Latest news with #Bonhoeffer
Irish Times
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Dietrich Bonhoeffer cast as a culture warrior for the right? That makes no sense
This year is another ominous one for anniversaries. Eighty years ago, the second World War finally came to an end, leaving behind the graves of an estimated 60 million people and a world scarred by destruction and systematic cruelty of a magnitude hitherto unimaginable. One anniversary has already passed. On April 9th, 1945, just one month before Nazi Germany capitulated, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was hanged by direct order from the top. His crime? Membership of a clandestine group which had hoped to end the war by their failed attempt on July 20th, 1944, to assassinate Adolf Hitler . [ De Valera's condolences on the death of Hitler continue to provoke 80 years on ] Among the Lutheran theologians of his time, Bonhoeffer stands out by the compelling force and clarity of his conviction that the Christian faith is incompatible with race ideology. Faced with the challenge of fascism, he had struggled for more than a decade with the century-old and deeply embedded proximity of Lutheranism to state power. He had been vocal against what was happening in Germany since 1933. He was particularly outspoken against anti-Semitism. READ MORE In the end, the blatantly sinister actions of the German state under National Socialism convinced him that more than words were needed, so he joined the resistance movement that planned to use violence to remove the regime. However, he never felt that his actions could be legitimated by theology. Before God, his choice of the violent path was unjustifiable. 'When a man takes guilt upon himself in responsibility, he imputes his guilt to himself and no one else ... Before other men he is justified by dire necessity; ... but before God he hopes only for grace,' he writes in Ethics. He paid the ultimate price for his stance. Although he died for his faith, he is not a martyr in the conventional sense. Unlike those early Christians who endured a brutal death for their non-violent refusal to venerate the emperor, Bonhoeffer had come to the conclusion that the nature of Nazi evil required a conscientious decision that remained flawed in that it was in contradiction to the pacifist core of the Christian. His courage to face these contradictions openly, without denying the moral and spiritual dilemma, has led to Bonhoeffer being held in the highest esteem, often being mentioned in one breath with Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Recently a stunning shift has taken place. Perhaps beginning with Eric Metaxas's 2010 biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, some American evangelical circles associated with the rising tide of Christian nationalism have started to paint Bonhoeffer as a role model for the contemporary culture wars. They have appropriated Bonhoeffer's resolute and daring stance against the evils of the Nazi ideology – and they argue that in today's struggle he would stand with them in their fight against those who grant too much dignity to marginal groups. Bonhoeffer cast as a culture warrior? A man who boldly stood up for the outcasts in his own time? On October 15th last year, scholars wrote an open letter rejecting this dangerous misappropriation of Bonhoeffer's legacy. Initially signed by eight prominent Bonhoeffer scholars, it has since been endorsed by more than 4,000 people from all around the globe, among them church leaders, pastors and theologians. The day after, 76 adult descendants of the Bonhoeffer family published their own open letter in which they rejected the recent claims on their ancestor. It is the first time since his death that the family came out together in public to defend Bonhoeffer's legacy. Among other things, they write: 'We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasingly being distorted and misused by right-wing extremists, xenophobes and religious agitators. 'As direct descendants of the seven siblings of the theologian and resistance fighter executed by the Nazis, we can testify based on what we learned from our families that he was a peace-loving, freedom-loving humanitarian. 'Never would he have seen himself associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.' Around the time of the US presidential election last autumn a new Bonhoeffer film by Todd Komarnicki was released in the US . It was called Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. It was in Irish cinemas earlier this year. The film has turned Bonhoeffer's story into a thriller with a relaxed attitude to crucial biographical truth, turning his struggle of conscience into easily consumable buzz and doing nothing to counter the emerging Christian nationalist narrative. Subsequently the film's nine lead actors also released a public statement in which they call out the misappropriation of their film while endorsing the statements by the scholars and the Bonhoeffer family. Perhaps it is time we went back and read some of Bonhoeffer's writings and judge for ourselves? His estimation of African American theology and church music, his reflections on the Sermon on the Mount, his decisive condemnation of National Socialism in a radio programme back in 1933 or his visionary musings in prison on the future of Christianity as religionless ... we have much to learn. Rev Martin Sauter is Pastor at the Lutheran Church in Ireland. On Saturday, May 10th, at 3pm in the Lutherhaus, 24 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2, the Lutheran Church in Ireland is hosting a seminar on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Radical Witness in Challenging Times. Keynote speaker is Matthew D Kirkpatrick, fellow in Christian ethics and doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford
Calgary Herald
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Be Awake and Be Aware: A warning for our times
