By Mark J. Caruso, Personal Injury and Wrongful Death
Attorney, Albuquerque, NM 505-883-5000
THE COST OF GRACE: REVIVING THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Bonhoeffer was a Christian
minister and secret agent for the German Resistance who lived in Germany when
Hitler and his Nazi Party came to power. Bonhoeffer opposed the Nazi goal to create a state
controlled Christian Church which replaced obedience to Christ with obedience
to Hitler.
Even before Hitler came to power the
German Evangelical Church (the main Protestant church in Germany) had been influenced
by German nationalism, pride in their country and obedience to German state
authority. Because of these traditions, many German pastors were relieved when a
strong leader like Hitler offered to lead them from the economic chaos. They
welcomed the rise of Nazism and Der Fuhrer with open arms. In particular, a
group called the Deutsche Christen became the voice of Nazi ideology
within the German Evangelical Church. With Hitler’s ascent to power, the group
took positions of authority in the German Evangelical Church. Pastors and
congregations soon needed to decide whether the German Evangelical Church would
be loyal to the Nazi movement, the Third Reich and its totalitarian government
with its hatred of Jews, gypsies and others who stood in their way.
By age 24, Bonhoeffer received his doctorate in Theology and was an
internationally recognized biblical scholar and pastor. As a pastor with the German Evangelical
Church, Bonhoffer searched his conscience and his Bible in deciding whether or
not to support the Nazi takeover of his German Evangelical Church. Bonhoeffer’s
decision to risk his freedom and his life by actively resisting the Nazis sets
him apart as a man of valor.
In 1934, Bonhoeffer led 2,000 pastors to
organize the Pastors’ Emergency League in opposition to the German Evangelical
Church. The Pastor’s Emergency League then
organized to become a free and independent Protestant church in Germany called
the German Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer served as head of the Confessing
Church’s seminary. Unfortunately,
as Hitler became more powerful, even moderate Protestants within the Confessing
Church made compromises to Hitler and joined the Nazi run German Evangelical
Church.
As the Nazi dictatorship tightened its
hold, the Confessing Church became paralyzed. The activities of the Confessing
Church were outlawed and its seminaries were closed by the Nazis. Members of the Confessing Church met
underground to avoid arrest, and they were viewed as opposition to Nazi control
of the church. Hitler achieved what he
wanted—a state run German Evangelical Church that was completely loyal to him. Nazis
used their state church to falsely communicate to other churches around the
world that Hitler was a great leader who respected Christianity that Jews were
evil.
Hitler was smart; he didn’t dissolve the German Church. Rather, he took
it over from within. Unlike the
Communists who believed that “religion is the opiate of the people” and sought
to completely eliminate all churches, Nazis offered Germans a state controlled
church that taught loyalty to Hitler.
Bonhoeffer fought the changes the Nazis were making to
the German Church and German society. He
taught that the totalitarian doctrine of Nazism required a political response
from Christians, and he preached the Christian’s obligations to fight Nazi political
injustice.
He wrote that Christians and the Church
must fight Nazism in three stages: The first was to publicly question Nazi
injustice. This could be done in the press, from the pulpit and at political
rallies. Second, Christians must help the victims of Nazi injustice, whether they were Christians or
not. Aid should be secretly offered to displaced Jews, gypsies and others
persecuted by the Nazis. Third, Christians
must take specific action to fight for the destruction of the Nazi political
machine, even though some might consider this treasonous. He concluded that to save Christianity in
Germany from the state run German Church, the Nazis must be actively opposed,
and Hitler must die.
Bonhoeffer’s active opposition to the Nazis
escalated, and he soon joined the German resistance movement against Hitler. The core of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler
and overthrow the Nazis was an elite group in the German Military Intelligence,
as seen in the movie Valkerie. One of the top three military conspirators
involved with the attempted assassination of Hitler was Bonhoeffer’s brother in
law who recruited him in their active opposition to Hitler.
Bonhoeffer’s participation in the German
resistance was as a pastor/philosopher and a secret agent/spy. As a philosopher, Bonhoeffer formulated the ethical
justification for a morally responsible person to perform certain extreme
actions, such as political assassinations and what some would later call
treason against Germany.
How
Christianity, assassination plots and treason can be reconciled is hard for
many to fathom. However, Bonhoeffer must be looked at in the context
of his life, his country, and the war that he had no choice but to be a part
of. Ethics and morals, once so
clear before the Nazis took over, become unclear. Do we lie to the Nazis, or do
we give them information that leads to the deaths of innocents? Do we obey our
nation's laws, or do we defy them by leading Jews into safety? Do we fight in
Hitler's army; or do we refuse, knowing that we will be killed or jailed and
leave our family destitute? Do we obey an evil government that is in
direct contradiction to the Bible, or do we remain faithful to Christ? These
are some of the questions Bonhoeffer faced.
