[HN Gopher] The ambiguous witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2014)
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The ambiguous witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2014)
Author : Pamar
Score : 41 points
Date : 2024-12-04 07:44 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newcriterion.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newcriterion.com)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| There is a brand new book on Bonhoeffer[0] out!
|
| [0] https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481321679/dietrich-
| bonhoeffe...
| DHPersonal wrote:
| There's also a new film.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer_(film)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| One of the very best episodes of In Our Time:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0bkpjns
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > Strictly speaking, Bonhoeffer did not die a martyr; he was
| executed not for practicing his faith but for abetting attempted
| murder.
|
| I don't think there's a western equivalent but in the eastern
| churches this is a passion bearer. He's widely admired and
| informally commemorated. Like the article said he is influential
| across very different strands of christianity.
|
| > In a situation of profound moral dislocation, there was no
| escaping complicity in evil. Violent resistance or tacit
| acceptance of monstrous cruelty: There was guilt either way. In
| the end Bonhoeffer chose to sin for the sake of righteousness.
|
| His essay exploring that specific contradiction, written in
| prison, is one of the most useful and interesting works of
| christian writing I've ever come across. The article glosses over
| it probably because of writing for a secular audience, but what
| he was specifically hung up on was the use of children as
| messengers in the resistance movement he was involved in.
|
| Some of the children would inevitably be caught, tortured, and
| killed. Possibly many of them if the plot were severely
| compromised. That's what he was weighing against his need to
| oppose the nazis. In the end he decided to participate and trust
| in forgiveness if it was necessary, a decision so self-assuredly
| childlike I marvel at its strength.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_bearer
| paxcoder wrote:
| The Catholic Church teaches that we cannot do evil so that good
| may come out of it. It cannot be the means as in abortion. It
| could only be tolerated as an undesirable consequence of a good
| act such as self-defense. But unless one is in immediate danger
| from the agressor, I do not see how one can use deadly force.
| Whether the partisan action is legitimate self-defense I cannot
| say, I didn't actually look into this, but the disposition of
| treating whst you believe is a sin as a good essentially, and
| hoping for forgiveness without repentance, that is evil.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Bonhoeffer wasn't roman catholic and neither am I. He wasn't
| hoping for forgiveness without repentance. He was expecting,
| _knowing_ that he would need to repent for something but not
| able to determine the correct course. He chose to trust in
| god 's mercy, and the forgiveness of the people hurt by his
| actions.
|
| Copied from my other comment so you see it:
|
| Contemporary Theology Understander: We cannot do evil so that
| good may come of it ... that is evil.
|
| Big Brother D, unable to escape the conclusion that he must
| kill nazis: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.
| tines wrote:
| > Violent resistance or tacit acceptance of monstrous cruelty
|
| Granted I haven't read the book you mentioned, but I'm always
| surprised at the tacit acceptance of this false dichotomy which
| is presented over and over in Christian writings, in order to
| justify choosing violent resistance. A third option, which is
| actually compatible with Jesus' command to not resist evil, is
| to love your enemy, and their victims simultaneously, by
| redirecting the evil upon yourself, as Christ did and taught
| himself, while teaching them the truth. You will definitely
| die, but you might have a chance at following Christ.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The choice is between trying stop an ongoing harm or not
| trying to stop it. What you present isn't a third option,
| it's just a particular mindset about the second one.
|
| Many christians _do_ accept that as the only choice. Others
| finds that they are compelled to action, and consider this a
| personal failure to remain peaceful in the face of great
| evil. This is basically what Bonhoeffer was addressing
| directly. Not all sin is avoidable, a sinless choice is not
| guaranteed. Even when there is one we may not have the
| strength or resolve to follow it, or the wisdom to perceive
| it.
|
| The other [dead] commenter is struggling to understand this
| too but here's a paraphrase of a joke about it.
|
| Contemporary Theology Understander: We cannot do evil so that
| good may come of it ... that is evil.
|
| Big Brother D, unable to escape the conclusion that he must
| kill nazis: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.
| tines wrote:
| > The choice is between trying stop an ongoing harm or not
| trying to stop it.
