By Angus Harley

The Bonhoeffer buzz is all around, for they’ve made a movie about him, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. He is presented as the living embodiment of the ultimate Christian who stands by his Christian values in sacrificing himself to stop the evil of Nazism and Hitler. And as they said about Elvis, ‘six million fans can’t be wrong.’

‘He’s our Bonhoeffer!’

Not a few Evangelicals have, rather predictably, attached themselves to this movie, a few from the political left, but the majority from the political right. This brings us to Eric Metaxas.

The political right-wing Evangelicals claim that Bonhoeffer is like Trump and his Christian cause fighting against the evils of political left-wing oppression in the United States. Metaxas, an Evangelical Bonhoeffer-scholar, is at the forefront of this interpretation.

However, non-Evangelical Bonhoeffer scholars and the Bonhoeffer family have come out against Metaxas’ reading, saying that it does Bonhoeffer a severe injustice by making him an Evangelical and a Christian nationalist, and also turns him into a man of political violence. All so wrong, it is asserted. They appeal to Metaxas and his conservative allies to “stop taking Bonhoeffer’s name in vain”, such is the idolatrous heights they have raised Bonhoeffer to.[1]

A martyr for the faith?

Certainly, Bonhoeffer was a martyr- just not for the faith. He was a great German patriot, who, like other Germans, stood against the evil of Nazism. All of them were heroes for the cause of Germany’s freedom from Nazism, regardless of their faith or even lack of it.

For, the truth is that Bonhoeffer was not a true Christian. It is exasperating to me that such a criticism of Bonhoeffer is dismissed as self-righteous and unfair, yet the Bonhoeffer family and Bonhoeffer scholarship can say that Bonhoeffer was not an Evangelical.

Evangelicals forget that Bonhoeffer was ‘Neo-orthodox’. I wish to stress the ‘orthodox’ part of that designation, because he took the outward appearance of traditional Christian orthodoxy and used it to promote a new (neo) orthodoxy. Think about that for a moment, reader. The entire force of ‘orthodox’ is that of upholding a tradition of doctrine and practice, something that doesn’t change. How can one have a new version of this? Evangelicals for decades now have mistaken ‘orthodox’ language in Bonhoeffer with a commitment to Protestant orthodox theology. Nay! Bonhoeffer embodied the Liberal spirit of eviscerating traditional theology but retaining the name and outward appearance of it.[2] Roman Catholicism was later to follow the same path in Vatican II.[3]

A man of violence?

The majority opinion is that Bonhoeffer was not a pacifist at the end. Even so, there are quite a number who put forward that he was a pacifist throughout. Others again say he balanced pacifist elements with non-pacifist.

What are we to make of this? Bonhoeffer was his own man, theologically, so we must measure him, first of all, by his own words and changes. To begin with, pro-pacifist comments are found in a number of his writings.

Bonhoeffer the pacifist

Around 1932-33, Bonhoeffer wrote:

“I also met others who shared the same goal. For me everything now depended on a renewal of the church and of the pastoral station . . . Christian pacifism, which a brief time before—at the disputation where Gerhard was also present! —I had still passionately disputed, suddenly came into focus as something utterly self-evident. And thus it went, step-by-step. I no longer saw or thought about anything else.”[4]

Bonhoeffer, in context, is referring to his non-Christian past, and how he became a Christian. Formerly he was opposed to pacifism, but now he was all about it, seeing it as the heart of the Christian servant-ethic.

Some have said that Bonhoeffer was to go on to renounce his pacifist commitment. Yet, in his Cost of Discipleship, published 1937, he writes of Matthew 5:38-42:

“The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the Hames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match. Of course this can only happen when the last ounce of resistance is abandoned, and the renunciation of revenge is complete. Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren.” (pp.157-158.)

