Bonhoeffer and Christian Relations With The State

In much the same way that everyone now interprets the words of Jesus in the way that best suits their particular mindset, a similar cottage industry of interpreting and re-interpreting Bonhoeffer has evolved doing the same thing.  I will resist that temptation and attempt to interpret Bonhoeffer using the only valid standard, biblical truth.

To place Bonhoeffer in perspective you must know something about German history, particularly the Weimar Republic.  Defeated and economically ruined by World War I, in the 1920's and very early 1930's Germany was a hotbed of radical ideas on every subject, especially politics.  Suffering crippling inflation, an almost absolute decay of public morals and nearly constant street violence, the Germans saw themselves as being presented with two evils, National Socialism and Communism.

Communism promised to serve the good of the common man but as many Germans were already smart enough to realize, the revolution in Russia had resulted in purge after purge and millions dying by starvation.  That left National Socialism and Hitler.

The German elite, much like the controlling elite of the current American political parties, were looking for a front man, someone who could rally the loyalty of the people while allowing them to continue to retain their wealth and run their companies at a profit.  Hitler succeeded in doing this remarkably well.  The German common people loved him and the elite thought they could handle him.

There were problems however.  Every demagogue must have a scape goat, a straw man to burn and inflame the masses.  With Hitler it was Jews, Gypsies and eventually most of Christianity that would not adopt Him as their Messiah and the Reich Church as their denomination.  As the true horror of what Hitler had in mind became apparent to forward thinkers like Bonhoeffer, it became obvious that the church had to speak out and act if it was to retain any moral credibility for future generations.

One of Bonhoeffer's first major policy statements in this vein was his letter "The Church And The Jewish Question."  There has always been a strong undercurrent of Antisemitism in  Europe and especially Germany, and Bonhoeffer's pronouncements that the Church owed a duty to Jews being mistreated by the regime was revolutionary.

In this letter, Bonhoeffer set out three levels of resistance the church should employ toward the state.  The first is to speak the truth when the state's policies depart from biblical morality.  The second is to aid the victims of state repression whether they are of the church community or not.  The third and final step involves direct opposition to the state.  In his thesis, "Justice Powered by Faith, Bonhoeffer and the Jewish Question," (link) Dr. Dean Stroud of the Univ. of Wisconsin, Lacrosse, describes it this way:

In “the Church and the Jewish Question (“Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage”), Bonhoeffer viewed the church as “compelled to speak” to the state when there was either “too much law and order or too little law and order” (Kelly, 132). Too little law and order permits lawlessness while too much law and order means that the “state develops its power to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith of their rights.” For Bonhoeffer, preaching is essential to the state’s well being because the state receives it authority from God and must not “enthrone itself” (Kelly,132). Since the state’s origin is divine, Bonhoeffer asserts that the church knows better than the state what the state’s legitimate actions are. Strange as it sounds to us here, Bonhoeffer looks at the Jewish Question from the perspective that the church knows better than the state how to apply justice, and it is in the state’s interest not to limit the church’s freedom to preach and practice Christianity. The gospel is the state’s life blood and if the state cuts this off, then the state dies and become grotesque. The state needs the church to correct it when it practices injustice. Bonhoeffer maintains that “the state which endangers the Christian proclamation negates itself” (Kelly, 132).

The conclusions that Bonhoeffer reaches from this is that there are three ways in which the church can act toward the state when the church finds that the state is acting unjustly First, the church can ask the state to examine its actions in light of justice. In so doing, the church simply reminds the state of its moral responsibility to provide justice for those living within it boarder. If the state continues to act unjustly, then secondly, the church must aid the victims of injustice because Christians have “an unconditional obligation to the victims, even if they do not belong to the Christian community” (Kelley,132). Here the church places itself in harm’s way by demonstrating love in action (justice toward the neighbor). But if the injustice continues, then the third and final step for the church is “not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself ” (Kelley, 132). The German original is even more graphic: “dem Rad in die Speichen fallen” or “to fall into the spokes of the wheels.” This implies throwing oneself into the wheel of injustice to clog it and stop it, even at the cost of one’s life.

The church then becomes a political actor and enters the struggle for justice in a confrontational manner. This, says Bonhoeffer, can happen when there is too little law and order so that a group of citizens has its rights destroyed and when there is too much law and order so that the state interferes with the church’s proclamation of the gospel. "

Eric Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy explains it this way:


Applying this, it is obvious that the first two stages have been applied and have failed in changing American public policy or even popular opinion on key moral issues.  That leaves only the third, which was tried once through Operation Rescue and resulted in remarkable police brutality in many cities, shocking civil rights violations against the protestors and eventually draconian federal laws placing each and every abortion clinic in the nation under direct federal protection and jurisdiction.  If the issue were only abortion it would be bad enough but now we are facing state sponsored forced redefinition of ancient social institutions, a total intolerance of traditional morality, shocking violations of basic constitutional rights and the destruction of the church as we know it.

The next blog post will begin examining the ways that Bonhoeffer, applying scriptural principles, thrust a spoke into the wheel of tyranny and became a massive thorn in the flesh of the oppressors.