Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A beginner's guide

One of my favourite A Level Religious Studies topics focuses on the ideas of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have recently delivered a few talks on him at A level events. Yet sometimes I mention him in Christian circles to various reactions – glazed over eyes or occasional curiosity. It seems to me that both Bonhoeffer’s life and ideas are highly significant to our day and age. So here is a brief introduction with 5 of his key ideas, each with a question for reflection.

Bonhoeffer – his life

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Germany in 1906; he studied theology and entered Christian ministry. By the time Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer was known both as a theologian and as a critic of Nazi ideas. For many German Christians, the state was seen as part of the order of creation alongside the family and the church. Hence Nazism was seen as either a good or neutral movement. Many German Christians accepted Hitler’s influence on the church including the Aryan clause, which forbade those who had Jewish ancestry from becoming ministers. Bonhoeffer was part of a movement known as the confessing church, a group who resisted Nazi influence, and he spent 2 years secretly training pastors at Finkenwalde before it was closed down by the Nazis.

In 1939 Bonhoeffer had an opportunity to escape to America. With his criticism of Hitler being well known, friends had arranged for him a place outside of Germany to stay until things were safer. He stayed only 3 weeks stating that he felt compelled to return to Germany to go through the crisis with the German people.

Upon return to Germany, his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi secured him a post in the Abwehr, the military intelligence. Bonhoeffer’s official role was to use his international church contacts to gain information for the Nazis; in reality, he often passed information the other way, he was able to travel freely and assisted in operations to secretly smuggle Jews to safety in Switzerland. It seems that Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer were also aware of a plot to assassinate Hitler but were probably not directly involved.  Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and imprisoned on vague charges of financial irregularity. A year later the plot to kill Hitler failed and Bonhoeffer’s name was one of many that were implicated or loosely connected. This led to his execution on April 9^th, 1945, just a few weeks before Germany surrendered and the allied forces liberated the camp.

Bonhoeffer: 5 key ideas

1.     The Cost of Discipleship

'The cost of discipleship' is the title of Bonhoeffer’s most famous book. His main point is the difference between cheap grace and costly grace. Although grace is free and undeserved, this does not mean that a Christian can live any way they like. This view (cheap grace) represents real danger for the Church. Cheap grace is a Christian faith where the believer gets all the benefits such as forgiveness, baptism, communion, without having any of the responsibilities (repentance, discipline, confession) that might go with them.

God’s grace is free, but it is not cheap! Costly grace means that there is a cost to living a Christian life. It involves sacrificing the old way of life and submitting to the will of Christ. Bonhoeffer argues that Christianity has lost the sense of costly grace – that there is a cost to discipleship. He suggests that we might wrongly think the cost is just for those in special roles (vicars, nuns) or we might reduce the cost to a simple ‘prayer of faith’ in conversion. The consequence being that ‘The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ…’ (Cost of Discipleship Ch. 1)

QUESTION: Are we wanting an easy religion where we get all the benefits of Christianity without the full cost of following Jesus as a disciple?

2.     Solidarity

A second key aspect of Bonhoeffer’s views is around the idea of solidarity. The Christian is called to solidarity with the oppressed, the word suggests literally ‘standing with them’ in their struggle. The gospels show that Jesus is on the side of the marginalised and oppressed. Christianity is a religion that identifies with the weak and the least, not the great and the powerful. Bonhoeffer in one sermon written whilst in London in the 1930s states ‘Christianity should . . . take a much more definite stand for the weak than to consider the potential moral right of the strong.’ Bonhoeffer’s experience in an earlier visit to America was powerful here. His time spent worshipping in African American churches both opened his eyes to racial inequality and revealed something of authentic Christianity; here God seemed to be present in a way that was not the case in majority white churches. These ideas of solidarity carried through into his support for the Jews and other groups persecuted by the Nazis.

QUESTION: If we call ourselves Christians, are we willing to be in solidarity with the powerless/the victims and stand against the perpetrators/those in power? How might we do this?

3.     Life Together

Thirdly, Bonhoeffer writes much about church and community. The church is a community of disciples, a group of people attempting to live as disciples of Jesus together. Much of Bonhoeffer’s thinking on the Church community was developed through his time training pastors at Finkenwalde and is found in his book ‘Life Together.’ The phrase ‘life together’ is apt. Christian communities for Bonhoeffer should share life together with regular group prayer, Bible study and shared work and leisure activities. It is a community with relatively little hierarchy, one where members are accountable to others and have a role in developing others. ‘The church is only the church when it exists for others.’ This idea is a vital challenge to the modern individualistic thinking which impacts all communities including churches as we focus on individual relationship with God or personal experience at the expense of connection with others

QUESTION: Are we engaging enough with others in a ‘life together’ supporting each other in life’s struggles and growth in faith? Are our lives too individualistic?

4.     Religionless Christianity

A key phrase in later writings is the idea of ‘religionless Christianity.’ Bonhoeffer argues that in the modern more secular age, the religious rituals of the mainly middle-class church have lost meaning for many of those outside the church. The church is providing answers to questions that are not being asked.

People have no need of this type of Christianity, but they do need Christ. Bonhoeffer suggests that at its core Christianity is not a religion (religion = humans trying to reach God) but is the belief that God through Jesus reaches out to humanity. The church should continue to reach out and be at ‘the centre of the village’ but it may need to reinterpret some of its beliefs and practices in order to do this.

QUESTION: Are there areas where we have got stuck because we find that aspect of ‘religion’ comforting, but it no longer offers help to those currently outside the church?

5.     God first, state and politics second

Finally, Bonhoeffer has a key challenge to our thinking around the nation and politics. For a Christian, a follower of Jesus, Jesus is the true leader. (The German word for leader is ‘Fuhrer’ which is the title that Hitler adopted. Yet Jesus is the true ‘Fuhrer’.) When faced with a choice between Jesus and an anti-Christian ideology such as Nazism, the Christian must choose Jesus.

This may bring the need to act. Unlike some German Christians who were able to look the other way, Bonhoeffer states that ‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil’ On those rare occasions where there is conflict between what the state demands and what Jesus demands, the disciple must obey Jesus.

This speaks powerfully to our present situation. There is a huge danger in putting country or politics before Jesus – or misusing Christianity to serve political views. Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ yet in many places we see Christians drawn into agendas that are largely political. If we are co-opting our Christianity to support our political views or to fight culture wars, then the chance is that we have lost sight of what is actually important in our faith.

QUESTION: We all have our political views - most things are political to some extent! But how do our political views and our faith relate? Which informs our thinking the most? Which is most important?

BONUS: If you are interested in more about Bonhoeffer – and why wouldn’t you be - here's some extracts from ‘the Cost of Discipleship’ together with some accompanying notes. He is very much a thinker for our time!  

I am grateful to Joe Haward for his time spent reading the first draft and offering some helpful comments