Bonhoeffer Weekend

THEME: WITH COURAGE AND HUMILITY 

Presenter: Dr. Mark Brocker 

WORKSHOP “With Courage and Humility: Bonhoeffer’s Ethical Approach for Us Today” [Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – noon] 

German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer may be best known for his bold, courageous involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler, for which he was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945. But in this workshop Dr. Brocker will focus on how Bonhoeffer’s approach to ethics combined both courage and humility in a way desperately needed in our context. To a significant extent, the content of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics reflects the time in which it was written. Nonetheless, his ethical approach is as relevant for us today as it was in the time of Nazi Germany. It can be applied to both ordinary and extraordinary situations. It emphasizes dependence on God’s grace and yet affirms that human beings have real responsibility for history. It recognizes that we are called to act with boldness and courage, but always with a profound sense of ethical humility.  

During the first hour of the workshop, Dr. Brocker will offer a presentation entitled “With Courage and Humility: Bonhoeffer’s Ethical Approach for Us Today,” based on a paper he presented in January 2024 at the XIV International Bonhoeffer Congress in Sydney, Australia. During the second hour of the workshop, Dr. Brocker will lead participants in doing a case study utilizing a discernment process inspired by Bonhoeffer’s ethical approach. 

LECTURE “The Political Responsibility of the Church”  [Saturday, 7:00–8:00 p.m.] 

In Nazi Germany Bonhoeffer was particularly concerned by a traditional Lutheran interpretation of the two kingdoms—the spiritual kingdom and the political or worldly kingdom—as autonomous spheres. Many Christians in Germany of that time believed that God had put Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government in power; and thus, in political matters Hitler and the Nazis were to be obeyed without interference from the church. Bonhoeffer affirmed that the state has a God-given role to govern, but he also asserted that when the state fails to fulfill its proper role the church has a responsibility to call it to account, to aid the victims of state injustice, and, if necessary in more extraordinary situations, to engage in direct political action. Dr. Brocker will also reflect on what Bonhoeffer’s insights into the political responsibility of the church mean for us in our tumultuous context. 

SERMON  “A Miracle of Divine Mercy”   [Sunday, 10:30 a.m. Worship] 

God’s deep love for the world was the firm ground on which Dietrich Bonhoeffer took his stand in his resistance to Hitler and the Nazis. In Ethics he affirms that “the central message of the New Testament is that in Christ God has loved the world and reconciled it with himself.” Bonhoeffer emphasizes that the world God loves is not some ideal, but the real world, the lost and condemned world. One marvels that this strong affirmation of love was written in the early years of World War II when Hitler and the Nazis were at the zenith of their power. 

ADULT FORUM “What Does It Mean to Tell the Truth?”   [Sunday, noon - 1:00 p.m.] 

Bonhoeffer wrote his essay “What Does It Mean to Tell the Truth?” while he was being interrogated by the Nazis. In the typical understanding of telling the truth, he was lying through his teeth to protect not only himself but also his family members and fellow conspirators. For Bonhoeffer “telling the truth” is a matter of speaking the necessary, life-giving word in a given situation. One’s intentions  and the real circumstances  must be taken into account. As Bonhoeffer explains, some public leaders are incapable of telling the truth because they lack a firm grasp of reality. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, Germany, the sixth of eight children. His twin sister Sabine was number seven. The Bonhoeffers were a Prussian upper middle-class family. In 1912 his father was appointed as Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Berlin, so the family moved to Berlin. As a young teenage boy Bonhoeffer surprised his family by announcing that he planned to be a theologian. The Bonhoeffers were members of the church, and the mother made sure the children were given religious instruction. But the family did not regularly attend church. 

Bonhoeffer commenced theological studies at the University of Tübingen in 1923. He completed his doctorate in 1927 at the age of 21 at the University of Berlin. His dissertation was entitled Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church. Following the completion of his dissertation he entered his regional church’s course of training for the ministry. In February 1928 he traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to serve for a year as a vicar for a small German-speaking congregation. In 1929 he returned to Berlin and accepted a position as a “voluntary assistant lecturer” in systematic theology. During this time, he also focused on writing his postdoctoral thesis Act and Being, completed in July 1930, qualifying him to be a university teacher. 

In September 1930 he left for New York to study at Union Theological Seminary. While at Union, he often attended Abyssinian Baptist Church, an African American congregation in Harlem, and even taught Sunday School there. Upon his return to Berlin in 1931, he taught as a lecturer in the theological faculty, filled a student chaplain position, taught a confirmation class at a working-class parish, and became involved in the ecumenical movement and was chosen as Youth Secretary for the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches. 

On February 1, 1933, two days after Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer was on the radio warning of the danger of making an idol out of a political leader. In April 1933 he published an article entitled “The Church and the Jewish Question,” in which he highlighted three possible responses of the church to an unjust state: one, publicly question the legitimacy of unjust state actions; two, aid the victims of state action; and three, seize the wheel itself—that is, engage in direct political action to resist unjust state actions. Bonhoeffer worked with Martin Niemöller to form the Pastors’ Emergency League, a forerunner of the Confessing Church, which resisted the inroads of the Nazis and Nazi ideology into the life and work of the church. In October 1933 Bonhoeffer left for London to serve two German-speaking congregations. Thus, he was not present in May 1934 for the adoption of the Barmen Declaration, which became the foundation of the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer supported the Barmen Declaration’s resistance to the inroads of the Nazis into the life and structure of the church, but was especially critical of its silence on the treatment of the Jews. 

In 1935 Bonhoeffer faced a decision of whether: (1) to continue as pastor of the congregations in London; or (2) to travel to India to study non-violent resistance under Gandhi; or (3) to accept an invitation to direct one of the Confessing Church’s illegal seminaries. He accepted the invitation to lead the seminary, initially located in Zingst and then moved to Finkenwalde. At Finkenwalde he first met Eberhard Bethge, his dear friend, student, confessing partner, fellow conspirator, and biographer. Finkenwalde was closed by the Gestapo in September of 1937. Bonhoeffer continued training seminarians in a couple of “collective pastorates” in Pomerania. On Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), November 9, 1938, Nazi henchmen vandalized hundreds of synagogues across Germany. Bonhoeffer was appalled by the silence of the Confessing Church in the aftermath of this horrific event. 

In 1939 Reinhold Niebuhr and other American friends, wanting to rescue Bonhoeffer from the Nazis, arranged for him to come to the United States to teach and to work with German refugees. Soon after arriving in the United States, he realized that, as he wrote to Niebuhr, “I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”  

Upon his return to Germany, he resumed work with the collective pastorates until they were closed by the Gestapo in March 1940. In October 1940 he became a courier for the resistance group secretly operating out of the Office of Military Intelligence under the leadership of Hans Oster and Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi. As a courier he was to engage in secret talks with foreign church leaders who would communicate with Allied leaders concerning the plans and aims of the resistance movement. In this role he traveled to Switzerland three times, to Sweden, to Norway, and to Italy. During his time as a courier, he was banned from public speaking, had a residency restriction imposed on him, and was banned from publishing. 

In January 1943 he became engaged to Maria Wedemeyer. They would never marry. Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi were arrested and imprisoned on April 5, 1943. After the failure of the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on Hitler, Bonhoeffer’s fate was effectively sealed. He, brother-in-law Hans, and several other conspirators were executed by the Nazis on April 9 at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. The life and writings of Bonhoeffer continue to have a significant impact on people of faith and the life of the church. The charge of treason against Bonhoeffer was removed in 1996.