Bonhoeffer – Part 3 – Why Men Can’t Save the World

(I want to begin by saying that I’m not quite sure about what I’ve written and have gone back and forth many times on this issue, so forgive me if I mispoke)

As I said yesterday, Bonhoeffer is laid claim to by Conservative Evangelicals and Liberal Protestants as ‘theirs’.  This is because in a sense he was both.  What do I mean?

A Conservative Evangelical is merely a Liberal Protestant one generation behind.  Contraception, divorce, women’s ordination, evolution, etc, are all clear proofs of this.  Since there is nothing more than a cultural conservatism to the theology, it quickly moves on with the flow of time.  There is no adherence to a confession of faith, just rhetoric.  Conservative Evangelicals after all are the people who quote Lewis on the importance of being dogmatic about the deity of Christ but worship in non-denominational (*read: Baptist) ‘churches’ which eschew any dogmatic definitions of the sacraments, labelling all who do “legalists” or “denominationalists” (showing a clear misunderstanding of both terms).  Since they have no mode of preserving doctrine, they are ruled by temperament which like politics, changes in every season.  Another way of putting it is this: during the French Revolution the radicals sat on the left and the conservatives on the right (hence the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ wing), but they were all a part of the Revolution.  They had different versions of what democracy should look like, but none of them put Louis back on the throne.  To use this analogy, a Confessionalist, someone who rigidly adheres to a written code of dogma, is like a counter-revolutionary declaring the democratic assembly a blasphemous usurpation of divine right, and Evangelical and Liberal Protestants are those who assert their own authority but merely dispute over how best to use it.  In the same way, Evangelical and Liberal hermeneutics master the scriptures in a way consistent with Papism (but that’s another matter).

What Bonhoeffer certainly was not – the people who cannot claim him, are the Confessionalists.  The original purpose of the Confessing Church that Bonhoeffer was a part of was distressed by the politicization of the church in Germany.  They were theologians who were distressed that Scripture, Luther, and religion, were being twisted into a support for the Nazis.  These men recognized that the same could be done in the opposite way, where scripture was used to oppose a government for temporal aims.  Such had the Calvinists and the Jesuits taught for centuries their doctrine of regicide.  The Confessing Church’s mission was to confess Christ rather than these political messages.  In that sense, Bonhoeffer was not really a member of the Confessing Church, since he believed that Christ’s message was inherently political and thus effected the political arena.  He followed the American theologians he taught with, who believed Christ transformed culture.  The Confessing Church knew that all the utopias and dreams and republics of men would fall and be destroyed in the end, but only the church of God would remain, so there was no point in fighting for a political cause, no matter how noble. They knew Christ’s kingdom was “not of this world”.

To the extent that Bonhoeffer helped the Jews and morally opposed the sins of the Nazis he was an heroic individual.  But I think his doctrines clearly contradict those of the scriptures.  The Christians of ancient Rome suffering the horrific persecutions of Nero were not taught to use the chant of “Christ is Lord” to organize a military revolt against the Heathen Caesar, but were rather told by God to submit to the governing authorities.  Richard Nixon wrote against Martin Luther King Jr that the type of civil disobedience he was practicing, was exactly the same as those of white bigots who oppressed blacks.  By using such methods he was only endorsing a corrupt system.  The problem is that crusaders seem so much cooler than saints: whether they be Alfred the Great swinging his sword against the Vikings or Martin Luther King Jr delivering his sermon to sanitation workers.  They make man think of his own greatness and capacity for morality and justice.  They are saviours.

And yet, it was the blood of the martyrs which was the seed of the church.  It was the great failures in the eyes of the world who were the heros of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11.  Their eyes were set on Heaven and not on Earth.  Bonhoeffer like Dr. King, and others, were surely great heroes of the City of Man, some of Adam’s proudest and most bold and heroic sons.  Yet the Christian account points to Christ and says ‘there is our saviour’.  These men were all still sinners.  MLK jr had numerous extra-marital affairs, that the FBI documented, and threatened to release to the press if he didn’t shut up about civil rights.  Bonhoeffer fled to America when times were tough, endorsed murder, and took preferential treatment in prison.  Karl Barth – a friend of Bonhoeffer – and another influential theologian in the Confessing Church had a live in concubine of sorts who resided with his wife in their home.  These men were great, but they were still sinners, and a temporal world with even such heroes ruling still remains the damned city of man.

The Confessing Church of God must preach Christ the only lord and saviour of the world.

Because I feel I’ve been too harsh on Bonhoeffer, tomorrow I will talk about what I feel his contributions were to the Church / City of God, and what I admire about him.