Article content Article content I was shaken awake from my comfortable slumber when I was introduced to the following list of markers depicting the rise of fascism. Do you see any parallels to our present landscape? Article content Private enforcers at political rallies. Discrediting of the free press. Co-opting religion as source of authority, Hyper-militarism. Promises of future greatness via magical impact of the great leader. Xenophobia. Heightened misogyny. Tolerance for attacks on the marginalized. Appeals to a glorious mythic past. Insistence on allegiance to symbols of patriotism, Strong-arm rhetoric. Threats to crush purported enemies. Thinly veiled racism. Open contempt for immigrants Discrediting of elected officials and bodies. Attempts to circumvent legislative process. Threats to undermine the judiciary. Relentless blaming of foreign powers for domestic woes. Demands for unwavering loyalty to the leader Article content Article content This list was representing the warning signs of fascism present in the mid-1940s yet could easily speak to our present reality. Dr. Rob Fennell from Atlantic School of Theology in 2016 warns that it seems history is repeating itself. Article content Article content Fennell recently preformed a one-man production entitled Bonhoeffer meets Trump. He imagined a conversation between a 1940s German Protestant pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer and USA President elect Donald Trump. Bonhoeffer appears as a ghost in Trump's dream, much like Scrooge's old friends appear to him in A Christmas Carol. The play is set in the present time and the conversation highlights who Bonhoeffer was and parallels to our present reality. Article content Bonhoeffer was a Protestant theologian during the Second World War. He warned people about the dangers of fascism. He called people to be awake and aware of coming ruin. Because of his outspoken manner, he was arrested, deemed to be a political prisoner, sent to a German concentration camp and executed in 1945. Article content Article content Fennell's presentation emphasizes the startling similarities between the present-day American political climate and the ideologies of 1940s Germany. Article content Upon viewing Fennell's supposed conversation, many question began to form in my head: How can we possibly live faithfully in times of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty? Are we aware of the impending dangers? Are we awake and prepared to resist and speak truth to power? Are we going to allow history to repeat itself? Article content Fennell attempts to broadly answer these questions by stating, 'So often people deny or avoid the reality of the present moment and in doing so, are lulled into perilous and dangerous times.' Article content Fennell did offer suggestions on how to respond to our political reality. First, be rigorously aware of what is happening. Second, be awake and willing to speak out and up against harmful measures. Fennell warned us that all too often people assume someone else will speak up against an atrocity until they discover that there is no one left to speak. He read a powerful poem called First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemoller, a contemporary of Bonhoeffer's:
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Why some say an anti-Nazi pastor executed by Hitler has become a hero to today's White Christian nationalists
He had just finished leading a worship service when two Gestapo agents approached him. 'Prisoner Bonhoeffer — get ready and come with us,' one of them ordered. It was April 8, 1945, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew what their summons meant. Berlin had been reduced to rubble. Adolf Hitler had retreated to his underground bunker. The Allied and Russian armies were closing in on what was left of the Nazi regime. But Bonhoeffer knew there would be no rescue for him. He was driven to a nearby concentration camp and held overnight. At dawn, the guards took him from his prison cell and ordered him to strip. They marched him naked to the place of execution, and before climbing the steps to the gallows, Bonhoeffer paused to pray. 'This is the end — for me, the beginning of life,' he reportedly said. A prison doctor who witnessed the execution described Bonhoeffer's final moments this way: 'In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.' In at least one way, Bonhoeffer was right — another part of his life was just beginning. This week marked the 80th anniversary of his death. And the Lutheran theologian and pastor, who was executed that day for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, has become one of the world's most influential religious thinkers. Bonhoeffer's books such as 'The Cost of Discipleship' are now considered Christian classics. Everyone from U2's Bono to the late President Jimmy Carter have cited his influence. He's also been the subject of critically acclaimed documentaries and a recent dramatic film, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,' whose poster shows him carrying a gun like an ecclesiastical version of James Bond. There are many reasons why people are fascinated by Bonhoeffer. He was a brilliant theologian who took center stage at one of the most dramatic moments in history. One historian said, 'Few theologians witnessed the juggernaut of Nazi depravity at closer range than Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' But Bonhoeffer is now being drawn into another battle today: the ongoing debate over White Christian nationalism. Some of the world's leading Bonhoeffer scholars and members of his family are warning that he's being turned into a holy warrior for the White Christian nationalist movement, which uses religious language to cloak hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants while falsely claiming that the US is a Christian nation. One professor of religion has called the movement an 'imposter Christianity.' Others argue that the recent Bonhoeffer movie 'primes viewers for violence.' Even conservative scholars and biographers argue the left is distorting their views on Bonhoeffer and ignoring the pastor's stances on issues like abortion, which he considered murder. While both the left and right have twisted Bonhoeffer's views over the years, members of the far Christian right have taken that misappropriation to a dangerous new level, says Charles Marsh, author of 'Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' They argue incorrectly that Bonhoeffer was never a pacifist and that he always supported certain types of political violence, Marsh says. 'The Democrats have become the Nazis, and the faithful German anti-Nazi pastors have become Trump Republicans — that's a tortured reading of history,' Marsh says. 