Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sixty-one years ago today, April 9, 1945, one of my heros was hung in a Nazi concentration camp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in my book, is one of the most significant Christian figures of the 20th Century. For Bonhoeffer, it's the context of his life and witness that made (and continues to make) him so influential.

Born in 1906 in Germany, he lived as a teenager through the first World War. The Protestant Church in Germany, prior to WWI, was staunchly nationalistic. They saw themselves as "God's country" and essentially predicted that, according to God's will, they would win the war. According to professor John S. Conway,

"The German Evangelical Church was unrivaled in its fervent support of the war effort, justifying the use of military force not only out of loyalty to the Kaiser or nationalistic sentiment, but out of a deep-seated theological conviction that God called the German nation to a special destiny through the elimination of its enemies through war."

In the midst of this, emerged a resistance movement which called itself "The Confessing Church." They were very much against the Third Reich and saw the essential teachings of Jesus to be in stark contrast with the purposes of Adolph Hitler. Their refusal to take an oath in allegiance to Hitler ended with their imprisonment. Bonhoeffer was a key figure in this movement as a pastor and teacher of an underground seminary.

The controversy of his life revolves around the fact that he was a pacifist and yet joined a group that sought to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Those attempts failed, but folks have speculated ever since about how he came to that decision.

If you are interested in reading some of Bonhoeffer's most significant thoughts, I would encourage you to read Life Together or The Cost of Discipleship. A PBS Biography, released on, what would have been Bonhoeffer's 100th birthday this past February would also give you a better glimpse into his life.

To me, the significance of his life has to do with the context in which he found himself and the faithfulness with which he lived in response to that context. The challenging thing for me lies in the fact that I find myself, we find ourselves in our own context. God is just as Present and Active in this context as he was in Bonhoeffer's and so we must ask ourselves, "What does it mean to be as faithful to God in the context that we find ourselves in as Bonhoeffer was in his?"

For me, the answer involves a resistance to some of the things that stand against the values of Christ's life and teachings: materialism, lust, busyness, and self-centeredness. It has to do with speaking up on behalf of those who are oppressed and forgotten; providing food for those who are hungry, clean drinking water for those who are dying without it, befriend the poor, become informed about the plight of people around our world who are being treated unjustly and speak up on their behalf, supporting IJM and others who are working towards justice, and protecting the millions of children who are at risk of being taken advantage of.

What do you think? What does faithfulness to God look like in your context? What about your life? What's one thing that following God would involve?