Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Role of Christianity in Politics and Ethics
Introduction
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran arrested and imprisoned by the Third Reich and eventually executed for being found guilty of having taken part in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer’s writings have since become influential in the modern world for their focus on the role that Christians can play in politics. Since the separation of church and state that America set the stage for with its own secular foundations, many have been conflicted or confused about the role that Christians should have in modern politics. For hundreds of years, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church influenced the politics of Christendom and vice versa. With the Protestant Reformation there was a push towards secularism, and the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century, which was forged without participation from the Pope, showed that states could handle their own affairs. However, as the centuries wore on, with the Enlightenment Era significantly affecting modern philosophy with its rejection of Old World values and a Christological worldview, people got used to the idea of government minding its own affairs and the church tending to its.
What Bonhoeffer attempted to do was show that the two spheres could be bridged, and he developed these ideas after visiting the US and seeing firsthand the lives of the underprivileged and marginalized and gaining a sense of the need for social justice. Bonhoeffer sought to address the gap between Christianity and social justice by showing that Christians could and should take part in politics for the purpose of providing Christian social justice in a world where Christ okay to talk about in private but not okay to be talked about on the political stage. In a way, Bonhoeffer sought to restore the rights of God in a world that was focused solely and exclusively on the Rights of Man, as developed by the American Enlightenment thinker and revolutionary Thomas Paine. This paper will address the theological problem in the modern era that Bonhoeffer sought to tackle, show why it remains a significant issue, and detail how a biblical response to the handling of the problem would be possible based on the points put forward by Bonhoeffer. The thesis of this paper is this: Bonhoeffer’s unsystematic theological approach to ethics based on the Christological worldview led to new ways of understanding responsible Christian action in politics and ethics.
This thesis statement is valuable to scholars of modern and contemporary Christian thought today as it provides insights on what would constitute responsible Christian action in politics. Given the separation of church and state in many societies across the globe, many people believe that Christians should not engage in politics. Some Christians believe that politics is a strife of interest that does not represent foundational biblical principles. The role and extent to which the Christian voice should be heard in the political space has remained a major issue for modern and contemporary scholars. Controversies surrounding this issue have been exacerbated by the rise of Christian politicians who believe that believers should assume positions of political power for the greater good of all. Scholars of modern and contemporary Christian thought have faced challenges in determining whether Christians should engage in politics at all. This thesis will establish the theological grounding for responsible Christian action in politics based on Bonhoeffer’s beliefs, thoughts, and actions.
Theological Problem in the Modern Era
Social justice is not just a modern political problem. It is also a theological problem and has been for centuries. Even Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum in an attempt to guide the Catholic Church on social justice issues from a Christian standpoint. Liberation theology sprang up in the middle of the 20th century to address social justice issues from a revamped Christian orientation that provided more focus on secular issues than on spiritual issues. Bonhoeffer wanted the focus to be on Christ and on faith. He wanted social justice to be interpreted through the lens of faith and he condemned deviations from the lens of faith. For instance, in Ethics, Bonhoeffer writes:
Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand—from the very outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: “How can I be good?” and “How can I do something good?” Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: what is the will of God? This demand is radical precisely because it presupposes a decision about ultimate reality, that is, a decision of faith.[footnoteRef:2] [2: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 47.]

Faith was central to the notion of Bonhoeffer’s view of the question of ethics. Ethical systems, such as virtue ethics or Kantian ethics or utilitarian ethics, tended to be rooted in non-Christian paradigms. Bonhoeffer did not see why Christian theology and ethics should be kept to such separate spheres. Just as he did not see why theology and social justice should be separated, he did not believe that a Christological worldview was at all irreconcilable with ethics.
