God With Us?

First Quarter 2004

Editor's Watch

by James W. Skillen

The use and misuse of God's name in politics and government is notorious. Americans denounce Hitler's celebration of God's blessing of the Nazi cause and contradict Al Qaeda's claim of divine justification for its killing of the innocent. But we clap when God is called upon to bless America. Not so often do we read of dictators and presidents trembling before the awesome God who holds rulers and citizens accountable for their deeds.

In this day when talk of God in domestic and world politics is ever present, it is well worth reflecting on the actions of those who criticized or took action against the unjust actions of their own governments. A new video titled simply Bonhoeffer may aid your reflections as it did mine. [The film is distributed by First Run/Icarus Films.] It is a one-and-a-half hour documentary of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian theologian who participated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Born in 1906, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazi's in 1945 after his arrest.

What makes this film valuable for the thinking person is its tracking of Bonhoeffer's own intellectual, moral, and spiritual development. The youngster was drawn to pacifism when his brother Walter was killed in World War I. Even though he was not a regular church goer, Dietrich decided to study theology in 1924 and came under the influence of Karl Barth. That led him to a critical suspicion of nationalism and particularly of Hitler's national socialist ideology that began to capture the hearts of Germans in the 1930s.

As he reflected on the weakness of the church and its willingness to accommodate Hitler, he was driven to reflect on the Jewish question and past Christian understanding of the Jews. Soon he was participating in a pastors' emergency association that led to the founding of the Confessing Church in 1934 and to the famous Barmen Declaration. In 1935, the Confessing Church established a seminary in Finkenwalde, which Bonhoeffer was asked to lead. There he wrote The Cost of Discipleship and built a community of faith and prayer.

Bonhoeffer came to the United States twice, once in 1930 to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York where he was influenced more by black churches than by Reinhold Niebuhr, and a second time in 1939 when the Nazi's were driving opponents into exile, prison, or concentration camps. But on the second occasion, Bonhoeffer had hardly arrived in New York before he felt God's call to go back to help stop the killing of Jews and to build up the church.

After the July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, Bonhoeffer and other conspirators were arrested and eventually put to death. Bonhoeffer had by that time concluded that only by living completely in this world and asking what God's will is for us here and now can we learn what it means to live by faith in complete dependence on God, trusting Christ alone for salvation.

What does it mean for those of us who confess Christ as Lord to live in obedience to God in our country and in our world today? Where do the civic obligations and the patriotism that Christians experience in different countries throughout the world find their proper place in God's larger scheme of things? This video will enhance your appreciation of the importance of these questions.