Latest news with #DietrichBonhoeffer
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.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine to Europe – are you ready to fight tonight?
"Peace agreed upon," declared The Washington Times on September 28, 1938. By now, we should have learned: deals with predator states bent on conquest – whether Nazi Germany then or Russia today – don't buy peace; they invite war. In the last century, Europe didn't avert disaster; it sleepwalked straight into the deadliest conflict in humanity's history. The lesson of Munich fades, but the truth remains – evil left unpunished spreads, and the cost of confronting it only grows with time. Let's say it aloud, if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, today's schoolchildren in Hamburg, Lyon, Milan, and Bristol will soon face a question their parents shun: will you fight for your home the way Ukrainians fought for theirs? Denial is not a strategy. It is capitulation. Every morning since 2008, Europe has woken up to an ever-growing threat emanating from Moscow – but with no greater sense of urgency or appreciation for Dietrich Bonhoeffer's famous words "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." 2008 was the year Russian tanks shattered the post-Cold War order, violating Georgia's sovereign borders. Russian lies, meanwhile, seeped into Europe's airwaves and Russian rubles corrupted the powerful and influential – business as usual. Instead of recognizing the danger, Europe let fear dictate its response – fear of escalation, fear of economic blowback, fear of provoking the very aggression the Kremlin had already unleashed. Paralyzed by the belief that confronting Moscow was too risky, Europe missed the memo: not confronting it was and remains the most dangerous option of all. Russia is waging an unprovoked war – standing up to it is both necessary and morally right. Doing so would not only strengthen European confidence but also help the continent rediscover its sense of purpose. But it requires leadership and boldness. Europe's politicians must be honest with their voters: either we mobilize the necessary support for Ukraine to win, or we will have to mobilize you – the citizens of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and beyond – for military service in the years to come. For much of the postwar era, Europe's pacifism was both a moral conviction and a convenient excuse. The devastation of two world wars instilled a deep aversion to military force, reinforcing the belief that restraint – not strength – ensured peace. Some politicians instrumentalized pacifism not to defend peace but to dodge responsibility – until the illusion of safety was shattered in 2008, again in 2014, and catastrophically in 2022. Europe hasn't transcended war – the relative tranquility and unprecedented prosperity were underwritten by the power of deterrence, also known as NATO. Now, with Washington's focus shifting and Moscow's imperial ambitions spiraling out of control, the old pacifist reflex is worse than obsolete – it is a fatal liability. A pro-peace demonstration that fails to name the aggressor – Russia – and acknowledge the ongoing suffering of the victim – Ukraine – is no solace to the 20,000 Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia over the last three years. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Moscow's war crimes against the most vulnerable. Years of Russian control since 2014 have already robbed countless Ukrainian children of their identities and futures – some of whom, tragically, were sent to die under the flag of their predatory, bloodthirsty kidnappers. Ukraine is the target of Russian aggression, but make no mistake, our brave nation is not a security burden for Europe – but a provider if not the ultimate guarantor. By resisting the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has severely degraded Moscow's military capabilities. But more importantly, it chose to fight rather than surrender – a gift Europe has yet to fully appreciate. A well-armed, NATO-integrated Ukraine is what a credible deterrent against future aggression looks like. Europe has real options it can activate. It can seize and transfer $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, form a European army as suggested by President Zelenskyy, commit to tightening sanctions or better enforcement of the existing ones, dealing with the so-called shadow feel, and upping support for Ukraine every month until the Russian army stops trying to erase Ukraine from the map. If anything could de-escalate Moscow's appetite for violence, it is a Free World that stops apologizing for its power. Europe's economy is ten times larger than Russia's, and its population is three times as big. Why it feels compelled to cede the initiative after the Kremlin launched an overtly criminal war remains a mystery. The idea that Russia is on the brink of going nuclear is the most dangerous misconception of all. The risk of Armageddon hasn't diminished – it has grown, because the West let the Kremlin's blackmail dictate its response, or rather, its non-response. Meanwhile, China has drawn a red line, warning Putin against the use of doomsday weaponry. When someone points to the nonzero risk of nuclear war, remind them that caving to Moscow's threats would shred the non-proliferation order and make WWIII far more likely, not less. Give in once, and every dictator will take note – better get my own bomb. There is no limit to the depravity of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. But one stands out as a screaming canary in the coal mine: forcing Ukrainian prisoners of war to fight against their own homeland. Several regions of Ukraine have now been under occupation for eleven years. Russian commissars are now conscripting Ukrainians in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea – young men who weren't even teens when the occupation began. The Russian flywheel of false grievances, hatred toward the West, endless lies, and a shift to a full wartime economy is spinning faster and faster. It'll go into overdrive, not slow down, if the civilized world fails to ensure Ukraine's victory and a restoration of justice for the victims of Russia's war crimes. Neither Europe nor the U.S. get to decide what Moscow will do. The Kremlin isn't just clinging to power – it wages wars of aggression because it is rooted in Russia's imperial ethos, an insatiable thirst for conquest, and a culture not just tolerant of, but often eager to unleash, heinous violence. What the Free World can decide is how to respond. So far, it has chosen weakness and denial. This didn't end well in 1938. It won't end well now. Andrew Chakhoyan, Academic Director at the University of Amsterdam. Olga Aivazovska, Head of Board, Civil Network OPORA.
