World Come of Age Part 1
Lately, I have been thinking (when I have time to think about such things) about the church and how often it becomes very closed-off. Even in church settings where it is common to talk about how other churches are "circling the wagons" its still surprisingly easy to have insider/outsider mentality.
Bonhoeffer talks in his last writings from prison about the world "come of age." This is an interesting phrase to describe the modern world, the world of the 21st century. Many would have pointed to the 18th century, the time of Enlightenment where people were saying that mankind would be free when the last king was strangled by the last priests intestines. But it really does seem that in this recent century something further changed in the Western world. With science and commerce, politics and military power, the Western church seemed to finally lose one of its primary images of itself. The world no longer needed, wanted or had to regard the church as its schoolmaster and governess. This place was held by the church and at times relished by it from the 4th century thru the great revolutions and even into the modern times, but Bonhoeffer was summing up in that phrase, it has finally slipped away.
And in his own life and progression of thought on the church, we can see how he came to this conclusion and how it seemed finally true with iron-clad reality. Very early in his career Bonhoeffer became involved in the world-wide ecumenical church work. It was this connection that opened his eyes to the xenophobic sins of the German church. But when the Nazi power was grossly controlling the Germany church and Bonhoeffer called upon the ecumenical community to speak out, they refused. This was a great disappointment to Bonhoeffer. But, more than this disappointment, he soon realized the great irrelevance of the church in the world come of age. Strong words from the church which Bonhoeffer called them to speak would have done nothing to halt the Nazi enthronement.
As Auden, who was writing poems and in Germany before and during the Nazi rise to power, said in an interview in 1970 about that time: "All the poems I wrote didn't save one Jew from being gassed." It was at this point in Bonhoeffer's story that he knew that if he chose to take responsibility for his poeple's actions, take responsibility for action before God in the world, it would be joining with the worldly conspirators. Bethge writes (859): "the conspiracy had brought together a group of people prepared to take responsibility, many of them came from sectors that had nothing to do with the church." When many in the church were stepping aside, he chose to take action.
Bonhoeffer talks in his last writings from prison about the world "come of age." This is an interesting phrase to describe the modern world, the world of the 21st century. Many would have pointed to the 18th century, the time of Enlightenment where people were saying that mankind would be free when the last king was strangled by the last priests intestines. But it really does seem that in this recent century something further changed in the Western world. With science and commerce, politics and military power, the Western church seemed to finally lose one of its primary images of itself. The world no longer needed, wanted or had to regard the church as its schoolmaster and governess. This place was held by the church and at times relished by it from the 4th century thru the great revolutions and even into the modern times, but Bonhoeffer was summing up in that phrase, it has finally slipped away.
And in his own life and progression of thought on the church, we can see how he came to this conclusion and how it seemed finally true with iron-clad reality. Very early in his career Bonhoeffer became involved in the world-wide ecumenical church work. It was this connection that opened his eyes to the xenophobic sins of the German church. But when the Nazi power was grossly controlling the Germany church and Bonhoeffer called upon the ecumenical community to speak out, they refused. This was a great disappointment to Bonhoeffer. But, more than this disappointment, he soon realized the great irrelevance of the church in the world come of age. Strong words from the church which Bonhoeffer called them to speak would have done nothing to halt the Nazi enthronement.
As Auden, who was writing poems and in Germany before and during the Nazi rise to power, said in an interview in 1970 about that time: "All the poems I wrote didn't save one Jew from being gassed." It was at this point in Bonhoeffer's story that he knew that if he chose to take responsibility for his poeple's actions, take responsibility for action before God in the world, it would be joining with the worldly conspirators. Bethge writes (859): "the conspiracy had brought together a group of people prepared to take responsibility, many of them came from sectors that had nothing to do with the church." When many in the church were stepping aside, he chose to take action.
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