'But it has been sold to many sectors of American Christian life as a meaningful reinterpretation of the Bonhoeffer story.' Some scholars trace this phenomenon to Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio show talk host and the author of the 2009 book, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,' which became a New York Times bestseller. A 2024 letter from Bonhoeffer scholars argued that Metaxas 'has manipulated the Bonhoeffer story to support Christian nationalism,' and that the German pastor's story has been 'increasingly used to promote political violence.' The scholars were joined last year by some of Bonhoeffer's living relatives, who released a statement accusing Metaxas, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, of misrepresenting Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist evangelical. They said that Bonhoeffer would never have 'never … associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.' In an interview with CNN, Metaxas called the Bonhoeffer family statement 'preposterous' and said his public comments on Bonhoeffer do not give people permission to engage in political violence. 'That's insanity,' Metaxas says. 'That makes me sick that people would say that. Anybody who knows me would know that I don't believe that.' Metaxas says the debate over Bonhoeffer's legacy is not really about a clash between the left and right, but a reflection of how so many different people revere the pastor. 'When you're dealing with somebody that is so amazing, because everyone agrees that he's amazing, on some level it's human nature to project your thinking on that figure.' This debate about Bonhoeffer and violence may seem academic. But the German pastor has already been used to justify political violence in the US. Far-right Christian activists carried out a wave of bombings, arsons and other attacks on reproductive health clinics in the 1980s and early 1990s. Paul Hill, who was executed for gunning down a Florida clinic doctor and a volunteer in 1994, cited Bonhoeffer in viewing the attacks against clinics as a way of preventing a holocaust. A militant anti-abortion group, Missionaries to the Preborn, also likened Hill to Bonhoeffer. In 2005, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson invoked Bonhoeffer in calling for the assassination of foreign leaders such as Saddam Hussein. Many Christian nationalists do not condone violence. Yet the movement was deeply involved in a dramatic example of recent political violence: the January 6 insurrection, during which four people died and more than 100 police officers were injured. A 2024 national survey found that 38% of Christian nationalism adherents agreed with the statement, 'Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may need to resort to violence in order to save our country.' The Christian nationalist movement also shares many beliefs with far-right extremists who cite Bonhoeffer to justify violence, including the notion that Christians are being persecuted. Bonhoeffer scholars and relatives warn the German pastor is being transformed by varied sources — filmmakers, Metaxas' writings and statements, and essays from conservative scholars evoking Bonhoeffer to support the MAGA movement — into a Christian nationalist warrior. In their statement last year, the scholars warned that the German's life and work are increasingly being used to make 'false and menacing equations between our present time and the totalitarian Nazi regime. These dangerous narratives are cause for our deep concern.' Some far-right Christians may also feel emboldened to engage in political violence because Trump inspires an almost messianic devotion among them, says Stephen R. Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump.' He says those far-right Christians may do what others did in the past: cite Bonhoeffer and call their use of violence a 'Bonhoeffer moment,' a decision to employ political violence for righteous purposes. 'What happens if the Supreme Court does not agree with 'God's anointed' (Trump)? People are going to oppose it and call it spiritual warfare,' Haynes says. 'At some point, spiritual warfare becomes non-spiritual warfare — and that's scary.' The debate over Bonhoeffer and political violence takes on added urgency today because of another development: Trump's recent decision to pardon nearly every rioter who took part in the Jan. 6 attacks. Several extremism experts fear political violence from far-right Christian groups and individuals will be seen as more acceptable in American life because of Trump's pardons. There was little in Bonhoeffer's background to hint he'd become a Christian martyr or the subject of ferocious religious debate. He was born into an affluent German family that was not particularly religious. His father was an eminent psychiatrist, and he enjoyed a pampered upbringing: When he told his family at age 13 that he wanted to be a theologian, some of them scoffed at his choice and argued the church was irrelevant. 'In that case, I shall reform it,' Bonhoeffer said in an account taken from one biography. The bespectacled, bookish Bonhoeffer was a man of refinement whose natural reserve could be interpreted as arrogance, says Marsh, the biographer. He wore elegant suits, drove a convertible and was an intellectual prodigy who earned his doctorate at 21. (Karl Barth, a famous theologian, read Bonhoeffer's dissertation and said it was a 'theological miracle.') 'He loved life,' Marsh says. 'He loved to talk about classical music and literature. He loved to hike and would take long, lush vacations to the North Sea and Baltic Sea.' Bonhoeffer traveled to US in 1930 and studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was transformed by his friendship with a Black classmate, and by the time he spent at Abyssinian Baptist Church, a historic Black church in Harlem. He came back to the US in 1939, and as war loomed in Europe, he was advised to sit out the war in America. But he returned to Germany. 'I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany,' he wrote. 'I shall 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.' When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, he encountered a German church that had largely capitulated to the Nazis. Swastika flags adorned the outsides of churches. And the Nazis reinvented Jesus as a muscular Aryan hero who fought Jews. 'By the mid-1930s you could not be a minister in the German church unless you were a member of the Nazi party,' Marsh says. 'Baptism rituals would include phrases like 'May this child grow up to honor the glory of our Lord and our Fuhrer.' '' The German people were psychologically primed for the linking of a militant Christianity with Nazi ideology, historians say. They had been humiliated by their defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles' punishing terms, along with a devastating depression. Many were alarmed by what they deemed as the spread of permissive sexual attitudes in Germany. 'The promise made by Hitler was to bring the nation out of the disgrace of the Treaty of Versailles, to be God's great and chosen nation above all of the other nations,' Marsh says. 