Bonhoeffer’s role in the conspiracy
against the Nazis was as a secret agent and courier to the Allies on behalf of
the German resistance. Bonhoeffer used his pastoral
contacts outside Germany to help spread information about the German resistance
movement and seek Allied support for the resistance. In “mission trips” to
Italy, Switzerland, and Scandinavia in 1941 and 1942, he held high level
meetings to gain Allied support and passed secret documents from the resistance
to Allied leaders.
Later Bonhoeffer was twice aided in getting
out of Nazi Germany to tell the world of the problems in his homeland and in
the German Church, and also to avoid arrest. He could have easily remained
safely outside of Germany. But he felt
compelled to return to his homeland, and speak out for the Bible and believing
Christians and to help the people of his country fight the growing political
and spiritual evils of Nazism.
Bonhoeffer’s heart belonged to his fellow Christians in Germany, and he
would not desert them at a time when they needed him most. Bonhoeffer wrote, “I
shall 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.” He never regretted this decision, not even in
prison.
Bonhoeffer dared
to criticize the politicized cultural "Christianity" of Hitler's
Germany, primarily the unbiblical religious legalism and Nazi compromise taught
from pulpits. He was surrounded
by lukewarm pastors who supported Hitler. To most people in the established
German Church, security and wealth had become more important than the Bible and
faithfulness to Christ.
The term Bonhoeffer used to describe what
was happening to the German Church was, “wholesale dispensation of cheap grace.” His term, “cheap grace” described pastors who taught grace
without teaching obedience or discipleship to Christ…continuing what they did
before their claimed acceptance of Christ. Pastors misled their flocks with the
teachings, “We are saved by His grace alone,” but stopped there, refusing to teach
obedience or discipleship to Christ. Obedience to Christ conflicted with
obedience to Hitler. Bonhoeffer taught that “cheap grace” was
wrong because it didn’t require the commitment to obedience and
discipleship guiding day-to-day lives.
Bonhoeffer
said that without sacrificial obedience and discipleship, what he called “costly grace”, there is
no true belief. He taught that without obedience or discipleship to
Christ there is no salvation because you have not received the costly grace
that changes our sinful focus from the world-like to the Christ-like. You have not given up your old sinful life
and surrendered control of your life to Christ, and have not
answered His call and followed Him.
Bonhoeffer taught that God's grace is the
strength we receive day-by-day to live an obedient Christ-like life in all we
do. This is what Bonhoeffer called
living a “sacrificial martyr’s” life…to die in Christ by giving up our
day-to-day wants and desires to follow in obedience and discipleship to Christ. He stressed that you cannot truly believe
without obedience or discipleship. True belief and faith, he taught, is the sacrificial giving up of your own wants
and desires and putting Christ first, submitting to the call of Christ and following Him without condition or
negotiated terms, giving up your old
self-serving self-directed life of sin and
sacrificing your new life each day to follow Him.
Today, in 2013 some of the same things are
happening in churches and government across our country as they did in Nazi
Germany. Many pastors preach “cheap grace”, not true saving “costly
grace”. They are not preaching the importance of obedience and discipleship
to belief, faith and God’s saving grace.
Although good works are not the objective or the measure of salvation,
they are interconnected to a sacrificial life of those who have truly heard His
call and actually follow Christ.
Some of the problems that Bonhoeffer dealt
with are similar to the problems in our American religious and political
climate today. Unfortunately, Americans are being sold “cheap grace” in
churches across our nation. Because our political/social (secular) values
are guided by our religious and spiritual beliefs, how we see our duties/responsibilities
as Christians is reflected in our vision of how we see our duties/responsibilities
as American citizens. The teaching of “cheap grace” in churches
has resulted in an attitude of “cheap citizenship”—where
duties/responsibilities just aren’t important.
Ultimately, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and
transferred from one concentration camp to the next. His faith in prison was
remembered later as an example for many prisoners and guards. In his hearing
before the Gestapo during his imprisonment, defenseless and powerless, he stood
erect and unbroken before his tormentors. He refused to recant, and he defied
the Gestapo by openly announcing that, as a Christian, he was an avowed enemy
of Hitler’s Nazis and its totalitarian control of society and the German Church. Compromise was not an option, and he put all
his trust in God. He was executed by special order of Himmler only days
before his concentration camp was freed by the Allies.
Bonhoeffer saw the Nazis seek to destroy
any opposition to Hitler. In one of his
most famous quotes he wrote:
First they came for the Communists,
but I was not a
Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade
Unionists,
but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews,
but I was not a Jew, so I
did not speak out.
And when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak
out for me.
A true leader, Bonhoeffer took everything head on. Though he wasn't always successful, it didn’t
deter him from looking forward and pushing forward. He never backed down from what he believed God
called him to do. He actively worked against the Nazis, and he preached
salvation and discipleship to Germans deceived by a state Church beholden to
the Nazis. Ultimately, Bonhoeffer was
martyred for his beliefs, teachings and actions he took against the Nazis. Bonhoeffer is a
story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil of Hitler and Nazism.