|
| That is the normal choice that any person has to make,
| there's nothing Christian about this, nor about the
| decision that Bonhoeffer made. Any atheist would agree with
| him that you've got to minimize harm, etc.
|
| The relevant choice for the Christian is to decide whether
| we're going to "use evil for good" in a way that only God
| can facilitate, by loving our enemies and dying for them,
| as Christ died for his enemies.
|
| > What you present isn't a third option, it's just a
| particular mindset about the second one.
|
| It's not "just" a mindset because it restricts (and
| expands) the options you can take. Isn't Bonhoeffer's
| stance "just" a mindset, because regardless of why you're
| killing your enemies, they end up dead anyway? An atheist
| killing Nazis and Bonhoeffer killing Nazis only differ in
| what they're saying, not really what they're doing. A
| Christian not resisting evil and loving their enemies is
| identifiable both by word and deed.
|
| > Many christians do accept that as the only choice. Others
| finds that they are compelled to action, and consider this
| a personal failure to remain peaceful in the face of great
| evil.
|
| You're construing this as a choice between action and
| inaction, so I don't think we understand each other yet.
| Was Jesus action-less when he came to the earth to die for
| his enemies? Or did he take action to not-resist evil, love
| and die for his enemies, and bear the sins of the world?
| What I'm suggesting as the Christian approach to this is
| very active, but not to kill our enemies the same way
| literally everyone else does. It's to feed our enemies when
| they're hungry, give them drink when they're thirsty, and
| stand in the way of the bullets when they're fired at
| others, all the while proclaiming our love for them, and
| God's love, so that they would quit trying to earn their
| righteousness by good works, and believe on Christ for
| righteousness. This is all and only what Jesus did, and
| bade us do.
|
| > Not all sin is avoidable, a sinless choice is not
| guaranteed.
|
| This might be your opinion, but I'm not sure you could find
| any support for this in scripture.
|
| I'm also not sure that we can take Bonhoeffer's decision as
| anything other than the proposition that Jesus would have
| killed Nazis too. Is that the road we want to go down? (I
| presume he wouldn't be defending a choice to do something
| that Jesus wouldn't have done.)
|
| Maybe the answer here is that I just need to read his book
| first.
|
| > Contemporary Theology Understander: We cannot do evil so
| that good may come of it ... that is evil.
|
| > Big Brother D, unable to escape the conclusion that he
| must kill nazis: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a
| sinner.
|
| The problem with this is that Big Brother D is morally
| equivalent before God to the Nazi, so in deciding the fate
| of the Nazi, he's deciding his own fate: he's too evil to
| let live, he should be put down. This is Brother D acting
| like he's still under the Law, which says, "The man who
| does these [good] things shall live [and by implication,
| the man who does bad things shall die]." According to
| Jesus, God cannot and will not have mercy on a (n
| undeserving) man who does not have mercy on (undeserving)
| others. There is no forgiveness for those who do not
| forgive others. Bringing death on others is asking for
| death upon ourselves (and for consistency, everyone else).
|
| Bonhoeffer can't have mercy for himself and death for
| others.
|
| And isn't this _the_ thing that sets Christianity apart?
| Otherwise Jesus ' earth-shattering teachings become just
| another "treat people nice who are nice to you, punish the
| bad guys" idea like every other one out there. My personal
| feeling is that trying to give up this nigh-impossible
| teaching is trying to give up the heart of Christianity,
| the core beauty and truth. Christianity has nothing
| attractive about it if we rip out the core and everything
| else that depends on it, imo.
|
| Sorry for the long post.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I suspect we're just from significantly different
| soteriological traditions. I'm greek orthodox and
| consider scripture to be the single most important, but
| not the only, means of understanding correct action. I
| don't place limits on god's grace or attempt to guess who
| will or won't be forgiven for what. The only sinless one
| is Christ himself, every one of the rest of us will plea
| for mercy and I pray we all receive it.
|
| Bonhoeffer's conundrum was that _he perceived inaction to
| be as damning as any action available to him_. I think
| there 's room for disagreement about whether that was
| truly the case. But I find the difficulty in discerning
| righteous action in crisis relatable, and I appreciate
| how he engaged with it.