'It was only a matter of time that that theologians and pastors began to reinterpret the Christian story for the story of Germany.' Germany's Christian leaders helped legitimize Hitler, says Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer.' They allowed themselves to believe that Hitler was a pious man chosen by God. And Hitler encouraged their adoration by posing for photographs as he left church and prayed. German church leaders described Hitler as 'the instrument of God' and 'the liberator of our people from their spiritual misery and division.' But Bonhoeffer refused to submit to Hitler. He denounced the Nazi Party from the church pulpit. He preached about the dangers of making an idol of a political leader or a nation. He became peripherally involved in an operation to smuggle Jews out of Germany. The Nazis banned his books and barred him from lecturing and preaching. What Bonhoeffer did after embracing those forms of nonviolent resistance remains controversial today. He supported a plot to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer did not carry a gun or plant a bomb — in fact, he had remained imprisoned by the Nazis for more than a year before the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt — but his decision seemed to mark a dramatic departure from Jesus' injunction to love one's enemies and his renunciation of political violence. So how did Bonhoeffer reconcile his faith with his support for an assassination? He didn't, say Bonhoeffer scholars. They say he didn't try to offer a theological justification for what he did. Although he saw Hitler as an evil that must be stopped, he struggled with the idea that he was betraying his calling, scholars say. 'Bonhoeffer believed that if he joined the conspiracy, he would rightly sacrifice his ordination as a minister of the Word of God,' says Mark DeVine, author of 'Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at all Costs.' It may be easy to critique Bonhoeffer's decision from afar, but consider what he was facing: The Nazis were murdering Jews in concentration camps, DeVine says. 'The clock was ticking, the atrocities piling up, and so Bonhoeffer had to make a decision fast.' Time soon ran out for Bonhoeffer as well. The accounts of his last days say he faced the end of his life with courage and conviction. While in prison, he continued to write books, read Plutarch, and preach sermons to fellow prisoners. In one letter from prison, he wrote: 'I have never regretted my decision in the summer of 1939 to return to Germany… If I were to end my life here in these conditions, that would have a meaning that I think I could understand.' What many fail to understand today is why Bonhoeffer didn't survive. Why did the Nazis order his execution just two weeks before the war ended? Todd Komarnicki, the writer-director of last year's 'Bonhoeffer' film, has a theory. Komarnicki says he objected to a poster for his film depicting Bonhoeffer carrying a gun, and that his movie does not endorse Christian nationalism. 'Hitler hated Bonhoeffer for ages and wanted to kill him but his closest advisors always no, this guy is beloved. You cannot take him out. He's well-known,' Komarnicki says. 'Everything is closing in on Hitler and he gets one last opportunity, and he signs a blanket of execution statement for loads of people. I'm sure that he personally underlines Dietrich's name.' It's easy to think of what Bonhoeffer could have become if Hitler hadn't had his way. He could have married his fiancé (most believed he died celibate) and gone on to even more renown, his abundant intellectual gifts burnished by his heroic resistance to Hitler. Komarnicki sees it another way. 'If Dietrich had lived and gone to the countryside and written 10 more books and raised kids, we wouldn't be making a movie about him,' he says. 'Hitler thought he won the day and Dietrich lost. But it was Dietrich who won, and Hitler who lost.' There will likely be more movies and books about Bonhoeffer. He is honored with a statue in London's Westminster Abbey, where his likeness stands alongside other Christian martyrs such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His life is a magnet that draws people from all sorts of religious and political backgrounds. But there could be a dark twist to his story in the years ahead. If Bonhoeffer's example is used to justify more far-right Christian violence in America, that would be another tragedy — and a cruel irony that would stain the legacy of a man who gave up everything to confront a tyrant.
CNN
13-04-2025
- General
- CNN
Why some say an anti-Nazi pastor executed by Hitler has become a hero to today's White Christian nationalists
He had just finished leading a worship service when two Gestapo agents approached him. 'Prisoner Bonhoeffer — get ready and come with us,' one of them ordered. It was April 8, 1945, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew what their summons meant. Berlin had been reduced to rubble. Adolf Hitler had retreated to his underground bunker. The Allied and Russian armies were closing in on what was left of the Nazi regime. But Bonhoeffer knew there would be no rescue for him. He was driven to a nearby concentration camp and held overnight. At dawn, the guards took him from his prison cell and ordered him to strip. They marched him naked to the place of execution, and before climbing the steps to the gallows, Bonhoeffer paused to pray. 'This is the end — for me, the beginning of life,' he reportedly said. A prison doctor who witnessed the execution described Bonhoeffer's final moments this way: 'In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.' In at least one way, Bonhoeffer was right — another part of his life was just beginning. This week marked the 80th anniversary of his death. And the Lutheran theologian and pastor, who was executed that day for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, has become one of the world's most influential religious thinkers. Bonhoeffer's books such as 'The Cost of Discipleship' are now considered Christian classics. Everyone from U2's Bono to the late President Jimmy Carter have cited his influence. He's also been the subject of critically acclaimed documentaries and a recent dramatic film, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,' whose poster shows him carrying a gun like an ecclesiastical version of James Bond. There are many reasons why people are fascinated by Bonhoeffer. He was a brilliant theologian who took center stage at one of the most dramatic moments