In many places in the same book, Bonhoeffer repeats the same theology over and over, without any reference to any form of political activism or physical resistance to evil. So, he asserts:

“There is no deed on earth so outrageous as to justify a different attitude. The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus’ hands.” (CoD, p.59)

Qualified pacifism

Traditional pacifist theology, such as a Mennonite strain, believes that mankind as a whole needs to stop using violence. Yet, to Bonhoeffer, the standard of  non-violence does not apply to the world itself, only to Christians. We must not ask unbelievers to follow the same path of non-resistance, for they cannot, he believed.

Additionally, Bonhoeffer is absolutely clear in his insistence that Jesus’ teaching does not negate Gospel activism such as preaching against evil, or doing evangelism. There was also the Christian’s personal fight against spiritual evil. Prayer was crucial. Moreover, Bonhoeffer strongly believed that the gospel was meant to expose evil in all the strata of society, even in government. He firmly believed in helping the poor and oppressed. All-in-all, Bonhoeffer was Ghandi-like. These things were not, to him, mere advocacy for social justice or political activism. It was life in this world as a Christian, being the assembly.

Anti-pacifism

We come to the ground for his non-pacifist strain of thinking, even anti-pacifism, as we will see.

In his “On the War Sermon”, given in 1934, Bonhoeffer says:

“War bears within itself the justification of sin. For it contradicts God’s commandment. A final answer to the question of whether a Christian should or should not participate must be rejected. Both answers are possible. One person shows solidarity and goes along. The other one says: “Even the authorities are demanding sin; I will not participate.” On the one hand, we are threatened by militarism. And on the other, by doctrinaire pacifism. This is not a matter of assessing people morally. Here people did die heroic or miserably cowardly deaths. One can be even more grateful to the cowardly than to the person who died heroically. Just think what it meant for a poor, cowardly person to offer up life itself! The heroes at least had an ideal. The others died without such an ideal, miserably, but perhaps with all the more difficulty. But both suffered death, stood together in a single line like a wall. Gratitude! But God amid all this! It is not our place to award retroactive medals for bravery. Nor the opposite either. They died. How? Who knows? Enough simply that they died. As a result, we live. That prompts us to offer thanksgiving and to repent before God! Pray for the victory of one’s own cause? No. It, the church, prays only for peace for soldiers on both sides. War sermons? They were equally bad in both Germany and England.”

On October 20, 1936, Bonhoeffer said:

“How are Christians to act in war? There is no revealed commandment of God here. The church can never give its blessing to war and weapons. The Christian can never participate in unjust wars. If the Christian takes up arms, he must daily ask God for forgiveness for this sin and pray for peace.”[5]

From both these comments, we see a clear non-pacifism strain. The individual Christian (for he is not speaking of non-Christians) is allowed to go to war if he decides. It is up to his conscience before God, it would seem. However, he must recognize that war is sin, and, he is sinning by participating in war. So, he must pray for forgiveness and for the war’s end.

Moreover, there is a clear anti-pacifist element, too. For to Bonhoeffer, “doctrinaire pacifism” was as evil as militarism! How so? For any form of sermon focusing on war, any doctrine drawing attention to it, in its merits or demerits, is in itself wicked. Jesus’ form of pacifism was not so inclined to ‘boast’ of itself. He wanted all men to follow the kingdom message of non-violence, but he was to attract them to that by the call of the Gospel, not by judgmental doctrine. But, there is more to his “doctrinaire pacifism” statement than this, as the next quote will demonstrate.

Blurring effect

What ended up happening with Bonhoeffer was that both strands of his thinking- the pacifist and the individual’s conscience- were blurred:

“The situation seems clear to me. In such cases, I no longer have the choice between good and evil; regardless of which decision I make, that decision will soil me with the world and its laws. I will take up arms with the terrible knowledge of doing something horrible, and yet knowing I can do no other. I will defend my brother, my mother, my people, and yet I know that I can do so only by spilling blood; but love for my people will sanctify murder, will sanctify war. As a Christian, I will suffer from the entire dreadfulness of war. My soul will bear the entire burden of responsibility in its full gravity. I will try to love my enemies against whom I am sworn to the death, as only Christians can love their brothers. And yet I will have to do to those enemies what my love and gratitude toward my own people commands me to do, the people into whom God bore me. And finally I will recognize that Christian decisions are made only within the ongoing relationship with God, within a constantly renewed surrender of oneself to the divine will. I can rest assured that even if the world does violence to my conscience, I can make only one decision, namely, the one to which God leads me in the sacred hour of encounter between my will and God’s will, in the hour in which God conquers my will.”[6]

