Christian Moral Action Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DEVELOPMENT IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 1. INSIGHT Augustine’s teaching on human nature Death and Afterlife 2. FOUNDATIONS Knowledge of God’s existence The person of Jesus Christ 3. LIVING Christian moral principles Christian moral action

Christian Moral Action Bonhoeffer’s Life Duty to God and duty to the state The role of the Church as community The cost of discipleship Bonhoeffer’s relevance today

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Born in 1906 in Germany (now Poland) One of the outstanding academic theologians of the 20th century He’s had a profound effect on both Protestant and Catholic theology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kyGv9UvzQ

Early Life He was born in 1906. WW1 1914-1918 He was born in 1906. His father was a professor of psychiatry and neurology. Family stuck to Lutheran traditions but were not church-going. He had an idyllic childhood, until his brother died in 1918 at war. This led to Bonhoeffer choosing to study theology, although his family weren’t keen.

University 1923, went to Tubingen university 1923- Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party, leads an abortive coup in a Munich beer hall. 1923, went to Tubingen university 1930 completed doctoral thesis Act and Being and became a lecturer at the university of Berlin. It was here he was working a radical form of Christianity.

University 1923- Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party, leads an abortive coup in a Munich beer hall. For centuries German society has developed an understanding of Luther’s Reformation arguments that the Church and State were two sides of the same coin. To disobey the state would be to disobey God. Bonhoeffer thought this gave too much power to the State and undermined the true purpose of Christianity. He argued that, rather than allowing the state to make important decisions, the Church should be more active in challenging it to achieve justice. As a result, much of his academic theology was dedicating to radically interpreting Luther.

America 1929 - Global depression, mass unemployment. In 1930 Bonhoeffer moved to New York to study some of USAs influential theologians. Impressed by their emphasis on social responsibility, but felt their theology underestimated the goodness of human nature. Experienced ‘black churches,’- realised that Christianity needed to be build relationships without racial or social boundaries. Even before Hitler, Bonhoeffer’s theology was set to radically change the Church and State.

1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor 1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor. Weimar Republic gives way to a one-party state. Systematic persecution of Germany's Jews escalates. Hitler proclaims the Third Reich in 1934. Resistance to Nazism 1st Feb 1933, Bonhoeffer begins delivering radio broadcasts called The Younger Generations Altered View of the Concept of the Fuhrer. Authorities quickly worked out that his message was deeply critical of the ‘leadership principle’ that Hitler represented, suggesting that if you give power to an earthly leader, you make them an idol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbI8mqRMJU

1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor 1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor. Weimar Republic gives way to a one-party state. Systematic persecution of Germany's Jews escalates. Hitler proclaims the Third Reich in 1934. Resistance to Nazism From then on Bonhoeffer worked against the State in two main ways: He became a member of the Confessing Church He joined the Resistance (Widerstand) At the time of this second decision, he was staying in New York having endured investigation by the Gestapo because of his role in training clergy for the Confessing Church. Confessing Church: a group of clergy who refused to accept that only Aryan Christians could become members of the church https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPZ6wt_nyoo

He considered himself a pacifist prior to this 1939-45 WW2 starts with the invasion of Poland; NAZI’s implement death camps across Eastern Europe 1935: German Jews deprived of Citizenship 1938: Kristallnacht June 1939, he visited America again (he knew he was about to called up to serve in Hitler’s Army. Refusing would have damaged the reputation of the Confessing Church, because he’d have been labeled a pacifist.) He realised that if he was to be true to everything he believed in then he must return to Germany and attempt to overthrow the evil regime. He considered himself a pacifist prior to this

He argued that secular pacifism perpetuated lies and injustice. 1939-45 WW2 starts with the invasion of Poland; NAZI’s implement death camps across Eastern Europe 1935: German Jews deprived of Citizenship 1938: Kristallnacht His pacifism had not been based on a Christian view of the world, but a secular one which fails to prepare for the coming of the Kingdom of God. He argued that secular pacifism perpetuated lies and injustice. His choice to join resistance could not be called intrinsically good, but rather a choice that was necessary in a world of ‘terrible alternatives.’ Secular pacifism: Bonhoeffer invented the phrase ‘secular pacifism’ to mean a false non-religious belief that society can achieve a state of non-violence

Part of a letter he wrote to American friend and theologian, Neibuhr, in July 1939. “I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people…Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nations and therefore destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose, but I cannot make that choice in security. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Way to Freedom. (1966) p.246

1939-45 WW2 starts with the invasion of Poland; NAZI’s implement death camps across Eastern Europe 1935: German Jews deprived of Citizenship 1938: Kristallnacht On his return to Germany, he joined the Counter Intelligence Section of the armed forces, with his brother in law. (Abwehr) Both men also worked for the Resistance to overthrow the Nazi regime, and both were able to find out information to aid the resistance and support the victims of Nazism, particularly the Jews.

1939-45 WW2 starts with the invasion of Poland; NAZI’s implement death camps across Eastern Europe Arrest and Execution 5th April 1943- Bonhoeffer and his brother in law was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo on the grounds of helping Jewish immigrants escape to Switzerland. July 1944- the failed Resistance attempt to kill Hitler implicated Bonhoeffer and he was moved to several prisons, including Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he was given a mock trial and hanged, shortly before American troops liberated Flossenburg concentration camp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kyGv9UvzQ

Questions When, if ever, is it morally justifiable for a Christian to disobey the State? How can anyone know whether one is carrying out God’s will? Was Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to kill Hitler justified in Christian terms?