in history. One historian said, 'Few theologians witnessed the juggernaut of Nazi depravity at closer range than Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' But Bonhoeffer is now being drawn into another battle today: the ongoing debate over White Christian nationalism. Some of the world's leading Bonhoeffer scholars and members of his family are warning that he's being turned into a holy warrior for the White Christian nationalist movement, which uses religious language to cloak hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants while falsely claiming that the US is a Christian nation. One professor of religion has called the movement an 'imposter Christianity.' Others argue that the recent Bonhoeffer movie 'primes viewers for violence.' Even conservative scholars and biographers argue the left is distorting their views on Bonhoeffer and ignoring the pastor's stances on issues like abortion, which he considered murder. While both the left and right have twisted Bonhoeffer's views over the years, members of the far Christian right have taken that misappropriation to a dangerous new level, says Charles Marsh, author of 'Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' They argue incorrectly that Bonhoeffer was never a pacifist and that he always supported certain types of political violence, Marsh says. 'The Democrats have become the Nazis, and the faithful German anti-Nazi pastors have become Trump Republicans — that's a tortured reading of history,' Marsh says. 'But it has been sold to many sectors of American Christian life as a meaningful reinterpretation of the Bonhoeffer story.' Some scholars trace this phenomenon to Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio show talk host and the author of the 2009 book, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,' which became a New York Times bestseller. A 2024 letter from Bonhoeffer scholars argued that Metaxas 'has manipulated the Bonhoeffer story to support Christian nationalism,' and that the German pastor's story has been 'increasingly used to promote political violence.' The scholars were joined last year by some of Bonhoeffer's living relatives, who released a statement accusing Metaxas, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, of misrepresenting Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist evangelical. They said that Bonhoeffer would never have 'never … associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.' In an interview with CNN, Metaxas called the Bonhoeffer family statement 'preposterous' and said his public comments on Bonhoeffer do not give people permission to engage in political violence. 'That's insanity,' Metaxas says. 'That makes me sick that people would say that. Anybody who knows me would know that I don't believe that.' Metaxas says the debate over Bonhoeffer's legacy is not really about a clash between the left and right, but a reflection of how so many different people revere the pastor. 'When you're dealing with somebody that is so amazing, because everyone agrees that he's amazing, on some level it's human nature to project your thinking on that figure.' This debate about Bonhoeffer and violence may seem academic. But the German pastor has already been used to justify political violence in the US. Far-right Christian activists carried out a wave of bombings, arsons and other attacks on reproductive health clinics in the 1980s and early 1990s. Paul Hill, who was executed for gunning down a Florida clinic doctor and a volunteer in 1994, cited Bonhoeffer in viewing the attacks against clinics as a way of preventing a holocaust. A militant anti-abortion group, Missionaries to the Preborn, also likened Hill to Bonhoeffer. In 2005, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson invoked Bonhoeffer in calling for the assassination of foreign leaders such as Saddam Hussein. Many Christian nationalists do not condone violence. Yet the movement was deeply involved in a dramatic example of recent political violence: the January 6 insurrection, during which four people died and more than 100 police officers were injured. A 2024 national survey found that 38% of Christian nationalism adherents agreed with the statement, 'Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may need to resort to violence in order to save our country.' The Christian nationalist movement also shares many beliefs with far-right extremists who cite Bonhoeffer to justify violence, including the notion that Christians are being persecuted. Bonhoeffer scholars and relatives warn the German pastor is being transformed by varied sources — filmmakers, Metaxas' writings and statements, and essays from conservative scholars evoking Bonhoeffer to support the MAGA movement — into a Christian nationalist warrior. In their statement last year, the scholars warned that the German's life and work are increasingly being used to make 'false and menacing equations between our present time and the totalitarian Nazi regime. These dangerous narratives are cause for our deep concern.' Some far-right Christians may also feel emboldened to engage in political violence because Trump inspires an almost messianic devotion among them, says Stephen R. Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump.' He says those far-right Christians may do what others did in the past: cite Bonhoeffer and call their use of violence a 'Bonhoeffer moment,' a decision to employ political violence for righteous purposes. 'What happens if the Supreme Court does not agree with 'God's anointed' (Trump)? People are going to oppose it and call it spiritual warfare,' Haynes says. 'At some point, spiritual warfare becomes non-spiritual warfare — and that's scary.' The debate over Bonhoeffer and political violence takes on added urgency today because of another development: Trump's recent decision to pardon nearly every rioter who took part in the Jan. 6 attacks. Several extremism experts fear political violence from far-right Christian groups and individuals will be seen as more acceptable in American life because of Trump's pardons. There was little in Bonhoeffer's background to hint he'd become a Christian martyr or the subject of ferocious religious debate. He was born into an affluent German family that was not particularly religious. His father was an eminent psychiatrist, and he enjoyed a pampered upbringing: When he told his family at age 13 that he wanted to be a theologian, some of them scoffed at his choice and argued the church was irrelevant. 