Christian Moral Action: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Flashcards
What did Bonhoeffer’s trip to New York reveal to him?
- He was impressed by US Theologians teaching on Christian social responsibility
- He was introduced to members of black churches
- Helped him realise how Christianity needed to build relations between its Churches without racial and geographical boundaries
- Set out radical challenge to Church and State
What was Bonhoeffer’s speech against Hitler?
1st Feb 1933
- Critical of the leadership principle (Fuhrerprinzip) and the effect on the Church
- He was shut down before he could say that if they gave power to an earthly leader, they give power to a ‘misleader’
What two things did Bonhoeffer do to oppose the state after his speech?
- Became a member of the confessing church; they redused to accept only Aryan Germans could be members of the Church and only accepted authority in Christ
- Joined the Resistance, biggest decision and was investigated by the Gestapo
After leaving to America to avoid joining Hitlers army, why did Bonhoeffer go back?
- He realised that his pacifism was ‘secular pacifism’ and was a ‘scandal’
- This is because this was not preparing the world for the Kingdom of God as the evil Nazi regime was still in power
- He joined the resistance against Nazism was not good, he called it a ‘terrible alternative’ in a world where all choices had inevitably bad consequences
- He returned and joined the Counter Intelligence Forces and worked with the resistance
Execution of Bonhoeffer
- April 1943, the gestapo arrested and imprisoned bonhoeffer on the grounds of helping jewish prisoners escape
p He spent 18 months in prison where he wrote letters, a play and a novel - 1944, a failed attempt to kill hitler implicated the two men and they were sent to other prisons
- 1945, hitler ordered all resistance fighters be killed, and just before the american army liberated the area he was in, they gave him a mock trial and he was hanged.
What was Bonhoeffer’s problem with obeying the state blindly?
- He recognised that ideologies are simply extensions of human ideas, and these are used to exercise power on people
- Christian ethics understand that people are finite and sinful and sometimes we can do nothing but act out of despair and hope
- Killing Hitler was the only option for the Church, despite it being wrong
- Gov was in place to impose law and order human sinfulness but in practice the state gains too much power and does not obey Gods will
What two biblical teachings from the NT put forward the view that you must obey the state?
- In Mark, Jesus says ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperors and to God the things that are Gods
- In Romans, St Paul says ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities… those authorities that exist have been instituted by God”
- Bonhoeffer Questions whether this is the Will of God?
When does Bonhoeffer argue that the will of God becomes clear?
- ‘only be clear in the moment of action’ (no rusty swords)
- This requires ridding personal ambition and submitting to Gods will
- He argues it is an act of faith
- Submitting to Gods will is the essence of Jesus’ teaching and not just following love, as love would make morality purely human, reducing God to a human idea
How does Bonhoeffer argue that Germany have a distorted perception of what a leader is?
- Argued ‘it is virtually impossible to give a rational basis for the nature of the Leader’ (No Rusty Swords)
- Leadership focuses on society and God, beyond the leader
- Germany have created a new category of leader who is separate from these values and replaces the imperfect father with the perfect one
- They have given up their identity in obedience to a tyrant
How does Bonhoeffer justify civil disobedience?
- Christians have a duty to the state, not to make a Christian state but to ensure it acts in accordance with Gods will
- If the state is ‘making reasonable people face unreasonable situations’ then the Christian duty is to disobey it
- He argued that the Church was being seduced by Nazism and the disregard for the marginalised were going against Gods order
- This tyrranicide must be Gods duty, he called this ‘suffering disobedience’
How does Bonhoeffer view consequential ethics when justifying civil disobedience?
- Disobedience is never easy to justify as we cannot know outcomes, he rejects consequentialist ethics
- All a Christian can do is act out of faith and in hope
- in prison letters he said the attempt to kill Hitler was not justified in ordinary ethical term, but all we can hope is God forgives us who ‘becomes a sinner in the process’
How did Bonhoeffer view the Western World (religionless Christianity) ?
- He did not think democracy or autonomy was wrong, he believed it represented a world come of age
- This was the embrace of a rational view of the world that discarded religion
What is the Western Void according to Bonhoeffer? (religionless Christianity)?
- A moral and spiritual vacuum that is open to all dangerous beliefs
- This is in an attempt to occupy the gap that Christianity used to fulfil
- Nazism is an example of an extreme gap
- This is why Bonhoeffer argued for a religionless Christianity
Explain Bonhoeffer’s idea of Christianity not having any rusty swords? (religionless Christianity)
- Christianity without baggage of the past and condemnation of the current Western ideologies
- Christianity should have no rusty swords; outworn ethical attitudes which the Church used and that have no use today
What was the creation of the Confessing Church in retaliation to?
- The creation of the German Evangelical Church which issued the ‘Aryan Paragraph’ which removed non-Aryan clergy
- Bonhoeffer and Niemoller thus set up the Confessing Church