To Bonhoeffer, faith was the ultimate reality because God was the ultimate reality.[footnoteRef:3] God was the ultimate reality quite simply because He was the source of all things and Christ was the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). That is why Bonhoeffer went on to explain that “the source of a Christian ethic is not the reality of one’s own self, not the reality of the world, nor is it the reality of norms and values. It is the reality of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ. This is the demand, before all others, that must honestly be made of anyone who wishes to be concerned with the problem of a Christian ethic.”[footnoteRef:4] Because Christ is reality, Bonhoeffer argued that Christ should be the moral yardstick by which all actions are judged. People failed to realize this because they too often failed to make Christ a reality in their own lives. They too often failed to become like Christ, or to bring Christ among them. To address this absence, Bonhoeffer argued that a Christian ethic must be comprised of “God’s reality revealed in Christ becoming real among God’s creatures.”[footnoteRef:5] In other ethical systems, such as utilitarianism, the question of the good which would be used to measure an action’s morality remained to some extent undefined. In Christian ethics, the good must be defined by one’s participation in the reality of Christ. Christ altered the real world by His Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. Just as the Fall by mankind’s first parents skewed reality away from God, Christ restored reality in grace through submission to the will of God. [3: Pearson, T.D. “Bonhoeffer and the End of Christian Ethics.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics, 4, no. 8 (2004).] [4: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 49.] [5: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 49.]

That Christians should often ask themselves what is the will of God when attempting to define the right course of action is thus not surprising, for Christ Himself taught that to do the will of God is to be saved. However, what Bonhoeffer argues is that there cannot be disconnect between doing the will of God for one’s own salvation and doing good in the world in a moral manner. To think ethically, one ought to think from the standpoint of Christian ethics, and that is where Bonhoeffer urges Christians to start their inquiries. To define the Good means to define something in terms of its proximity to Christ. The Good cannot be defined outside of Christ. It does not exist outside of Christ. Whatever is good is in Christ and is involved in the reality of Christ.[footnoteRef:6] This is the essence of Bonhoeffer’s thought on Christian ethics. [6: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 50.]

It was and remains a problem not only for theologians today but also for people involved in politics because it is so fundamentally Christ-centric and in a secular world it is difficult for people to see life or the world or anything at all from a purely Christ-centric orientation. Part of the issue here is that they lack the necessary faith to see the world and themselves in such terms.[footnoteRef:7] [7: Brock, B. “Bonhoeffer and the Bible in Christian Ethics: Psalm 119, The Mandates, and Ethics as ‘Way’.” Studies in Christian Ethics, 18, no. 3 (2005), 7.]
Bonhoeffer faced the rise of the Third Reich in his own country in the 1930s and he sensed that the politics of Germany was distinctively anti-Christian because it situated and defined its own reality in terms that were not Christ-centric. There was a mythology of Germany that resounded in the ears of the National Socialist German Workers Party and that Hitler and the rest of the Party leaders used to their advantage as they sought to motivate and inspire the masses. Bonhoeffer took offense to what he saw as persecution of the Jewish race: Millions of Germans attributed their afflictions to International Jewry and many Zionists, particularly in America, fiercely condemned the Third Reich and the views of Hitler—this in spite of the fact that the Third Reich was working closely with the German Zionist movement in the Transfer Agreement (an agreement to relocate Jews from Germany to Palestine to help found the Jewish state of Israel). However, so much was uncertain about Germany’s new leaders and so much information was coming and going that it was difficult for anyone to understand which way was to the truth of the matter.
For many people in politics today, as well as for many Christians, discerning the truth or discerning the good in life is the major challenge. They are unsure of how to approach the issue. Is the person good first and then he does good works? Do the works, if they are good, make the person good? As Iyabo asks, how can politics and Christianity come together as one overlapping sphere if there is no agreement upon what constitutes the good?[footnoteRef:8] This is especially pertinent in America where it is believed that one’s religion should not influence one’s politics. When a person is nominated to the Supreme Court it is typically a question of Congress whether that person can refrain from allowing his or her religious beliefs to influence his or her interpretation of the Constitution—especially when the nominee is a Roman Catholic. But why should this be so? Either one’s religion is real or it is not. Either the truth that one believes in with religious conviction is true and therefore ought to inform everything that one does—including how one interprets the law—or it is not true and one ought to abandon it. For a Christian, according to Bonhoeffer, there should be no shame in refusing to compartmentalize one’s religious beliefs so that one’s political beliefs can be unaffected. One’s belief in Christ ought to influence one’s actions in politics. They should align. If they do not align, there were is the expression of the good that Christ communicates through religious faith? [8: Iyabo, O.A. “Christianity and Politics – Any Parallel Line? Christian Ethical Moral Point of View. 21.]