'In that case, I shall reform it,' Bonhoeffer said in an account taken from one biography. The bespectacled, bookish Bonhoeffer was a man of refinement whose natural reserve could be interpreted as arrogance, says Marsh, the biographer. He wore elegant suits, drove a convertible and was an intellectual prodigy who earned his doctorate at 21. (Karl Barth, a famous theologian, read Bonhoeffer's dissertation and said it was a 'theological miracle.') 'He loved life,' Marsh says. 'He loved to talk about classical music and literature. He loved to hike and would take long, lush vacations to the North Sea and Baltic Sea.' Bonhoeffer traveled to US in 1930 and studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was transformed by his friendship with a Black classmate, and by the time he spent at Abyssinian Baptist Church, a historic Black church in Harlem. He came back to the US in 1939, and as war loomed in Europe, he was advised to sit out the war in America. But he returned to Germany. 'I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany,' he wrote. 'I shall 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.' When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, he encountered a German church that had largely capitulated to the Nazis. Swastika flags adorned the outsides of churches. And the Nazis reinvented Jesus as a muscular Aryan hero who fought Jews. 'By the mid-1930s you could not be a minister in the German church unless you were a member of the Nazi party,' Marsh says. 'Baptism rituals would include phrases like 'May this child grow up to honor the glory of our Lord and our Fuhrer.' '' The German people were psychologically primed for the linking of a militant Christianity with Nazi ideology, historians say. They had been humiliated by their defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles' punishing terms, along with a devastating depression. Many were alarmed by what they deemed as the spread of permissive sexual attitudes in Germany. 'The promise made by Hitler was to bring the nation out of the disgrace of the Treaty of Versailles, to be God's great and chosen nation above all of the other nations,' Marsh says. 'It was only a matter of time that that theologians and pastors began to reinterpret the Christian story for the story of Germany.' Germany's Christian leaders helped legitimize Hitler, says Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer.' They allowed themselves to believe that Hitler was a pious man chosen by God. And Hitler encouraged their adoration by posing for photographs as he left church and prayed. German church leaders described Hitler as 'the instrument of God' and 'the liberator of our people from their spiritual misery and division.' But Bonhoeffer refused to submit to Hitler. He denounced the Nazi Party from the church pulpit. He preached about the dangers of making an idol of a political leader or a nation. He became peripherally involved in an operation to smuggle Jews out of Germany. The Nazis banned his books and barred him from lecturing and preaching. What Bonhoeffer did after embracing those forms of nonviolent resistance remains controversial today. He supported a plot to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer did not carry a gun or plant a bomb — in fact, he had remained imprisoned by the Nazis for more than a year before the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt — but his decision seemed to mark a dramatic departure from Jesus' injunction to love one's enemies and his renunciation of political violence. So how did Bonhoeffer reconcile his faith with his support for an assassination? He didn't, say Bonhoeffer scholars. They say he didn't try to offer a theological justification for what he did. Although he saw Hitler as an evil that must be stopped, he struggled with the idea that he was betraying his calling, scholars say. 'Bonhoeffer believed that if he joined the conspiracy, he would rightly sacrifice his ordination as a minister of the Word of God,' says Mark DeVine, author of 'Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at all Costs.' It may be easy to critique Bonhoeffer's decision from afar, but consider what he was facing: The Nazis were murdering Jews in concentration camps, DeVine says. 'The clock was ticking, the atrocities piling up, and so Bonhoeffer had to make a decision fast.' Time soon ran out for Bonhoeffer as well. The accounts of his last days say he faced the end of his life with courage and conviction. While in prison, he continued to write books, read Plutarch, and preach sermons to fellow prisoners. In one letter from prison, he wrote: 'I have never regretted my decision in the summer of 1939 to return to Germany… If I were to end my life here in these conditions, that would have a meaning that I think I could understand.' What many fail to understand today is why Bonhoeffer didn't survive. Why did the Nazis order his execution just two weeks before the war ended? Todd Komarnicki, the writer-director of last year's 'Bonhoeffer' film, has a theory. Komarnicki says he objected to a poster for his film depicting Bonhoeffer carrying a gun, and that his movie does not endorse Christian nationalism. 'Hitler hated Bonhoeffer for ages and wanted to kill him but his closest advisors always no, this guy is beloved. You cannot take him out. He's well-known,' Komarnicki says. 'Everything is closing in on Hitler and he gets one last opportunity, and he signs a blanket of execution statement for loads of people. I'm sure that he personally underlines Dietrich's name.' It's easy to think of what Bonhoeffer could have become if Hitler hadn't had his way. He could have married his fiancé (most believed he died celibate) and gone on to even more renown, his abundant intellectual gifts burnished by his heroic resistance to Hitler. Komarnicki sees it another way. 'If Dietrich had lived and gone to the countryside and written 10 more books and raised kids, we wouldn't be making a movie about him,' he says. 'Hitler thought he won the day and Dietrich lost. But it was Dietrich who won, and Hitler who lost.' There will likely be more movies and books about Bonhoeffer. He is honored with a statue in London's Westminster Abbey, where his likeness stands alongside other Christian martyrs such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His life is a magnet that draws people from all sorts of religious and political backgrounds. But there could be a dark twist to his story in the years ahead. If Bonhoeffer's example is used to justify more far-right Christian violence in America, that would be another tragedy — and a cruel irony that would stain the legacy of a man who gave up everything to confront a tyrant.