See how the underlying principle of pacifism, of anti-war, persists. However, to Bonhoeffer, the whole matter of his sin in participating in war has been taken out of his hands, for he is thrust into the midst of war. The world and its evil ways have forced this upon him. It is not his ‘fault’. Even in participating in this mess of war, however, only one thing counts for the Christian: his will must hourly be conquered by God’s will, surrendered to it. The immediate quote at hand sheds more light on Bonhoeffer’s previous statement concerning “doctrinaire pacifism”, for he believed that mere moral doctrine of any kind was no solution to the messiness of war and of the world. I will take up his argument here in the next section.

Summing up

To Bonhoeffer there is, in terms of mere theory, no tension between his Christological pacifist theology and the individual Christian choosing to go to war. Yet, for the Christian in the midst of war, there is a huge tension, a giant decision to make. The only ‘true’ decision to make in that situation is to focus upon the superior will of God: will this love for God thrust the Christian into war, or keep him out? Who knows? Surrender to God is the key at all times. The only positive in war considered as an act in itself is ‘God amid all this’, meaning that he was in the center of all the mess, extending his Lordship, providing forgiveness in the Gospel, and able to bring about peace. God was not sitting in heaven aloof to man’s plight, or the Christian’s dilemma.

Doctrines behind the view

Underlying Bonhoeffer’s theology concerning pacifism and doctrinaire pacifism are at least four greater, and more fundamental, concepts. The first is his view of the kingdom of God; the second is that of Christian ethics, the third refers to his Christology, and the last is his existential, dialectical thinking.

Only one kingdom

Bonhoeffer critiques the Reformers for teaching a doctrine of two kingdoms. They believed that, the spiritual kingdom of God follows the non-violence path of the Gospel, as God reigns through the Gospel and via the assembly; by contrast, there is an earthly kingdom, in which physical violence can be used in the secular realm by Christians in office. Bonhoeffer did not believe in this two-kingdom divide, and taught that the kingdom of God lived right in the midst of men, on earth, and was meant to challenge mankind. He concludes:

“[Jesus] says nothing about that [the two-kingdom theory]. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.” (CoD, p.159)

Although Bonhoeffer recognized the difference between church and state, he put both under the one kingdom of God. They were not dualling powers separate from one another. The one kingdom of God in the world, operating in both church and state, was at war with Satanic power.

Moreover, the state was, to Bonhoeffer, somewhat subject to the assembly. For the assembly had a duty to oversee excess in the state: too much involvement, or too little. One can see in this position why it is that Bonhoeffer spoke so strongly against both militarism (too much) and doctrinaire pacifism (too little). This demonstrates a ‘mixing effect’ of the kingdom of God, that is, of the state and the church in the kingdom. It also reflects the ‘blurring effect’ we spoke of before, in which spiritual concerns are balanced off against life in this world. As the world and God’s kingdom blended into one another, after a fashion, and because the assembly and the state play-off of one another within that kingdom, there were many events in human life that required teasing out a solution through prayerful contemplation. One might not necessarily have an immediate ‘spiritual’ solution, or one that was ‘material’. So, with war, the individual Christian had to weigh up the situation for himself, even though the kingdom principle of pacifism that belonged to Christ’s teaching was spiritually dominant. The key to all of this was for the Christian to remember that Christ was in the midst of it all, and to surrender to his will (see ahead).

