German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is labeled pastor, martyr, prophet and spy, by Eric Metaxas, author of a new biography about the Lutheran clergyman executed by the Nazis toward the end of World War II.
Pastor Bonhoeffer was, surprisingly, the son of an agnostic father and a pious but nonchurchgoing mother. His deep and determined Lutheranism was probably more the result of academic influences than familial example. When some Lutherans chose a “go along to get along” response to national socialism, Bonhoeffer and a number of his associates dissociated themselves at great risk from this compromised Lutheran stance. Their academies and seminaries went underground and there was much moving about of pastors and professors from Germany to Switzerland, Denmark, England and America, hoping to maintain their integrity and exert their influence even from afar.
Bonhoeffer’s books, “Discipleship” (“The Cost of Discipleship in English”), “Life Together” and “Ethics” have been quite influential since the middle of the last century. Sadly his reference elsewhere to “religionless Christianity” has been used by Modernists to justify everything from denuded rituals to the death of God. Metaxas claims that Bonhoeffer, who was very biblical and Christ-centered in his theology and thinking, envisioned a Christianity that went beyond religion, that is, beyond ritual, ceremony and services, to comprise the whole of life. His was a statement exalting the lordship of Jesus Christ which should permeate the whole world and be not only sought in sermons from the pulpit and prayers at the altar. It was never Bonhoeffer’s hope to eliminate the church but rather that the church should stand “… not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village.”
However directly or indirectly, Pastor Bonhoeffer is associated with an on-going plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Traditional Prussian military personnel always had reservations about Hitler and some, alas ineffectively, always favored his elimination. There was more than one failed attempt by military leaders to kill Hitler. It was Bonhoeffer’s involvement with these assassination attempts that finally lead to his imprisonment and execution. As he awaited death in his jail cell, he penned the following thoughts to a friend, thoughts which are certainly appropriate for all believers during this week of commemorating All Souls Day: “Why are we so afraid when we think about death? ... Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace. How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.
These powerful words of Pastor Bonhoeffer recall the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Sadly, the sting of death is quite apparent to today’s society which chooses to eliminate wakes and funeral Masses and any notion of mourning lest the prospect and meaning of death become too real. Today comfort measures allow both patient and provider to put the thought of death to one side lest life’s most teachable moment be too frankly considered. Christians must recognize that, as Bonhoeffer wrote, faith is God’s own comfort measure. Faith reveals death as the entrance to the fullness of life, as the path to eternal glory, as the threshold of heaven. The contemporary world shuns the thought of mortality since death has repercussions in daily life. Thoughts of death and life after death might cramp one’s style. But faith-filled thoughts of death might also prepare the believer to accept the inevitable, not as a curse but as a promise, not as a defeat but as a grace. The new translation of the Creed at Mass will have worshippers proclaim, “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead…” Would that all of us could say those yearning words with conviction!
