The Cost of Grace

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.