Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German pastor, theologian, and founding member of the German Confessing Church during the Nazi regime. His life and writings became widely influential in the decades following his death at the Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. Today, many read The Cost of Discipleship (1959) and Life Together (1954) as modern classics in Christian discipleship. Some fewer are aware of his fervent resistance to the Nazi regime, including his involvement with plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. The final year and a half of Bonhoeffer’s life were spent in imprisonment, during which he wrote letters and papers that revealed his complex perspectives on faith, the Church, and the Church’s role in society.
In some ways, Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and theology were simple. He held a firmly ‘Christocentric’ view of the scriptures, the Church, and our relationships with God and the world. For Bonhoeffer, Christ was the singular lens through which all of life is understood and all people are received. Even so, in the wake of his varied writings, there remains a pronounced polarity among modern-day readers as to exactly who the man, Bonhoeffer, really was, what he truly believed about the Christian faith, and even to whom his allegiances would belong today.
Bonhoeffer scholar Stephen Haynes, author of The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump (2018), suggests, “Basically everybody with an opinion who’s even heard of Bonhoeffer wants to use him to strengthen their case about whatever issue is under consideration.”1 Perhaps this is unsurprising in a markedly polarized era like ours. And yet, it is precisely such polarity that Bonhoeffer’s writings might pull us away from.
A persistent theme throughout Bonhoeffer’s works is the need for a humble posture towards one another. In Life Together, he famously wrote, “God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator.” Further, he argues that the image of God we find in others “manifests a completely new and unique form” born by God alone. And while we may be left perplexed by what we find in others, “God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified”2 – an image that, admittedly, looks strange to us before we humbly receive it.
Bonhoeffer’s humble posture here stands in stark contrast to the staunch individualism we often bring to our interactions. In his Essays in Anthropology: Variations on a Theme (2010), Philosopher Robert Spaemann describes this individualized need to approach other people as “that which can do something for us; something becomes meaningful in light of the interest we take in it.”3
Our deeply ingrained interest in other people as “that which can do something for us” finds its roots in the oldest stories of human origins, appearing in the Garden narratives where a simple piece of fruit was enough to turn hearts inward on themselves with hunger for whatever was “pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6). This inward and possessive turn of the heart still draws us to seek what is useful and discard what seems opposed to our cause, leading to the type of polarization so prevalent in the scriptures and our lives today. Naturally, such polarization increases as we find ‘like-minded’ people who share opinions and stances that might strengthen our own. In this way, we remain at the center, holding onto a sense of ultimacy we were never meant to hold (see “Imagine”). Of course, there is little risk there as we build up our causes before the world, each other, and even God.
However, there is also little growth beyond ourselves …
Contrary to these pervading pathways of inwardness, and much in line with Bonhoeffer’s thoughts detailed below, philosopher Robert Spaemann (2010) invites us to “see the other as other” and to “see myself as constituting an ‘environment’ for other centers-of-being, thus stepping out from the center of my world, is an ‘eccentric position’ that opens up a realm ‘beyond substance’ (epekeina tes ousias).”4 By this, Spaemann suggests a way of interaction in which we present ourselves as a place of opportunity for others to be free, as they are, before God and the world. The moment we possess and demand another to be as we need them to be, we close our world and theirs and permit only what is within our control.
This is precisely where Bonhoeffer’s distinct worldview shines forth for us today. Like Spaemann, Bonhoeffer insists we learn to see others as a unique “You” living freely under God long before we possess any authority over them. Bonhoeffer argues from his earlier academic writings, “Only through God’s active working does the other become a ‘You’ to me.”5 In other words, every person is a unique being under God alone, independent of our personal demands on them. Respecting each other’s freedom to stand as God’s unique creation is necessary to move beyond our undo sense of ultimacy and draw us into a fuller expression of God’s expansive image on earth.
Likewise, as already quoted from Life Together, Bonhoeffer describes the way of receiving one another in total freedom:
God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image.6
It is worth considering what it will mean for us to respect and receive others around us, even those quite different than ourselves, and learn to relate to each person as a unique place in the world where the image of God is becoming available to us. This radical freedom of respect, receptivity, and relationality is, perhaps, the central theme throughout Bonhoeffer’s works and the very ground on which he views Christ coming to life as a vibrant and growing community.
I would like to close by suggesting three questions that might prompt us toward the humble posture described by Bonhoeffer – a posture much needed in our lives today:
- How can we begin to look again at (‘re-spect’) others with an un-controlling and ‘lovingly disinterested’ gaze? In other words, how can we begin to see each person as a unique “You” before God without the need to possess or utilize their life for our own?
- What will it mean to receive others with hope and eagerness as a new opportunity to meet with a unique instance of God’s image in the world?
- Where can we find points of intersection with others, believing that those intersections will become the ground on which our world (and theirs) grows larger and fuller?
I believe, with Bonhoeffer, that the very roots of our polarized world are found all too often in the type of possession and control we take over each other. Learning to respect, receive, and relate to each other as the free and unique images of God we truly are is the beginning of community, growth, and the emergence of Christ’s life on earth.
- https://faithandleadership.com/stephen-r-haynes-the-battle-bonhoeffer
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 93.
- Robert Spaemann, Essays in Anthropology: Variations on a Theme (Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon, 2010), 19.
- Ibid.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Dogmatic Inquiry into the Sociology of the Church (London: Collins, 1963), 54.
- Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 93.
Corey Parish lives in Fergus, Ontario where he works as a local church pastor and social service worker. He completed his doctoral research at Tyndale University in Toronto where he trained as a practical theologian and Certified Spiritual Director. As an adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Corey’s research and writing focus on intersections of theology, neurodiversity, and community structures in the Church and society.