standing fast

i've wanted to share some insights by bonhoeffer i've picked up through reading his Letters & Papers from Prison (p.348-9 and 4-5, respectively). his tribulation at the time of these writings is evident in the title of the book: bonhoeffer was imprisoned for evidence of his aid to jews escaping the nazis' 'Final Solution.' (later we've also discovered his intimate participation in a conspiracy -- with his brother klaus and his brother-in-law hans von dohnanyi -- to assassinate hitler.) from his cell, he informed his loved ones of his condition and of his theorizing in regard to the state of the ("religionless"-inclining) christianity of our age.

(please, by the way, forgive the gender-biased vocabulary: it certainly isn't [nor shouldn't be] limited to men.)

at the end of this post, i've included a short report i've written concerning a few key themes in bonhoeffer's theology of this time of incarceration.....


Christians and Pagans

I
Men go to God when they are sore bestead,
Pray to him for succour, for his peace, for bread,
For mercy for them sick, sinning, or dead;
All men do so, Christian and unbelieving.

2
Men go to God when he is sore bestead,
Find him poor and scorned, without shelter or bread,
Whelmed under weight of the wicked, the weak, the dead;
Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving.

3
God goes to every man when sore bestead,
Feeds body and spirit with his bread;
For Christians, pagans alike he hangs dead,
And both alike forgiving.◊



Who stands fast? (from "After Ten Years")

The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical
concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical
necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.

The ‘reasonable’ people’s failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint. In their lack of vision they want to do justice to all sides, and so the conflicting forces wear them down with nothing achieved. Disappointed by the world’s unreasonableness, they
see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; they step aside in resignation or collapse before the stronger party.

Still more pathetic is the total collapse of moral fanaticism. The fanatic thinks that his single-minded principles qualify him to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull he rushes at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; he exhausts himself
and is beaten. He gets entangled in non-essentials and falls into the trap set by cleverer people.

Then there is the man with a conscience, who fights single-handed against heavy odds in situations that call for a decision. But the scale of the conflicts in which he has to choose — with no advice or support except from his own conscience - tears him to pieces. Evil approaches him in so many respectable and seductive disguises that his conscience becomes nervous and vacillating, till at last he contents himself with salved instead of a clear conscience, so that he lies to his own conscience in order to avoid despair; for a man whose only support is his conscience can never realize that a bad conscience may be stronger and more wholesome than a deluded one.

From the perplexingly large number of possible decisions, the way of duty seems to be the sure way out. Here, what is commanded is accepted as what is most certain, and the responsibility for it rests on the commander, not on the person commanded. But no one who confines himself to the limits of duty ever goes so far as to venture, on his sole responsibility, to act in the only way that makes it possible to score a direct hit on evil and defeat it. The man of duty will in the end have to do his duty by the devil too.

As to the man who asserts his complete freedom to stand four-square to the world, who values the necessary deed more highly than an unspoilt conscience or reputation, who is ready to sacrifice a barren principle for a fruitful compromise, or the barren wisdom of a middle course for a fruitful radicalism — let him beware lest his freedom should bring him down. He will assent to what is bad so as to ward off something worse, and in doing so he will no longer be able to realize that the worse, which he wants to avoid, might be the better. Here we have the raw material of tragedy.

Here and there people flee from public altercation into the sanctuary of private virtuousness. But anyone who does this must shut his mouth and his eyes to the injustice around him. Only at the cost of self-deception can he keep himself pure from the contamination arising from responsible action. In spite of all that he does, what he leaves undone will rob him of his peace of mind. He will either go to pieces because of this disquiet, or become the most hypocritical of Pharisees.

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God -- the responsible man, who tried to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?◊

On Bonhoeffer

I.

Who is the responsible individual? Bonhoeffer establishes Europe’s (particularly Germany’s) post-war survivors as his subjects, whose “fellowship of spirit and community of life[…]have been proved and preserved throughout these years” (3). We, then, as these subjects, are asked to look with him at the situation within the changing times and ask ourselves collectively ‘who is the responsible person?’

Furthermore, to fully address this question, Bonhoeffer tells us that, “we are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious [anymore]” (279). Thus, we must also ask, as responsible persons (if indeed that), ‘what is a “religionless” Christianity’?

II.

The “responsible man […]tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God” (5). It is the person “whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue” but takes responsible action by sacrificing all of these points in his “faith and exclusive allegiance to God.” Anyone who is willing even to become a sinner in acting in her faith, in following her calling from God, is the responsible person and may have solace in God’s promise of mercy for her. (6)

As such, the responsible person must ask the ultimate question of “how the coming generation is to live” (7). Times have changed, says Bonhoeffer, and we must observe the state of religion as it loses its grounding. He feels the weight of not understanding “what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is for us today” (279), and contemplates how those words used by theologians and the pious that once held the be-all meaning for us all now do not convey what we need to understand these realities. Christianity, as the form or “religious a priori” (280), has maybe been the greatest form of religion; regardless, though, the absence of religious response to the events of the war and its evils is a sure sign that this form no longer holds a meaningful content.

Granted we are capable of being responsible people, we must consider what this means for the future, what the instantiation of a “religionless Christianity” might look like and how to address, then, God’s unique transcendence to “the midst of our life” (282) in the community.

III.

The significance of these problematics concerns the role of God and Christ in the emerging age. As Bonhoeffer says, “[r]eligious people speak of God when human knowledge […] has come to an end, or when human resources fail – in fact it is always the dues ex machina” (281) which exploits either our boundaries or our weaknesses. The religious people (the pious) distorts the community by founding itself on its edge (at the boundary lines) instead of at its center (where the true church is and should be). It cannot, in this way, (unless it changes) provide us the depth of meaning in God and Christ as it used to, and so we are left to our own resources.