Gary
04-22-2010, 03:29 AM
This is an interesting article. I had never heard of this man or his stand until I ran across this article.
A true Christian hero
All too often in the course of studying history, great men and the great deeds they undertook are overlooked or forgotten. Perhaps they fall out of favor in history texts and they begin to fade from collective memory.
Author Eric Metaxas has helped bring back to life two such great historical figures. In Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, Metaxas told the story of one man's pivotal role in helping to change the world and help rid it of one of history's great evils - slavery.
Metaxas has just published another biography, chronicling the life of a man I'd never heard of until I was well into adulthood. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and author who, like Wilberforce, became a force for good, in his case working against the unfathomable evil of Nazism. Many may be familiar with this famous quote from Bonhoeffer: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Metaxas takes us through Bonhoeffer's life from the time he was a child until his execution for his role in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The details and first-hand accounts paint a vivid picture of the man who would eventually stare down the evil which had permeated German society, including the church.
Metaxas chronicles how quickly many German church leaders capitulated to the Nazis. One of the first acts undertaken by the government of the Third Reich was called the "Restoration of the Civil Service." All government employees had to be of "Aryan" stock. Those of Jewish descent would be out of work. The German church was essentially a state church, thus a decision had to be made as to whether to go along. There were, in fact, pastors of Jewish heritage, including one of Bonhoeffer's friends.
Metaxas describes the German church as being in turmoil, divided on how to respond to the new government. He writes: "There was at this time a group that stood solidly behind Hitler's rise to power and blithely tossed two millennia of Christian orthodoxy overboard." They called themselves the "German Christians," and vigorously attacked those who disagreed with them.
Bonhoeffer knew he had to respond. So in the spring of 1933, years before the Jews would begin to suffer the horrors of the concentration camps, Bonhoeffer spelled out his views in an essay called "The Church and the Jewish Question." In it, Bonhoeffer said that the church "has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community." To us, those words may not sound especially radical. But in the context of the times, they were revolutionary. It was clear that Bonhoeffer was talking about the Jews. But Bonhoeffer didn't stop there. He went on to say that, in Metaxas's words, "It is sometimes not enough to help those crushed by the evil actions of a state; at some point the church must directly take action against the state to stop it from perpetrating evil."
Reeling from the shame and derision which followed Germany's defeat in World War I, the "German Christians" were caught up in the fever of nationalism which swept the country. They twisted Christian theology into something unrecognizable as Christian. As Metaxas writes:
"For many Germans, their national identity had become so melted together with whatever Lutheran Christian faith they had that it was impossible to see either clearly. After four-hundred years of taking for granted that all Germans were Lutheran Christians, no one really knew what Christianity was anymore."
Hitler himself sensed and preyed on this weakness. He is quoted as having remarked about Protestant pastors, "You can do anything you want with them. They will submit...they are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs, and they sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them."
Bonhoeffer did not submit. Eventually conscience drove him to work with members of the German resistance in a plan to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested and imprisoned for two years, and finally executed at Flossenburg concentration camp on Hitler's personal order. It would be only three weeks later that Hitler committed suicide, leading to Germany's surrender.
Many years after Dietrich Bonhoeffer's execution, the camp doctor who witnessed it gave this account of his final moments:
"Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."
Article
A true Christian hero
All too often in the course of studying history, great men and the great deeds they undertook are overlooked or forgotten. Perhaps they fall out of favor in history texts and they begin to fade from collective memory.
Author Eric Metaxas has helped bring back to life two such great historical figures. In Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, Metaxas told the story of one man's pivotal role in helping to change the world and help rid it of one of history's great evils - slavery.
Metaxas has just published another biography, chronicling the life of a man I'd never heard of until I was well into adulthood. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and author who, like Wilberforce, became a force for good, in his case working against the unfathomable evil of Nazism. Many may be familiar with this famous quote from Bonhoeffer: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Metaxas takes us through Bonhoeffer's life from the time he was a child until his execution for his role in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The details and first-hand accounts paint a vivid picture of the man who would eventually stare down the evil which had permeated German society, including the church.
Metaxas chronicles how quickly many German church leaders capitulated to the Nazis. One of the first acts undertaken by the government of the Third Reich was called the "Restoration of the Civil Service." All government employees had to be of "Aryan" stock. Those of Jewish descent would be out of work. The German church was essentially a state church, thus a decision had to be made as to whether to go along. There were, in fact, pastors of Jewish heritage, including one of Bonhoeffer's friends.
Metaxas describes the German church as being in turmoil, divided on how to respond to the new government. He writes: "There was at this time a group that stood solidly behind Hitler's rise to power and blithely tossed two millennia of Christian orthodoxy overboard." They called themselves the "German Christians," and vigorously attacked those who disagreed with them.
Bonhoeffer knew he had to respond. So in the spring of 1933, years before the Jews would begin to suffer the horrors of the concentration camps, Bonhoeffer spelled out his views in an essay called "The Church and the Jewish Question." In it, Bonhoeffer said that the church "has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community." To us, those words may not sound especially radical. But in the context of the times, they were revolutionary. It was clear that Bonhoeffer was talking about the Jews. But Bonhoeffer didn't stop there. He went on to say that, in Metaxas's words, "It is sometimes not enough to help those crushed by the evil actions of a state; at some point the church must directly take action against the state to stop it from perpetrating evil."
Reeling from the shame and derision which followed Germany's defeat in World War I, the "German Christians" were caught up in the fever of nationalism which swept the country. They twisted Christian theology into something unrecognizable as Christian. As Metaxas writes:
"For many Germans, their national identity had become so melted together with whatever Lutheran Christian faith they had that it was impossible to see either clearly. After four-hundred years of taking for granted that all Germans were Lutheran Christians, no one really knew what Christianity was anymore."
Hitler himself sensed and preyed on this weakness. He is quoted as having remarked about Protestant pastors, "You can do anything you want with them. They will submit...they are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs, and they sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them."
Bonhoeffer did not submit. Eventually conscience drove him to work with members of the German resistance in a plan to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested and imprisoned for two years, and finally executed at Flossenburg concentration camp on Hitler's personal order. It would be only three weeks later that Hitler committed suicide, leading to Germany's surrender.
Many years after Dietrich Bonhoeffer's execution, the camp doctor who witnessed it gave this account of his final moments:
"Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."
Article