(Re) reading Bonhoeffer

Last year marked the 60th anniversary of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the hands of the Nazis; this year marks the centenary of his birth. The marking of these dates has motivated a resurgence of interest, both popular and scholarly, in the life and thought of this well-known Christian theologian.

I too have been (re)reading some of Bonhoeffer’s work, especially as it relates to what it might mean for the Christian church to be responsible in and to the wider world. I especially enjoy the collection of Bonhoeffer’s letters, poems, and sermons edited by his nephew-in-law and former student, Eberhard Bethge, and published as Letters and Papers From Prison (LPP). (Bethge also wrote the definitive biography of Bonhoeffer, the massive Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography.)

After rejecting an opportunity to wait out the war in America as a visiting scholar, Bonhoeffer led an illegal seminary and eventually was prevented by the Gestapo from preaching, publishing, and teaching. He then joined the Abwehr, a German military intelligence agency. His ecumenical work was to provide him with a cover for gathering intelligence information for the Germans, but in fact acted as a cover for Bonhoeffer’s work as a double agent.

He joined the Abwehr in order to be part of a resistance movement, intent, among other things, on the assassination of Adolph Hitler. The Gestapo uncovered the plot, and Bonhoeffer was imprisoned, along with many others who were implicated as part of this resistance movement. When an assassination attempt on Hitler failed, the fate of the conspirators was basically sealed. Bonhoeffer spent two years in various prisons, then was executed April 9, 1945 at Flossenberg Prison, only two days before the Allied liberation.

While Bonhoeffer was already widely known through his earlier writings, especially The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, as well as his more academic theology, the concept of “religionless Christianity,” which appears only a few times in LPP, would contribute to Bonhoeffer’s international influence. The phrase is inherently ambiguous, largely undeveloped, and appears within writings never intended for publication.

By his own admission, many of the concepts associated with “religionless Christianity” were embryonic in nature; the job of explaining, clarifying, and changing was impossible to finish under the circumstances. Nonetheless, Bonhoeffer’s struggle to accurately understand and describe the malaise of the church, and come to terms with what it means to be a faithful and responsible body of Christ still make for gripping reading in our own context.

I think too that it is interesting to read LPP alongside The Cost of Discipleship. The latter work is perhaps the best known of Bonhoeffer’s writings, but not always well understood, since it is too often read as devotional literature, instead of the radical manifesto of responsible Christian discipleship it is. Even in the midst of his more speculative musing in LPP, Bonhoeffer never disavowed what he wrote in Discipleship, despite what sometimes seem to be contradictory statements (for example, he was jailed for participating in an assassination plot, but Discipleship promotes a pacifist understanding of the Sermon on the Mount).

I’m happy to report that Fortress Press is making available new German editions and English translations of all of Bonhoeffer’s works. The English translations include first-rate introductory essays by leading Christian scholars, which means that even if you have an old copy of one of Bonhoeffer’s books lying around, it’s worth buying the new edition and settling down to read some Bonhoeffer, with the warning that you won’t stay settled for long.

Paul Doerksen teaches at MB Collegiate Institute, Winnipeg, and is a PhD candidate in Western Religious Thought at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.