Bonhoeffer on Christian Ethics, Politics, and Social Justice

Introduction

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who was arrested and imprisoned by the Third Reich and eventually executed after being found guilty of participating in a plot 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 — a foundation that America helped establish through its secular constitutional order — many people have been conflicted or confused about the role 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 came a push toward secularism, and the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century — forged without papal participation — demonstrated that states could handle their own affairs. As the centuries wore on, however, the Enlightenment Era significantly affected modern philosophy through its rejection of Old World values and a Christological worldview, and people grew accustomed to the idea of government minding its own affairs while the church tended to its.

What Bonhoeffer attempted to do was show that these two spheres could be bridged. He developed these ideas after visiting the United States and witnessing firsthand the lives of the underprivileged and marginalized, gaining a sense of the urgent 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 advancing Christian social justice in a world where Christ was acceptable in private but not on the political stage. In a way, Bonhoeffer sought to restore the rights of God in a world focused solely on the Rights of Man, as developed by the American Enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine.

The thesis of this paper is as follows: Bonhoeffer's unsystematic theological approach to ethics, rooted in the Christological worldview, led to new ways of understanding responsible Christian action in politics and ethics. This paper addresses the theological problem in the modern era that Bonhoeffer sought to tackle, explains why it remains a significant issue, and details how a biblical response to the problem would be possible based on his key arguments.

This thesis is valuable to scholars of modern and contemporary Christian thought because it provides insight into what constitutes 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 at all. Some Christians believe that politics is a strife of competing interests 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. This paper will establish the theological grounding for responsible Christian action in politics based on Bonhoeffer's beliefs, thoughts, and actions.