Dana's Christian Journey

As a young man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a teacher and leader in the Confessing Church of Germany. With increased persecution of Jews and rumors of plans to eliminate all disabled ‘weak’ German citizens, Dietrich urged Christians to understand they were in a spiritual war and the only hope was to let God be the Center of everything. “It is a war that demands the commitment of one’s whole life. Is not God, our Lord, worthy of the struggle?”

Decisions faced every Christian. In April of 1938 an ordinance was issued requiring every pastor to pledge allegiance to the Fuehrer, Adolph Hitler. On September 11 of that year, synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were destroyed on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Through Scripture, Bonhoeffer believed God showed him that when his people were being persecuted, He was being persecuted. But what could one do?

Early in 1939, Dietrich received the dreaded order to report for military duty. He had friends who declared themselves to be conscientious objectors, but they were quickly arrested and most died in prison. Other friends accepted the assignment of their government only to find themselves fighting in an unjust war. Dietrich knew too much of Hitler to even consider becoming a soldier. Christians with connections gave him a third option that involved an invitation to be a guest lecturer at a seminary in New York City. Bonhoeffer had been to America eight years earlier, and at the advice of his German brethren he accepted the invitation and gained a deferral from military assignment. Dietrich arrived in New York on June 12, 1939 but only stayed twenty-six days.

“I have had time to think and pray about my situation and that of my nation and to have God’s will for me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials of this time with my people. My brothers in the Confessing Synod wanted me to go. They may have been right in urging me to do so, but I was wrong in going. Such a decision a man must make for himself.”

The clue that led to Bonhoeffer’s arrest in April of 1943 dealt with money that had been spent to get Jews out of Germany. And while Hitler ordered Dietrich’s execution in 1945 for being involved in a conspiracy to overthrow his government, it could be argued that a pastor died because he attempted to save the innocent. Hitler committed suicide three weeks after Bonhoeffer was hanged.

From letters written in prison it was clear Dietrich was at peace with his decision… because he believed God led him. But he humbly admitted that decision-making is often difficult. “At the end of the day I can only ask God to give a merciful judgment on today and all its decisions,” he once wrote in his diary. Bonhoeffer taught that Jesus is the Way. Jesus taught that eternal life is knowing God. Maybe the best strategy for making decisions simply lies in knowing God on the Way. “Father, through your Son, help me to know You better. Amen.”

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

All quotes taken from “Bonhoeffer” by Eric Metaxas, published in 2010 in Nashville , Tennessee by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

“I am tormented even now by the thought that I didn’t do as you asked me as a matter of course. To be frank, I can’t think what made me behave as I did. How could I have been so horribly afraid at the time? It must have seemed totally incomprehensible to you both, and yet you said nothing. But it preys on my mind, because it’s the kind of thing one can never make up for. So all I can do is ask you to forgive my weakness then. I know for certain that I ought to have behaved differently.”

If you’re alive you’ve probably had occasion to write or think such a statement of regret.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this note to his twin sister, Sabine, in 1933 after he declined the invitation to preach her father-in-law’s funeral. Hitler’s agenda against the Jews was just becoming known and Christians in Germany were having to decide where to stand. If the famous “Aryan Paragraph” were adopted by the new government, all pastors with Jewish blood would be forced to step down from the ministry. Dietrich saw clearly where such discrimination would lead and began calling the church to be the church. He wrote, “What is at stake is by no means whether our German members of congregations can still tolerate church fellowship with the Jews. It is rather the task of Christian preaching to say: here is the church, where Jew and German stand together under the Word of God, here is the proof of whether a church is still the church or not.”

Sabine’s husband, Gerhard, was a baptized Christian of Jewish descent. His father was not a Christian and when he died Dietrich was asked to preach the funeral. After trying to think through every angle and after listening to the council of others, Dietrich declined. In the biography “Bonhoeffer”, Eric Metaxas tells the story of the young theologian who learned to delve as deep into the mind of God as he possibly could to discern how to preach and live in an era of immense evil. “If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.” Dietrich’s message was that Jesus Christ was the only right train and Christians had to live boldly no matter what resistance existed. He believed his decision not to stand and speak at a Jewish funeral was a failure to practice what he preached.

But moments of regret sometimes spur us to bolder living. At times we can only apologize, ask forgiveness, and ask God to help us learn from our mistakes. We all need his wisdom and his courage to speak out in our generation. We need eyes to see the devil’s work today that might not be quite as obvious as Satan’s strategies in Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged three weeks before World War II ended for being a part of a plot to take the life of Adolph Hitler. The doctor at his prison at Flossenburg recalled this scene early on the morning of his execution: “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 seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” No regrets…

Dietrich was 39 years old when he died. At a memorial service held in London on July 27, 1945, Matthew 10 was read which contains these verses: “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”

All quotes taken from “Bonhoeffer” by Eric Metaxas, published in 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson, Inc.