To answer that question, Bonhoeffer argued that the good and the real must be seen as one and the same. The person cannot be separated from the works or the works from the person; they must be seen as one and the same. Bonhoeffer criticized the modern interpretation of social ethics, developed by Reinhold Niebuhr and posited that there should be no division between culture and Christ. If the latter is the ultimate reality, it should be the source of culture—not something alien to it as though a mere secular or political culture were appropriate in and of its own. 2 Corinthians 6:17 is explicitly clear: one should leave the unclean and come to God for He is the ultimate reality. There is not to be this division that is so commonly accepted. If anything, the Christendom of the Middle Ages was more in line with Bonhoeffer’s thought processes than anything that can be found in the modern world with respect to alignment between ethics, politics and religion.
Today, social justice is perversely (and Bonhoeffer uses that world—perverse—to describe Niebuhr’s theology) distorts how ethics is approached.[footnoteRef:9] Social justice is conceived of in terms of politically correct concepts that are divorced from Christian reality. The problem that Bonhoeffer had with the Third Reich was that the government under Hitler appeared to be implementing a policy that was not in conformity with the reality of Christianity. Bonhoeffer’s attacks and criticisms of the Third Reich were leveled at the regime for that reason. Yet, in America, all too often Christians are found setting aside their Christian beliefs in order to facilitate some concept of social justice that is totally out of alignment with Christian principles. From a Christological worldview it is impossible, according to Bonhoeffer, for a Christian to claim to Christianity for himself if he does not insist upon Christian ethics in the realm of politics, since politics should be an expression of governance informed by the light of Christ and the grace of God. [9: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 51.]
Significance of the Study
Bonhoeffer’s argument is significant because it is so starkly at odds with modern theological movements of the 20th century. Without even stating anything revolutionary his ideas conflict sharply with the secular notions of Christian theology that took hold in the 20th century, including the God is Dead theology of the mid-century. Yet, Bonhoeffer does work his way into a hyper-reality that does appear quite startling and revolutionary, particularly when he describes how it is impossible even to use the expression “Christian ethics” without it being an oxymoron. He explains that ethics is concerned with knowing what is good and bad, where is to be Christian is to be concerned only with knowing Christ: “The knowledge of good and evil appears to be the goal of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to supersede that knowledge.”[footnoteRef:10] What is meant by this is that Christian ethics—if one must use that expression—should rise above any concern with evil, for its focus should be wholly on the good, which is Christ. In this way, Bonhoeffer’s unsystemic theological approach is quite radical. [10: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 299.]
Moreover, this approach begs the question of how it is to be practically applied in the realm of politics and ethics. First off, Bonhoeffer implies that ethics is an inferior study because it looks at actions outside of a Christian frame of reference simply by referring to actions that are immoral, as Christ had nothing of immorality in Him. Yet, can one actually engage in any sort of thought without having some interaction with that fallen part of the human condition to which all people are prone? This is where Bonhoeffer deviates into a kind of hyper-reality. He acknowledges as much when he states that his
attack on the presuppositions of all other ethics is so unique that it is questionable whether it even makes sense to speak of Christian ethics at all. If it is nevertheless done, then this can only mean that Christian ethics claims to articulate the origin of the whole ethical enterprise, and thus to be considered an ethic only as the critique of all ethics. For Christian ethics, the mere possibility of knowing about good and evil is already a falling away from the origin. Living in the origin, human beings know nothing but God alone. They know other human beings, things, and themselves only in the unity of their knowledge of God.[footnoteRef:11] [11: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 300.]
Bonhoeffer does admit that it is impossible for human beings to escape themselves. Yet he does not see it as impossible that a Christian should come back to be united with God. He contrasts the state of the Pharisee with the state of the true Christian who knows nothing but Jesus Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).
