Bonhoeffer in a Time of Global Crisis

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a theologian and pastor who was hung for his involvement in an assassination attempt against Hitler during World War II.  Here, Ric Hudgens looks through Bonhoeffer's eyes and offers a method by which to engage today's global crisis. Please take the time to click on the link and read the rest of the article.

Ric Hudgens/What did Bonhoeffer See?:

What might have led someone as insightful, brave, and devout as Dietrich Bonhoeffer to turn towards the Sermon on the Mount and the practice of communal discipleship as the appropriate initiative for engaged Christians in a time of global crisis.  What did Bonhoeffer see in Jesus’ sermon for such a time as that?  What might we still see for such a time as ours?

Bonhoeffer saw in the Sermon on the Mount the resources for responding to the German crisis in at least three ways.  First, he saw that the Sermon contained the resources for resistance to National Socialism, German patriotism, and the war.  Resistance would be practiced not just in subversive anti-government actions, but also in the formation of a church that could not be seduced by the false promises of blood and soil.  Crucial to the practice of cultural resistance was the formation of a Christian people, a confessing church, trained in and practicing the Sermon on the Mount without compromise.

Second, Bonhoeffer saw that the Sermon and the founding of a “new type of monasticism” would lay the foundations for a new social order after the war was over.  It did not matter whether Germany won this war or not (and it was clear through Bonhoeffer’s efforts that he hoped for Germany’s defeat); what mattered was establishing centers for renewal where a new type of recovery could begin and a new type of society be established.  These were in reality communities of and for the future, not communities trying to preserve or recreate an idyllic past.

Finally, Bonhoeffer saw that the Sermon on the Mount was the key resource for the restoration and renewal of the church and the church’s capacity to recover her voice as God’s people.  The Barmen Declaration had unmasked the false religion of the established church for the idolatry that it was.  A renewed church where Christians were catechized in the Sermon on the Mount would not look like the mainline churches that had been so susceptible to the appeal of National Socialism.   It would be a church founded upon and shaped by Christ alone.

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