I was just reading in Bonhoeffer’s biography, during the time when the Confessing Church was making its separation real, Bonhoefer was fully engaged in talks with the German church government, which had become appointments of the Reich, and thus an arm of the state; true “statists” IOW. So what kind of “getting hands dirty” might this entail; this talking to state servants , albeit those in the garb of the church? Is this “getting into bed” with those who have clearly themselves gotten into bed with the state? This adds yet another layer to the question of what the church has a call to appropriately address and confront the state, and through what means.
It’s not that Bonhoefer himself is to be the ultimate authority on this matter, but I picked up the story of Bonhoefer and his approach to the relationship of the church to society during such a time as his, in order to see what kind and manner of development ensued from that time when the flavor of Christianity in that country was so nationalistic. That Bonhoeffer has become such a figure after World War II in theological circles and in ecclesiological discussions, is testimony to how important his narrative, thought, and eccesiology has become.
Ant,
I absolutely agree with :
Although I can’t imagine America going all the way down the road that Germany went it does create a myopic vision whereby we can excuse certain actions as being actions that Christ would do…when in reality we could be doing things that are completely anti-thetical to the kingdom of God
I think that often the church in America opens itself to such myopic blindness by dismissing any lessons from the Nazi/Church relationship as instructive, and refusing to be “drawn into a comparison” because of the level of evil anbd darkness that Hitler and the Nazis unleashed. We know that even prior to the revelation and discovery of the most hideous of the evils, Bonhoeffer was sounding these warnings about the Nazis, based on their idolatries of nationalism , and absolutizing Fatherland over The Kingdom of God. Nazi Germany were but one “road” that could and did result from such a reaction, and such mass deception.
The thing that gets me about the Aemrican churches that are backing Bush and the war on Iraq is their absolutizing of the “practical” and the “pre-emptive” as simply “the way things are” and that it “all comes down to kill or be killed” in order to “save the most lives in the long run”, and that people who work for peace are “costing lives” (and thus are characterized as Colonel Jessup complained in “A Few Good Men”: “YOu know what you’ve done here son? You’ve put people lives in danger.”. IOW, leave it to the people who “walk that wall” and recognize that “we want them on that wall”. And this is the kind of outlook that many in the American church have adopted, and they leave it to BUsh and the like , who say like Bush did “We gotta step back from religion when we’ve got a job to do”.
Ant, Thanks for commenting on this.
Dale
Dale,
Great thoughts! Much to chew on here.
I think the Church in Germany was constantinian by its long particular ethno-religious history…by its identification with a particular myth of German “choseness”…very much in the same way many American political and religious leaders continue to imagine America being a “city on a hill” or when Bush describes America as a “light to the world”…using clear Christological references as a way to describe “his” vision for America’s mission in the world. Although I can’t imagine America going all the way down the road that Germany went it does create a myopic vision whereby we can excuse certain actions as being actions that Christ would do…when in reality we could be doing things that are completely anti-thetical to the kingdom of God.
I think Bonhoffer’s and Barth’s (Barmen Declaration) witness in Nazi Germany should serve as a cautionary tale for the American church.
grace/peace,
Ant