Bonhoeffer in Crisis
“I am still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith… I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God...”[1] - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
On July 18, 1944, in a letter from prison to his best friend, Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer commented on his life and its purpose. He was reflecting on what it means to choose a life of discipleship to Christ. He believed a true disciple was never engaged in partial or “merely religious” acts. Faith is something whole, involving all of one’s life. Though he had already spent one year in prison, he hadn’t lost all hope that he would be freed but had settled into a “this is what I have for now” kind of resignation. His life had been a series of crises, interrupted by periods of exciting travel, significant teaching and writing, attending operas, the theater, playing the piano, and defeating most of his opponents in tennis matches. And, of course, plotting the death of Adolf Hitler. Now he has spent the last year in a small cell, furnished with a simple table, a bed, a bucket, a light, and books, pencil, and paper in order to write his friends and work on his planned magnum opus, Ethics. Many of his former students in Finkenwalde were now soldiers on the dreaded Eastern Front or in their grave. Around 80 of his former students out of 150 had been killed.
On July 20, 1944 an attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler had failed. He survived an explosion and proclaimed his survival as the hand of God. This proved, said Hitler, that providence had anointed him. With the failed assassination, Bonhoeffer’s story of innocence presented to his interrogators begin to unravel. In the letter to Bethge he recalled a conversation he had in 1931 with his pacifist friend at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
“We were asking ourselves quite simply what we wanted to do with our lives. He said he would like to become a saint (and I think it’s quite likely that he did) At the time I was very impressed, but I disagreed with him, and said, in effect, that I should like to learn to have faith. For a long time I didn’t realize the depth of the contrast. I thought I could acquire faith by trying to live a holy life, or something like it. I suppose I wrote [Discipleship] as the end of that path. I can see the dangers of that book, though I still stand by what I wrote.”[2]
God does some of his best work in caves and prison cells. History is replete with powerful writing from men and women who have been held captive against their will. Usually they are being jailed or in hiding for something good; not always, but largely the best words have come from the best prisoners or fugitives. Now you have the context for Bonhoeffer’s famous statement that stands at the head of this article. Let’s look at it again.
“I am still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith… I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a human being, a Christian.”[3]
Bonhoeffer is saying that only through tension, trouble, and challenge can a person actually learn to have faith. The means to get there is what he called the penultimate, but faith is the ultimate. Another way of saying it is the great commission is penultimate - it is a mission, it is a method, it is the way God has given us to experience the ultimate. The ultimate would be faith in God and the abundant life he has promised. The ultimate is being with God and part of that is learning to obey him and to engage in the mission to help others find him. This is life with dirt on it, the grit and grime of trouble. It also means ascending to the heights of surrender to God and his agenda. This is why he mentions Jesus in Gethsemane. God watching his Son suffer in the garden and telling him, “No, I won’t let you out of this.”
Bonhoeffer prayed daily to get out, to escape, but the answer was always no. An escape was even planned with his family and a friendly prison guard. An electrician’s coveralls had been provided for Dietrich, smuggled into the prison by one of his sisters. It would have been easy to do, but again the answer was no, he couldn’t go. His family would have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and possibly executed. He could not allow that to happen to elderly parents, two brothers, and four sisters. Why do we call what we do The Bonhoeffer Project? Not because he was a great scholar, a highly talented pianist, or swell tennis player with a Mercedes convertible. It is because, when it really counted, this child of privilege and member of the aristocracy displayed the ultimate - faith in the living God.