CNN
13-04-2025
- General
- CNN
Why some say an anti-Nazi pastor executed by Hitler has become a hero to today's White Christian nationalists
He had just finished leading a worship service when two Gestapo agents approached him. 'Prisoner Bonhoeffer — get ready and come with us,' one of them ordered. It was April 8, 1945, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew what their summons meant. Berlin had been reduced to rubble. Adolf Hitler had retreated to his underground bunker. The Allied and Russian armies were closing in on what was left of the Nazi regime. But Bonhoeffer knew there would be no rescue for him. He was driven to a nearby concentration camp and held overnight. At dawn, the guards took him from his prison cell and ordered him to strip. They marched him naked to the place of execution, and before climbing the steps to the gallows, Bonhoeffer paused to pray. 'This is the end — for me, the beginning of life,' he reportedly said. A prison doctor who witnessed the execution described Bonhoeffer's final moments this way: 'In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.' In at least one way, Bonhoeffer was right — another part of his life was just beginning. This week marked the 80th anniversary of his death. And the Lutheran theologian and pastor, who was executed that day for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, has become one of the world's most influential religious thinkers. Bonhoeffer's books such as 'The Cost of Discipleship' are now considered Christian classics. Everyone from U2's Bono to the late President Jimmy Carter have cited his influence. He's also been the subject of critically acclaimed documentaries and a recent dramatic film, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,' whose poster shows him carrying a gun like an ecclesiastical version of James Bond. There are many reasons why people are fascinated by Bonhoeffer. He was a brilliant theologian who took center stage at one of the most dramatic moments in history. One historian said, 'Few theologians witnessed the juggernaut of Nazi depravity at closer range than Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' But Bonhoeffer is now being drawn into another battle today: the ongoing debate over White Christian nationalism. Some of the world's leading Bonhoeffer scholars and members of his family are warning that he's being turned into a holy warrior for the White Christian nationalist movement, which uses religious language to cloak hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants while falsely claiming that the US is a Christian nation. One professor of religion has called the movement an 'imposter Christianity.' Others argue that the recent Bonhoeffer movie 'primes viewers for violence.' Even conservative scholars and biographers argue the left is distorting their views on Bonhoeffer and ignoring the pastor's stances on issues like abortion, which he considered murder. While both the left and right have twisted Bonhoeffer's views over the years, members of the far Christian right have taken that misappropriation to a dangerous new level, says Charles Marsh, author of 'Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.' They argue incorrectly that Bonhoeffer was never a pacifist and that he always supported certain types of political violence, Marsh says. 'The Democrats have become the Nazis, and the faithful German anti-Nazi pastors have become Trump Republicans — that's a tortured reading of history,' Marsh says. 'But it has been sold to many sectors of American Christian life as a meaningful reinterpretation of the Bonhoeffer story.' Some scholars trace this phenomenon to Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio show talk host and the author of the 2009 book, 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,' which became a New York Times bestseller. A 2024 letter from Bonhoeffer scholars argued that Metaxas 'has manipulated the Bonhoeffer story to support Christian nationalism,' and that the German pastor's story has been 'increasingly used to promote political violence.' The scholars were joined last year by some of Bonhoeffer's living relatives, who released a statement accusing Metaxas, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, of misrepresenting Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist evangelical. They said that Bonhoeffer would never have 'never … associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.' In an interview with CNN, Metaxas called the Bonhoeffer family statement 'preposterous' and said his public comments on Bonhoeffer do not give people permission to engage in political violence. 'That's insanity,' Metaxas says. 'That makes me sick that people would say that. Anybody who knows me would know that I don't believe that.' Metaxas says the debate over Bonhoeffer's legacy is not really about a clash between the left and right, but a reflection of how so many different people revere the pastor. 'When you're dealing with somebody that is so amazing, because everyone agrees that he's amazing, on some level it's human nature to project your thinking on that figure.' This debate about Bonhoeffer and violence may seem academic. But the German pastor has already been used to justify political violence in the US. Far-right Christian activists carried out a wave of bombings, arsons and other attacks on reproductive health clinics in the 1980s and early 1990s. Paul Hill, who was executed for gunning down a Florida clinic doctor and a volunteer in 1994, cited Bonhoeffer in viewing the attacks against clinics as a way of preventing a holocaust. A militant anti-abortion group, Missionaries to the Preborn, also likened Hill to Bonhoeffer. In 2005, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson invoked Bonhoeffer in calling for the assassination of foreign leaders such as Saddam Hussein. Many Christian nationalists do not condone violence. Yet the movement was deeply involved in a dramatic example of recent political violence: the January 6 insurrection, during which four people died and more than 100 police officers were injured. A 2024 national survey found that 38% of Christian nationalism adherents agreed with the statement, 'Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may need to resort to violence in order to save our country.' The Christian nationalist movement also shares many beliefs with far-right extremists who cite Bonhoeffer to justify violence, including the notion that Christians are being persecuted. Bonhoeffer scholars and relatives warn the German pastor is being transformed by varied sources — filmmakers, Metaxas' writings and statements, and essays from conservative scholars evoking Bonhoeffer to support the MAGA movement — into a Christian nationalist warrior. In their statement last year, the scholars warned that the German's life and work are increasingly being used to make 'false and menacing equations between our present time and the totalitarian Nazi regime. These dangerous narratives are cause for our deep concern.' Some far-right Christians may also feel emboldened to engage in political violence because Trump inspires an almost messianic devotion among them, says Stephen R. Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump.' He says those far-right Christians may do what others did in the past: cite Bonhoeffer and call their use of violence a 'Bonhoeffer moment,' a decision to employ political violence for righteous purposes. 'What happens if the Supreme Court does not agree with 'God's anointed' (Trump)? People are going to oppose it and call it spiritual warfare,' Haynes says. 