| tines wrote:
| > I'm greek orthodox and consider scripture to be the
| single most important, but not the only, means of
| understanding correct action
|
| Interesting. Do you consider an action to be incorrect if
| it doesn't agree with scripture? Or can other things
| override scripture?
|
| > I don't place limits on god's grace or attempt to guess
| who will or won't be forgiven for what
|
| Do you place the limits that God himself placed?
| (Referring to Matthew 6:14-15 and James 2:13, assuming
| you believe Jesus' and James' words are God's word.)
|
| > Bonhoeffer's conundrum was that he perceived inaction
| to be as damning as any action available to him. I think
| there's room for disagreement about whether that was
| truly the case. But I find the difficulty in discerning
| righteous action in crisis relatable, and I appreciate
| how he engaged with it.
|
| I don't think we disagree that he was in a difficult
| situation. I'm simply arguing that he "gave up" and took
| the non-Christian way out of the core Christian dilemma,
| and worse, he's convincing other people that it was the
| Christian thing to do.
|
| Forgive me if I sound glib over such a serious matter, I
| just don't have a lot of time to edit my posts right now.
| (Also I'm not downvoting you.)
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's not that scripture says one thing and we can do
| another. It's that we need the guidance of tradition to
| know what scripture is saying to us, and how to apply it
| to our own lives.
|
| Scripture and orthodox tradition both are inconsistent
| about the compatibility of mercy and action to prevent an
| ongoing harm. We aren't to weigh the good and evil and
| pass judgement on someone's soul, but we are to use
| discernment about what things we allow to happen around
| us.
| tines wrote:
| If you believe that scripture is inconsistent then I can
| see why we diverge. Good talking to you!
| MrJohz wrote:
| I think this is too simplistic a theological approach,
| though. Remember that Jesus was not above direct action
| himself, ranging from property damage to literally
| whipping people to get them in line. While Jesus'
| ultimate mission is heavenly justice, he also
| demonstrates that we should also be seeking to right
| injustice on earth too.
| tines wrote:
| This doesn't prove what you're using it to prove though.
|
| 1. Jesus didn't kill anyone. It's a long leap from
| driving people out of a temple, to killing someone and
| sealing their eternal fate, potentially consigning them
| to hell. Same can be said for property destruction (even
| omitting the fact that this is a special case of property
| _within_ Jesus ' own house, as it were).
|
| 2. All indications point to the fact that the whip was
| for the animals, not the people.
|
| 3. Even if we allow that Jesus whipped the people in the
| temple, he whipped people who weren't attacking him. Then
| later he died when people did attack him. This isn't a
| case of self-defense.
|
| 4. Jesus' stated purpose in this situation wasn't to
| physically protect anyone or to right a worldly
| injustice, it was to protect against a harmful spiritual
| idea, the commercialization of worship.
|
| 5. This was taking place in the community of God. The
| rules are different when you're dealing with God's
| people; more is permitted because souls are not at stake.
| Scripture states that God disciplines his children, not
| those who aren't his children.
|
| So, next time you're in church among believers and there
| are moneychangers there, feel free to drive them and
| their animals out with a whip. But it strains credulity
| to jump from this to murder.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Is history repeating itself in the evangelical church today?
| Instead of doctrines and creeds, has it become politics and
| power?
|
| Bonhoeffer went against the churches of his day because the Jesus
| of the bible wasn't being followed. Today it's the "warrior"
| Jesus that's being touted, one who never existed. When politics
| and power take over any Christian entity, it always led to
| disaster.
| devjab wrote:
| Jesus has absolutely existed as a "warrior" figure. Even in the
| bible you'll find some rather "warrior" like descriptions in
| places like Matthew 10:34, Luke 22:36, Luke 12:51 and so on.
| Mostly though Jesus has been what Jesus needed to be.
|
| When Christianity was being introduced to Scandinavia where in
| from, the church sold Jesus as a warrior God similar to Thor.
| Jesus remained that way until the late Middle Ages, which is
| where the first accounts of the self-sacrifice begin to enter
| our history.