Duty to the God and the State Bonhoeffer warned against all forms of ethics that were based on ideologies: he said ideology was just an extension of a human idea to justify using power over others. He therefore thought that Christian ethics were vastly different to human ethics- humans are finite and sinful and therefore no human decision can be totally right or totally wrong. He acknowledged that in extreme circumstances, we can do nothing but act out of despair, in faith and hope.

Duty to God and to the State Bonhoeffer was broadly in agreement with Luther that it was the duty of a Christian to be obedient to the State because a government’s aim is to enforce law and order our sinful tendency to disorder. This either leads to: The state gaining too much power and therefore makes justice second to it’s policies. The state thinks that it is the embodiment of justice and uses this to justify any of it’s actions. Both cause the state to inflate it’s own self importance.

Duty to God and to the State Obedience to God Leadership Justification of civil disobedience The state can never represent God’s will Therefore they can never assume ultimate power. The role of the Church is not to be part of the State but to keep it in check. At what point may a Christian decide that the state is acting in such an unjust way, that it is his duty to disobey it to avoid more suffering?

Obedience to God’s will “Give to the emperor this things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God’s.”- Mark 12:17 “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is not authority except from God, and those authorites that exist have been instituted by God.”- Romans 13:1 Luther taught that there are two kingdoms ordained by God: the spiritual kingdom of Christ governed by the Church the political kingdom of the world governed by the state. Two passages from the New Testament tend to reinforce the idea that Christians have a duty to obey the state.

“Whoever wishes to take up the problem of a Christian ethic must be confronted at once with a demand that is quite without parallel. He must from the outset discard as irrelevant the two questions which allow him to concern himself with the problem of ethics, ‘How can I be good?’ and “How can I do good?” and instead of these he must ask the utterly and totally different question: “What is the will of God?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Ethics (1955/2005), p161

The nature of this will of God can only be clear in the moment of action; it is only important to be clear that every man’s own will must be brought to be God’s will, that his own will must be surrendered if God’s will is to be realised, and therefore insofar as complete renunciation of personal claims is necessary in action before the face of God, the Christian’s ethical action can be described as love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: No Rusty Swords (1965)

Obedience to God’s Will How does one know what the will of God is? The will of God is an act of faith: a complete ridding of one’s own ambitions and submitting every day to what God wills. He is therefore critical of Autonomous Christian Ethics because love is not knowable as a self-evident principle. This theory makes love a human principle which in turn makes people slaves to an ideology, rather than being liberated.

Leadership The idea of leadership is not the same to the idea of being a leader. Leadership is rooted in community and focusses on matters beyond the leader The idea of a leader is specific to a specific person “it is virtually impossible to give a rational basis for the nature of the Leader.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer: No Rusty Swords Bonhoeffer believed Germany created an idea of perfect father and teacher in their leader and were prepared to give up their freedoms and identity in obedience to this.

Justification of Civil Disobedience Was Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to kill Hitler justified in Christian terms? For the sake and purpose of Christ there is and ought to be worldly order in state, family and economy. For the sake of Christ the worldly order is subject to the commandment of God. It is to be noted that there is no question here of a ‘Christian state’ or a ‘Christian economy’, but only of the rightful state and the rightful economy as a secular institution for the sake of Christ. There exists, therefore, a Christian responsibility for secular institutions, and within a Christian ethic there exists propositions which relate to this responsibility. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Ethics

Justification to Civil Disobedience If it is the case that the state is making ‘reasonable people face unreasonable situations’, then a Christian has a duty to disobey it. Bonhoeffer very much felt that the Church in Nazi Germany was being seduced by the power of Nazism. What they thought the state was doing was bringing order to a disordered nation, but actually their law enforcements were a gross distortion of the God- given order.

Justification of Civil Disobedience Tyrannicide may be a christian duty if it means establishing social order. Bonhoeffer called this ‘suffering disobedience.’ Disobedience is not easy to justify: what about people who believe they are doing their duty but allow evil to prevail? How do we justify our actions if right and wrong is not self-evident? He was equally critical of consequential ethics because we are never in a position to judge all possible outcomes. Tyrannicide: deliberate killing of a tyrant for the common good Consequential Ethics: any form of ethical systems the judges the rightness of actions based on the it’s outcomes.

Justification of Civil Disobedience Now day by day, hour by hour, we are confronted with unparalleled situations in which we must make a decision, and in which we make again and again the surprising and terrifying discovery that the will of God does not reveal itself before our as clearly as we hoped. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: No Rusty Swords (1965) He concluded in prison that the attempt to kill Hitler was not justified in ordinary ethical decisions. The only possible consolation is that God promises to forgive the ‘man who becomes a sinner in the process.’ (letters and papers from prison.)

The Role of the Church The role of the Church: Religionless Christianity The Confessing Church The religious community at Finkenwalde The Cost of Discipleship: Ethics in action Costly Grace Sacrifice and Suffering Solidarity

The role of the Church Liberal Societies: societies which develop their laws based on the principle that humans flourish when given maximum freedoms and minimum control by the government. World come of age: used by Bonhoeffer to describe how the western culture has grown up and in embracing a rational view of the world has discarded a superstitious view of religion. The Western Void: Bonhoeffer’s description of the state of the western secular world without Christianity filled with all kinds of dangerous beliefs and ideas. Religionless Christianity: the phrase bonhoeffer used to describe Christianity without the baggage of the past and contamination by the ideological beliefs of the present.