christian moral action Flashcards
the confessing church/ Finkenwalde
He joined the Pastors Emergency League in 1934
founded by Bonhoeffer in opposition to Hitler’s founding of the German Evangelical Church in 1934
Finkenwalde was where Bonhoeffer held an illegal secret seminary. This was a form of civil disobedience.
Knowing and acting on God’s will
Bonhoeffer thought that the fall corrupted our ability to have knowledge of good and evil.
Our goal should be to become a ‘responsible person’ – someone who acts to stand their ground against evil
The best we can do is meditate on the bible and pray, hoping to get a sense of God’s will, even though we can’t be sure of it. We must risk a “bold venture of faith”
Taking part in violence goes against pacifism & the will of God - Bonhoeffer did not turn the other cheek to Hitler
BUT If the Bible were the perfect word of God then knowing God’s will would be a simple matter of following what the Bible says
The will of God is not the stale set of ancient ethical rules written in the Bible. It is alive in a Christian church community - Finkenwalde was an example of an attempt to create such a community
Bonhoeffer on Church, state & civil disobedience
Bonhoeffer agreed with Luther that Christians should obey the state’s laws because order is useful for sinful creatures like us.
- human law is fallible and governments can become corrupted by their power into thinking they are justice itself, which only God has a right to think
- Church should keep the government in check due to the state’s authoritarian tendencies
A moral system which justifies evil acts as God’s will is dangerous - the Nazis soldiers had the slogan ‘God on our side’ on their belt buckles.
acting according to God’s will requires not just that we put aside human ethics but also our own desires
- in order that it be a truly selfless act - Arguably those conditions make his recommendation less susceptible to justifying terrible things
Bonhoeffer vs secularism
Secularists would argue against Bonhoeffer for a complete separation between Church and state
- might argue that the church is even more corruptible than the state because at least the state is voted for a democracy
argument refers to ‘the long peace’, the significant level of peace after the second world war to the present day.
Hauerwas defends Bonhoeffer - He argues that the Church does protect against authoritarian dictatorship
Liberal secular western societies have undermined theological and religious truth which creates a void vulnerable to being filled by totalitarian powers - without God we lack meaning, purpose and moral guidance.
Cheap vs costly grace
Bonhoeffer argued that ‘costly grace’ was the true grace and it requires us to truly suffer and sacrifice like Jesus did.
Mark 8:34-35 ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’. This suggests that costly action is required for true discipleship.
Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on suffering made more sense in his time where he was resisting Nazi rule. We live in times of relative peace and security
essentially saying to figure out how to resist the evil in your time/situation and have faith that it is God’s will to act on that
Religionless Christianity/ This-worldliness
This-worldliness is a concept Bonhoeffer uses to describe the way in which he thinks Christianity should be less about the personal pursuit of salvation and more about ‘sharing God’s sufferings in the world’
- focuses Christians on the concrete actions and sacrifices they would have to make in this world to stand their ground against evil
Bonhoeffer also wanted to rise to the challenge of making religion work in the new secular age
- humanity has reached a level of maturity such that it no longer depended on the traditional legalistic form of religion of the past
- Bonhoeffer thought this could be a good opportunity for a new kind of Christianity to assert itself