'At some point, spiritual warfare becomes non-spiritual warfare — and that's scary.' The debate over Bonhoeffer and political violence takes on added urgency today because of another development: Trump's recent decision to pardon nearly every rioter who took part in the Jan. 6 attacks. Several extremism experts fear political violence from far-right Christian groups and individuals will be seen as more acceptable in American life because of Trump's pardons. There was little in Bonhoeffer's background to hint he'd become a Christian martyr or the subject of ferocious religious debate. He was born into an affluent German family that was not particularly religious. His father was an eminent psychiatrist, and he enjoyed a pampered upbringing: When he told his family at age 13 that he wanted to be a theologian, some of them scoffed at his choice and argued the church was irrelevant. 'In that case, I shall reform it,' Bonhoeffer said in an account taken from one biography. The bespectacled, bookish Bonhoeffer was a man of refinement whose natural reserve could be interpreted as arrogance, says Marsh, the biographer. He wore elegant suits, drove a convertible and was an intellectual prodigy who earned his doctorate at 21. (Karl Barth, a famous theologian, read Bonhoeffer's dissertation and said it was a 'theological miracle.') 'He loved life,' Marsh says. 'He loved to talk about classical music and literature. He loved to hike and would take long, lush vacations to the North Sea and Baltic Sea.' Bonhoeffer traveled to US in 1930 and studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was transformed by his friendship with a Black classmate, and by the time he spent at Abyssinian Baptist Church, a historic Black church in Harlem. He came back to the US in 1939, and as war loomed in Europe, he was advised to sit out the war in America. But he returned to Germany. 'I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany,' he wrote. 'I shall 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.' When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, he encountered a German church that had largely capitulated to the Nazis. Swastika flags adorned the outsides of churches. And the Nazis reinvented Jesus as a muscular Aryan hero who fought Jews. 'By the mid-1930s you could not be a minister in the German church unless you were a member of the Nazi party,' Marsh says. 'Baptism rituals would include phrases like 'May this child grow up to honor the glory of our Lord and our Fuhrer.' '' The German people were psychologically primed for the linking of a militant Christianity with Nazi ideology, historians say. They had been humiliated by their defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles' punishing terms, along with a devastating depression. Many were alarmed by what they deemed as the spread of permissive sexual attitudes in Germany. 'The promise made by Hitler was to bring the nation out of the disgrace of the Treaty of Versailles, to be God's great and chosen nation above all of the other nations,' Marsh says. 'It was only a matter of time that that theologians and pastors began to reinterpret the Christian story for the story of Germany.' Germany's Christian leaders helped legitimize Hitler, says Haynes, author of 'The Battle for Bonhoeffer.' They allowed themselves to believe that Hitler was a pious man chosen by God. And Hitler encouraged their adoration by posing for photographs as he left church and prayed. German church leaders described Hitler as 'the instrument of God' and 'the liberator of our people from their spiritual misery and division.' But Bonhoeffer refused to submit to Hitler. He denounced the Nazi Party from the church pulpit. He preached about the dangers of making an idol of a political leader or a nation. He became peripherally involved in an operation to smuggle Jews out of Germany. The Nazis banned his books and barred him from lecturing and preaching. What Bonhoeffer did after embracing those forms of nonviolent resistance remains controversial today. He supported a plot to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer did not carry a gun or plant a bomb — in fact, he had remained imprisoned by the Nazis for more than a year before the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt — but his decision seemed to mark a dramatic departure from Jesus' injunction to love one's enemies and his renunciation of political violence. So how did Bonhoeffer reconcile his faith with his support for an assassination? He didn't, say Bonhoeffer scholars. They say he didn't try to offer a theological justification for what he did. Although he saw Hitler as an evil that must be stopped, he struggled with the idea that he was betraying his calling, scholars say. 'Bonhoeffer believed that if he joined the conspiracy, he would rightly sacrifice his ordination as a minister of the Word of God,' says Mark DeVine, author of 'Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at all Costs.' It may be easy to critique Bonhoeffer's decision from afar, but consider what he was facing: The Nazis were murdering Jews in concentration camps, DeVine says. 'The clock was ticking, the atrocities piling up, and so Bonhoeffer had to make a decision fast.' Time soon ran out for Bonhoeffer as well. The accounts of his last days say he faced the end of his life with courage and conviction. While in prison, he continued to write books, read Plutarch, and preach sermons to fellow prisoners. In one letter from prison, he wrote: 'I have never regretted my decision in the summer of 1939 to return to Germany… If I were to end my life here in these conditions, that would have a meaning that I think I could understand.' What many fail to understand today is why Bonhoeffer didn't survive. Why did the Nazis order his execution just two weeks before the war ended? Todd Komarnicki, the writer-director of last year's 'Bonhoeffer' film, has a theory. Komarnicki says he objected to a poster for his film depicting Bonhoeffer carrying a gun, and that his movie does not endorse Christian nationalism. 'Hitler hated Bonhoeffer for ages and wanted to kill him but his closest advisors always no, this guy is beloved. You cannot take him out. He's well-known,' Komarnicki says. 'Everything is closing in on Hitler and he gets one last opportunity, and he signs a blanket of execution statement for loads of people. I'm sure that he personally underlines Dietrich's name.' It's easy to think of what Bonhoeffer could have become if Hitler hadn't had his way. He could have married his fiancé (most believed he died celibate) and gone on to even more renown, his abundant intellectual gifts burnished by his heroic resistance to Hitler. Komarnicki sees it another way. 'If Dietrich had lived and gone to the countryside and written 10 more books and raised kids, we wouldn't be making a movie about him,' he says. 'Hitler thought he won the day and Dietrich lost. But it was Dietrich who won, and Hitler who lost.' There will likely be more movies and books about Bonhoeffer. He is honored with a statue in London's Westminster Abbey, where his likeness stands alongside other Christian martyrs such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His life is a magnet that draws people from all sorts of religious and political backgrounds. But there could be a dark twist to his story in the years ahead. If Bonhoeffer's example is used to justify more far-right Christian violence in America, that would be another tragedy — and a cruel irony that would stain the legacy of a man who gave up everything to confront a tyrant.