Express Tribune
23-03-2025
- General
- Express Tribune
Interpersonal relationships among students
The writer is an educationist based in Kasur City. He can be reached at Listen to article The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer The pursuit of glittery but illusory grades in our educational journey so far has proved a pyrrhic victory as all other important factors – learners' mental and physical health, their social demeanor, their ability to assimilate their learning into wisdom, and quality of their interpersonal relationships – have been guillotined at the altar of starry grades and academic laurels. The students cocooned into their comfort zone of studies fail badly to collaborate, empathise and socialise in healthy human relationships. Because education is fundamentally a social enterprise, schools must instil in students soft skills to enable them to contribute their part to the livability of society. In 2010 the first International Conference on Interpersonal Relationships in Education was held in Colorado. It discussed interpersonal relationships as a lens to microscope educational phenomena. Interpersonal relationships are divided into two types: acceptance and rejection. In our education system, peer rejection pervades the classroom and school premises, courtesy overemphasis on academics, limited time and space for peer interactions, and the teachers succumbing to the ostrich syndrome. Out of many reasons for students' disengagement with the learning process at school, one is unabated intimidating peer pressure. School bullying is usually the form of rejection infesting peer relationships. School bullying is caused by taking negatively the mismatch of family background, academic performance or physical strength. A fellow-seater is snatching the eatables or stationery of your child. Or, a bully on the block is bodyshaming your child. Relationships between diverse age groups or classes allude to child abuse. Before parents and teachers coerce the child into attending the school, first they had better look into the reasons why the child is avoiding the school. Otherwise, he will resort to quiet quitting, internalising the intimidation. At public schools, teachers' apathy towards deteriorating interpersonal relationships has plummeted all-time low. As a first, they hush up the victims of intimidation, asking them to avoid bullies. Their nonchalance emboldens bullies. Secondly and structurally, they are helpless because government educational policies are silent on punishing or rusticating the bullies. It is a matter of common observation that behavioural bullying precedes the physical one. Before being physical, bullies put the victims to mental torture and deterrence by trolling, threatening, calling nicknames and snatching the belongings of victims. Private institutions value education as a merchandise. When teachers report on such pollutants to school management, the latter prefers to sweep the matter under the rug. Apathy of school management and spinelessness of teachers give the spoilers of peaceful classroom milieu the carte blanche to squeeze the space for others. Suffocation of soul is a more heinous act than torturing the body. A teacher backed up by the management can easily rein in the bullies. Audacity and chutzpah, the early signs of bullyism, are eulogised as boldness of character, while gentleness is seen as feminine. Our students must be brought home that people who love themselves do not hurt others. The more we hate ourselves (low self-esteem), the more we want others to suffer. Despite the myth that socialising is a centrifugal force for students, research shows that building strong peer relationships actually augments academic learning and makes it constructive and productive. Cloistered education devoid of all human interactions spawns ideological rigidity and extremist bias. Reciprocity in supportive friendships is closely related to the alleviation of depression. Students who fail to form connections find themselves marooned and disconnected. This physical disconnect births low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and loss of purpose in life. Such students become vulnerable to bullyism either as a target or as a defence mechanism. Schools are the first places of human diversity where students encounter people from different backgrounds, cultures and mentalities. To protect this diversity is vital in today's globalised world. Teachers must involve students in healthy interpersonal relationships. They must not let a symbiotic relationship between students turn into commensalism wherein one gets benefit while the other neither help nor harm. Nor it be parasitism wherein one gets benefit at the cost of the other. Rather, it must be mutualism which benefits both. Sometimes, when students change schools because of their sour interpersonal relationships or external reasons, they face unaccommodating and unwelcoming attitude in the form of neophobia in their new habitat. A teacher must acclimatise the newcomer to the new environment by building a rapport with her. Three major relationship sources sustain students' academic and non-academic lives: parents, teachers and peers. Regarding the persons with whom students share their problems, the sustained research reveals that most of the students, especially girls, consulted friends and adults. Boys usually do not consult others about their problems and, when they do, they only talk to their friends. Students who have no one to consult are least satisfied with their school life. Studies have shown that the old student-monitor class management paradigm and the new student-prefect class management prove counterproductive for students' interpersonal relationships. Nowadays, one or two students are assigned the duty to manage the classroom in the incidental absence of the teacher. The selected students are even given the carte blanche to punish the miscreant students to discipline them. This is an unwholesome practice because it develops friction and fracas between students. Sometimes, these chosen students victimise other students out of vendetta, or to humiliate the meek ones. Such students vested with "absolute power" gravitate towards behaving like bullies in the class. Class management through proxy administration is more deleterious for the learning process. In the absence of a controlling force, human nature by default gravitates towards evil as we see in the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. At the end of the novel, the good boys, after they fail to outdo the overbearing evil group, are saved by the naval officer.