|
| Religion isn't static, it reflects its followers and the
| society it exists in. Those three parts of the bible I
| mentioned earlier are a good example. If you look them up in
| various bible versions you'll find very different ways to word
| them. In some they are extremely "warrior" like, in others the
| word "sword" is not even mentioned.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > Jesus remained that way until the late Middle Ages, which
| is where the first accounts of the self-sacrifice begin to
| enter our history.
|
| In scandinavia you mean? Even still I find that surprising.
| Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, and John Chrysostom for
| example wrote on this subject in the fourth century and were
| all incredibly well known among early christians and through
| the middle ages.
|
| Some very early detractors of christianity latched onto the
| weakness and submissiveness of Jesus as being incompatible
| with their contemporary ideal of manly virtue. Influential
| early christians like the ones I mentioned accepted that
| assessment and used it to form the theological foundations of
| self-sacrifice that have always been present in christianity.
|
| _Certainly_ the warrior-figure conception has always been
| there as well, it has never been purely one or the other. And
| it 's definitely true that that element has had more emphasis
| in certain times and places. But, not knowing anything about
| them, I find it very unlikely that scandinavian christians
| would have been ignorant of this entire, extremely
| significant, branch of christian thought.
| card_zero wrote:
| Besides, I thought the Jesus analog was not Thor but Baldr,
| the "bleeding god", notable for being killed. And for being
| pretty.
| jasonhong wrote:
| There's a comment on MetaFilter that has always resonated with
| me about the Church in America, which I'll copy here:
|
| https://www.metafilter.com/80588/Jesus-who#2514085
|
| The story of the temptations of Christ is a familiar one. After
| forty days and nights of fasting, the devil came to Jesus with
| three temptations. The first was to turn stones into bread, the
| second, to throw himself off the peak of the temple and have
| the angels catch him, the third, to have all the kingdoms of
| the world. We could summarize these as temptations be
| comfortable, to be impressive, and to be powerful. I am
| inclined to believe that those are also the three most common
| temptations of the church. Until recent years, the American
| church was offered each of those and gladly accepted them.
| Christianity was the default religion for the world's greatest
| superpower--a position that should have made us tremble with
| concern that we were in danger of sliding off the path of self-
| denial that leads to the cross--but it seemed to occur to very
| few people that having such a position could be spiritually
| problematic. We built impressive structures, including dining
| facilities, recreation and entertainment centers. We turned
| praise and worship into a profit and star-making industry, and
| we gladly took our place in the halls of power. It seems that
| Satan offered us the same things he offered Christ, but we
| responded "Yes! Yes! Yes!" I doubt that the contemporary trends
| that are stripping away the power and prestige of the church
| are the work of the evil one--more likely it is the work of the
| Holy One, who is leading us step by step back to the paths of
| righteousness.
| jlos wrote:
| Religion and politics have _always_ been mixed. Prior to the
| founding of the U.S., religious and political identity was one
| and the same. Which is why heresy was often treated in civil
| courts as sedition.
|
| Even when the U.S. introduced the concept of seperation of
| church and state, it was for the explicit purpose of
| _promoting_ religion. The U.S. founders axiomatically assumed
| religion was necessary for morality and self-governance and
| believed that a free market of religions (as opposed to state
| religion) would lead to increased religiosity [0]. And,
| interestingly, it seems they were right as the countries with
| state churches have all seen massive religious decline while
| the U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the world
| (especially when you filter out the elite class, who as secular
| as Europeans).
|
| The danger is that politicians co-opt religious institutions to
| help legitimize their regime and bolster support. Marsh's
| biography of Bonhoffer describes exactly this process.
|
| [0] George Washington's Final Address:
| https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/farewell-address "Of
| all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
| prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. .
| . Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property,
| for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation
| desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in
| courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the
| supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
| Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education
| on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
| forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in
| exclusion of religious principle."
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Was he actually plotting against Hitler, or are those trumped up
| charges?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| My question also, as I thought the evidence was slim and
| inconclusive. Would really be something if you make a "true"
| movie about someone's involvement in a plot that didn't happen
| and half the movie was completely fiction.
| reagle wrote:
| What's so complicated about his legacy? I read the article and
| don't see it.
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