The Pharisee represents the modern ethicist or politician—one who wants to view the world from the standpoint of that which is politically correct or politically expedient. He views all things from his own self, refusing to give Christ His due. The Pharisee is dead and barren. The Christian who sees Christ crucified in all things is the one who has supreme place and who should be viewed as the leader in any issue or question of politics or ethics or social justice.
Thus, Bonhoeffer presents his unsystematic theological approach to Christianity and gives a hint of how it affects the spheres of politics and ethics. It totally upends both. Political and ethical expression if they are to be thought of in those terms at all are not to be any different from any religious expression in which one is totally united to God. In essence, Bonhoeffer appears to present an argument for a restoration of theocratic order—government by religion—but without the strictures of Old World theocracy. Instead, Bonhoeffer argues that people should let Christian reality become real in all spheres of life—not just in a religious sphere—but in every sphere: social, political, economical, and so on.[footnoteRef:12] [12: Nissen, U.B. “Letting Reality Become Real: On Mystery and Reality in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics, 39, no. 2 (2011), 322.]
In this manner, Bonhoeffer is quite different from the neo-liberal theologians. His contribution is significant because it is essentially the very opposite of theirs. They were arguing that God changed according to the evolution of His people, and that as they evolved and developed different needs, so too did the way in which God should be conceived change. This was true of Tillich, for example, according to Olson: As Olson points out, Tillich argued that “God is the answer to the question implied in human finitude. However, if the notion of God appears in systematic theology in correlation with the threat of non-being which is implied in existence, God must be called the infinite power of being which resists the threat of non-being.”[footnoteRef:13] Olson himself recognized the problems inherent among the neo-liberal line of theological thinking and he phrased the problem as a question: “Is a nonabsolute God who did not create the world and who cannot control it or ensure the victory of good over evil worthy of worship?”[footnoteRef:14] For Bonhoeffer, Christ does ensure the victor y over evil and everyone with faith knows that. Moreover, every Christian ought to live his life and implement his faith in his life as though this victory were achieved. Social justice, at that point, would no longer be a problem, and the issues of secular politics would dissolve because Christ Crucified would rule all. [13: Olson, Roger E. The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 382.] [14: Olson, Roger E. The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 416.]
Biblical Response to the Handling of the Problem
To what extent can a Christian voice in politics be accepted if those in politics refuse to recognize Christ? This was the problem that Bonhoeffer himself ran into in his own life. He felt that Hitler and the Third Reich were dismissing the ultimate reality that is God. He openly criticized the regime and paid for his attacks on it with his life in 1945 when the regime executed him. Was Bonhoeffer a martyr for the Ultimate Reality? Or was he mislead in his own unsystematic approach to theology and its implications for politics and ethics? What does the Bible say on this matter?
The Bible is, surprisingly, against Bonhoeffer on this matter if one is to interpret it literally. For example, Romans 13:1 states clearly: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” And Titus 3:1 states, “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient….” Bonhoeffer himself refused the authority of the Third Reich and even if he put forward good reasons for refusing that authority, both Romans and Titus appear to contradict his stance. Can it be so?
