the cosmos did not recognize him … to as many as did accept him, to them he gave the power to become GOD’s children — to those having faith in his name. — translation by Dr. David Bentley Hart

The lyricism of John can sound a bit confusing. Essentially John presents the Logos as the image of God at the core of all human life. It is the universal light that enlightens humankind — a light available to each and every person which no darkness can quench.

Universal Light

According to John, this Logos existed before creation, along with the Source and the Spirit. The Logos existed before it filled Jesus and became the human form of the Logos. In fact the Logos was the idea behind creation — its purpose. All things came to be through him, and without him came to be not a single thing that has come to be.

The gospel of the Logos proclaims there is a soul-light at the core of every human being — the universal image of God which is both what makes us human and is our connection to our Creator. As Christians we would say Jesus, as the human form of the second part of the Trinity, helped reveal to humankind this soul-light at the core of every human being — what that looks like and acts like.

Now, is it possible the Logos has revealed itself in other ways in other traditions? Yes.

Spirit-Oriented Theology of Interfaith Relations

Dr. Clark Pinnock, a Canadian theologian of the Holy Spirit, has long championed what he calls a Spirit-oriented theology of interfaith relations. In Flame of Love he wrote, “Spirit is present everywhere, and God’s truth may have penetrated any given religion and culture at some point. We should be eager to find out.”

First Nations Christian theologians testify to a similar belief among some indigenous tribes. In A Native American Theology, Clara Sue Kidwell, Homer Noley, and George E. “Tink” Tinker explore the idea that Jesus existed as Logos among ancient peoples long before becoming incarnate. They argue that if the Logos was there “in the beginning,” then this Word-Spirit of God roamed the earth at will, giving revelation to people from all times and places. “Why would this Logos, which was so instrumental in the creation act, have lain dormant for so much of human history?”.

If this is true, it would mean the Logos unveiled characteristics of the divine that various people groups still guard and pass along through stories, art, music, rituals, and other means. We can access those stories and learn, should we have discerning eyes to see and ears to hear. Our own Scriptures allude to humans of different backgrounds operating out of the same Spirit of Love. Jesus tells us, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (Jn. 10:16). Our humility should allow us to say there are things we don’t fully understand or know.

Jesus as Logos

In our tradition, we confess Jesus as the Logos — fully divine and fully human. The Logos//the Word/the Christ/the Messiah/the Anointed One/the Chosen One/the Son of Man is called both “Alpha and Omega” — the beginning of all things and the objective, the end. He’s the purpose and the goal of creation. What happens in between the beginning and the end is human beings waking up to the divine image within, aided by Holy Spirit, to become co-creators with God in the redemption and creation of the Beloved Community.

That’s the invitation of Christianity — that we become co-creators with God in the redemption and creation of the Beloved Community. The Spirit of this God — the same one manifest in Jesus — is made available to every person. And it breaths on the soul-light inside us and causes the desires of God to burn away our selfish desires that cause us to act in self-preservation when others’ dignity and humanity are on the line.