I love true and inspiring stories, especially biographies. Having grown up in the church, I knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a famous theologian. But I had never read his life story, until two years ago.
I’m not going to spill the beans on his life. I’ll leave the research up to you. But I am in awe that a young man, in the prime of his life, would willingly return to his home country (Germany during World War II) to resist the Nazis and face certain death.
Bonhoeffer returned to Germany from the U.S. in 1939. He told his friends, “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people… Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.”
Bonhoeffer argued that Christians should not retreat from the world but act within it. He believed that two elements were constitutive of faith: the implementation of justice and the acceptance of divine suffering. Bonhoeffer insisted that the church, like the Christians, “had to share in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world” if it were to be a true church of Christ.
Edmund Burke said, “Evil prevails when good men do nothing.” How true. When are we going to get off the sidelines and be good men like Dietrich?
Tagged: church, world war II