Bonhoeffer was very much in favor of a kind of Christ the King type of restoration to society. If Christ were recognized as king, it would make submitting to the authority of one’s rulers much less a matter of going concern. Plant states as much when he writes that Bonhoeffer argued “the Gospel of Jesus is not a Gospel for the Church or its members alone, but Good News for the world: ‘The church as the one community of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Lord of the world, has the commission to say his Word to the whole world. The territory of the one church of Christ is the whole world’. The view that there are areas or spheres of life ordained by God and governed by their own laws over which Christ has no authority must vigorously be repudiated.”[footnoteRef:15] Bonhoeffer argued that the world and its politicians should submit to Christ and the sacrament of His command if it wanted its subjects to submit to them.[footnoteRef:16] For him, it was very much an either/or proposition like that presented by Kierkegaard.[footnoteRef:17] The Christian should be proactive in promoting the claims or, rather, the rights of God in the sphere of politics because as a Christian he must know that he has but one king and that all must submit to that king.[footnoteRef:18] How practical is this approach? Would a more systematic approach to theology assist Bonhoeffer in having a better position for staking his claim? How does it go for one when the state exercises its will over one and silences one’s voice with execution? As Westmoreland-White notes, there are needs and issues in the modern world that Bonhoeffer does not adequately address in any of his writings.[footnoteRef:19] There is an element of Bonhoeffer that is too idealistic and not realistic enough, even as he writes about God as the Ultimate Reality. This may be true enough, but in the fallen world, where men and women are constantly moving towards or away from that Ultimate Reality, one must try to bring about some good. [15: Plant, S. “The Sacrament of Ethical Reality: Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Ethics for Christian Citizens.” Studies in Christian Ethics, 18, no.3 (2005), 77.] [16: Plant, S. “The Sacrament of Ethical Reality: Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Ethics for Christian Citizens.” Studies in Christian Ethics, 18, no.3 (2005), 82.] [17: Valco, M. “The Value of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theological-Ethical Reading of Soren Kierkegaard.”European Journal of Science and Theology, 13, no. 1 (2017).] [18: Tshaka R. &Senokoane, B. “The Christian Politician?An Investigation into the Theological Grounding for Christians Participation in Politics.”HTS Theological Studies, 72, no. 1 (2016).] [19: Westmoreland-White, M.L. “Contributions to Human Rights in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics.” Journal of Church & State, 39, no.1 (1997)]
Rather than quarreling or openly fighting with one’s political leaders, the Bible suggests there is a more appropriate way for loving Christians to behave—and that is to use spiritual combat: 1 Timothy 2:1-2 states, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” What should a Christian do? Instead of attempt to undermine the authorities of the day, he should pray for them.
If it is a matter of doing evil, as ordered by one’s earthly authorities, then it is quite another matter. For in that case Acts 5:29 is quite clear: “But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’” If one’s rulers are not ordering one to violate a commandment of God, then what should one do? How should one behave according to the Bible? 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 provides the answer: “And to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” Why is it important for Christians to mind their own affairs as the Bible warns, and for them to be unconcerned with the matters of politics? For one, they will do all they can and should do by setting a good example for others by their own upright living. This is what inspires others to see Christ and to follow Him. Second, they are to remember that they should not seek to build earthly kingdoms here because Christ’s kingdom is heavenly: “Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world’” (John 18:36). From a Biblical perspective, therefore, it can be concluded that the best way for a Christian to behave is to think of politics and ethics as areas in which he might demonstrate the kind of Christian virtue that the Bible commands him to demonstrate.
Conclusion
Bonhoeffer’s significant contribution to modern theology is that he circled the wagons of Christian thinking and brought them back to Christ. At a time when theologians were losing sight of the unchanging God, he was demanding that Christians recognize that Christ is the Ultimate Reality. There is nothing else that can save them, nothing else that matters but Christ Crucified.
Bonhoeffer further argued that this Ultimate Reality should be the bedrock of all action and living and thinking. One should live in accordance and in union with this Ultimate Reality. All things should be evaluated from the standpoint of Christ. Bonhoeffer disagreed that there was no room for Christian thinking in politics or in ethics. To him, politics and ethics were to be dismissed to the extent that they failed to recognize Christ as the Ultimate Reality. Bonhoeffer recognized the sacrament of God’s command and believed all should do the same.
There is room, as Bonhoeffer shows, for Christians to seek social justice from a Christian perspective. Indeed, the concept has never been foreign to Christians throughout history. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy have always been hallmarks of the church. Where Bonhoeffer went to extremes was in his attacks on his own government, and whether they were justified or not is beside the point. What he showed was that Christians do have the authority to engage in politics because all authority comes from God and they belong to God. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for Christians to sit out political issues and to stay on the sidelines. For they represent the children of God, and in their own examples of how to live, they should help to lead the way—not for the establishment of an earthly paradise—but rather so that all men might follow them to Christ in Heaven.
Bibliography
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