Left: Bonhoeffer

As I read A Testament to Freedom, Essential Writings of Bonhoeffer, I think I’ll wrestle with what I read here. I’ve completed the introductory life, and am struck again as I was when reading Bethge’s biography of the congruence of Dietrich’s life. He seemed to see clearly and earlier than many in the run up to the Nazi era that Christ called him to die. In the warlock’s cauldron of Nazi Germany,  his life was unified in the love of Christ.

What possible connection to such a life could there be with an ordinary life like mine? If he could have, Dietrich would have lived an ordinary life in the love of Christ; martyrdom was nothing he aspired to, the cult of personality he cosidered anathema.

I’ve read the selections from his dissertations. They’ll take several reads before I can grasp what he’s saying. In “The Communion of Saints” his 1930 dissertation he sees the church in Christ, not a socio-political entity, as the community of those who are in Christ, who live for Christ and for others in the world. I don’t think his views coincide with the emphasis on personal salvation that characterizes my primary faith tradition, Southern Baptists.

 (I no longer consider myself Baptist or Christian—the latter indicating the traditions and attachments to faith in the past two millennia; I aspire to be a “Christ-follower” for lack of a better term. I suppose the biblical name would simply be “in Christ.”)

“Act and Being” his 1931 dissertation requires more than one read. In the intro I highlighted this:

 “God’s Word becomes God’s revelation for us only in community.” (p. 65)

This is true. The word “solidarity” has become more common since the Polish labor union Solidarity successfully opposed the Communist regime. Most in the US, however, still pursue the individualistic capitalistic golden idol, and see no problem with individuals controlling vast wealth, while millions go without work, health care, food, shelter, personal safety, not to speak of the opportunity for self-realization that the middle class and well to do think of as a human right.

I also decided to jump around in the book, to avoid getting swamped in the super difficult sections like “Act and Being.” Therefore, I read

• “The Church is Dead” and
• “Learning to Die.”

But not all the dead are blessed; rather “those which die in the Lord,” those who learned how to die in time, who kept faith, who clung to Jesus up to the last hour, whether amidst the sufferings of the first martyrs, or in the martyrdom of a silent loneliness. (p. 267).

Back to the question of Dietrich’s relevance to ordinary life. I don’t think we live in ordinary times. Since Sept 11, 2001, the nation has been preoccupied with national security. Under Bush Cheney we violated some of our most cherished principles: at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, we imprison nameless people without trial indefinitely. We torture. In the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe the CIA (just like the Communists) set up a gulag where human rights were extinct. 

Now with the economic downturn, millions around the world have no work. The prosperity which cushioned many from the inequities of globalization has evaporated. Huge banks which oppose welfare for individuals accept tens, hundreds of billions of dollars from a government which simply prints more when needed. Some scientists wonder if we’re headed for another mass extinction event.

We view our circumstances as normal, whereas in World War II we realized we were in crisis. The church for the most part today has gone silent on all these  and many other issues, in relation to which being “in Christ” ought to bring about a beloved community where Christ is incarnate today through the metanoia and newness of life, not merely of the individual, but of the whole as one body in Christ.