Politics and Religion

Germany 1932

Politics in Germany mid 1932 were starting to get out of hand. In June Bruning resigned and Franz von Papen became Reich chancellor. “Many Germans expected the new Christian conservative government to restore stability.” At 26, Bonhoeffer preached “against Papan government’s misuse of God’s name:

We read that a government has proclaimed that a whole nation is to be saved from collapse--by the Christian worldview. So we, individually and as a nation, are escaping from an inconceivable final catastrophe. 'In the name of God, amen,' is again to be the slogan, religion is again to be cultivated, and the Christian view of life is to be spread. How very meager, weak and pitiful it all sounds: do we believe that we will truly let ourselves be taken in by this 'In the name of God, amen'? That all our actions shall be governed by it? That we, rich and poor, Germans and French, will allow ourselves to be united by the name of God? Or is there not concealed behind our religious trends our ungovernable urge toward...power--in the name of God to do what we want, and in the name of the Christian worldview to stir up and play off one people against another?...Our disobedience is not that we are so irreligious, but that we are so very glad to be religious...very relieved when some government proclaims the Christian worldview...so that the more pious we are, the less we let ourselves be told that God is dangerous, that God will not be mocked."

How much this applies to so much that calls itself religious or Christian in our nation. In the name of God to do what we want … this is a struggle from small to big, from parent to pastor to president.

I am constantly amazed at how clearly and early Bonhoeffer saw these things. It seems from Bethge’s biography that the whole Bonhoeffer family was clear of what was going on and the danger ahead.

At this point in Bonhoeffer’s life where he is working in the academy, the church and in echumenical gatherings like World Alliance. Bonhoeffer saw in these echumenical gatherings a chance for the church to speak with a unified voice against the trouble coming. Some of the early gatherings discussed disarmaments. At this point, Bonhoeffer is struggling, but hopeful that the gatherings will speak out …

It is here, one of the things he says to these gatherings, that is a question, begs a question. In one meeting he is part of one of four discussion groups. His group issued a report saying:

the church must formulate very precise demands in the name of Jesus, no generalities; judgement has to be pronounced on capitalism and nationalism …

“Very precise demands” this is something that the more progessive, for lack of a better word, among us hang back from … and for what seems like very good reason. After any amount of investigation into life, especially if an attempt is made at “open-mindedness”, it is easy to admit how complex the world is and any given situation. Perhaps there are things that are clear, certain morals, but many that are not.

But what if you are in a nation that is about to take bloody, fatal steps toward revenge and world conquest, among other things. What if you see a rising tide of ugly authority, say a leader who likes to shout and carries a horse whip everywhere he goes? Is it best to remain “open-minded”, to realize that life is complex and it is difficult to state right and wrong?

Towards the end of 1932, Bonhoeffer writes it this way:

The church must be able to say the Word of God, the word of authority, here and now, in the most concrete way possible, from knowledge of the situation, or it will say something else, something different and human, the word of impotence. Thus the church must announce no eternally valid principles, but only commandments that are true today. For what is “always” true is not true “today.” To us God is “always” God “today.”

Bonhoeffer, to some extent, that things in Germany were about to head down a dangerous path. And he thought the church should say something, something concrete. This is where the question comes to me. I feel like, to some extent, it is the Christian right, again labels suck, but it saves a lot of time to just name-call, who would say, exactly. That is why Focus on the Family James Dobson wrote a scary letter from the future about what America would be like under Obama-socialism. BUT, wasn’t Bonhoeffer’s sermon quoted in the beginning a strong rebuke of just these kind of groups?

There is a great danger with “eternally valid principles” and there is a great need of “concrete way”s but I think it takes a lot more work to arrive at these and to do so day by day.

January 30, 1933

“A forest of swastika flags surrounded the alter of Magdeburg Cathedral. The cathedral dean Ernst Martin interpreted the scene from the pulpit with words similar to those used by many other church leaders:

It has simply become the symbol of German hope. Whoever reviles this symbol is reviling our Germany... The swastika flags round the altar radiate hope--hope that the day is at last about to dawn.

In the first sermon Bonhoeffer preached in the Trinity Church in Berlin after Hitler’s seizure of power. He announced:

The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty … before which all creatures must kneel... Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away; he cannot join us in the house of God... The church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned.

Bonhoeffer is a very bold man for 26 and it is amazing how clearly he sees what is happening. I hope to develop some of that sight. Father give us bright and open eyes.