Christian ethics

Evangelicals go ga-ga over Bonhoeffer’s ‘ethical masterpiece’ Cost of Discipleship. How deluded they are! His entire outlook on Christian ethics is illustrated in this view of war. We can sum it up this way. Christian teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (and other places) is the pattern of Christian ethical excellence that is untouchable. This ethic gives to us the peerless commandments of Christ that brook no sin, nor do they lead to sin. On the contrary! Thus, Bonhoeffer can wax eloquent about Jesus’ so-called pacifist theology in the Sermon on the Mount. However, Bonhoeffer is absolutely clear that such doctrine does not remove the mess of life in this world, and that Christ’s doctrine in Matthew does not obviate the Christian wrestling with the world and its sin. At times, as with just war, the Christian has no choice, for he is thrust into a sinful scenario. Yet, that situation is ‘sanctified’ to him by the presence of Christ in the midst of it all. The ultimate form of surrender to Christ is not, therefore, to submit to his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount or elsewhere (for this is to be merely doctrinaire), but to submit to his will within this messy world of ours. Yet, governing and supporting the active divine will for us is his ‘lighthouse’ of the Sermon on the Mount’s distinctly Christian ethic. We must use this to shed light on our path and to govern us in the midst of the mess, even as we sin by participating in war.

Christology

The theological foundation of Bonhoeffer’s model concerning war is his Christological interpretation of the Christian life and discipleship. Let us not forget that Bonhoeffer understood Christ as God in the flesh, God on earth, ‘in the midst of it all’. Jesus took on human flesh with all its frailties and failures, indeed, with its sin. Jesus sinned, Bonhoeffer wrote.[7] However, that was as to Jesus’ flesh. The God-side of the Son of God was sinless, pure, and incapable of sinning. He took upon him this ‘mystery’, this dilemma, within the heartland of this world, all for our sake. To Bonhoeffer, there was no form of division, or mere duality, involved, for Jesus was one person with two natures. It was duality-in-unity, not mere duality.

Some critique Bonhoeffer for his overemphasis upon the humanity of Christ, or, more accurately, upon the divine Christ on earth, in the flesh. Even the risen Christ was now with us in the midst of it all. It was this view that separated him from Barth and his particular rendition of Neo-Orthodoxy that put all its eggs in the basket of eternity and God’s revelation to us from heaven in his divine and risen Son.[8]

One can also see in this a similar idea to Bonhoeffer’s one-kingdom teaching that comes via state and church. Just as Bonhoeffer’s one Christ has two natures, so the one creation or kingdom has two faces: state and assembly. And just as Jesus’ divinity was always the ‘pure’ control, so the state is overseen, to some extent, by the assembly (see before).

As to the Christian assembly itself, as the image and body of Christ, it reflects the same duality-in-unity on earth, ‘in the midst of it all’. The assembly as Christian is a body, a unity. This unity comes via two aspects: the body of Christ as divine-like, and the same body as present in this world in the sinful flesh.

Bonhoeffer extends the same duality-in-unity to the individual Christian: a follower of Christ who is controlled by the Christ’s peerless ethical teaching and his life within, but who is thrust into the mess of the flesh and its sin.

Existential, dialectical

Woven into all of this is the dialectical aspect of Bonhoeffer’s theology. It is expressed in the dominant idea of dualism that we have been speaking about all along, one in which there are two contrasts that are in themselves irreconcilable. There is Jesus’ absolute doctrine of pacifism, on the one hand, and, over against it, is the ugliness of this world and war. The resolution to this is found in the existential side of things. To Bonhoeffer, the Christian has to make a choice ‘in the midst of it all’, and only by complete surrender to the Christ’s superior will for him, in that moment, hour-by-hour, only by relying on the Christ’s presence in the mess to seek forgiveness and peace, can the Christian make the decision to go, or not to go, to war, and can the Christian ‘sanctify’ his own service to Christ in that war. This individual choice is merely guided by Jesus’ pacifist doctrine in the Sermon on the Mount, but it is not governed by it.  

Critique

It is not enough to measure Bonhoeffer over against Bonhoeffer. One must evaluate him against Scripture and logic.

Violent man!

The idea put forward by some that Bonhoeffer was not a conspirator, was not a man of violence, is flat wrong. Bonhoeffer was devoted to the path of violence against Hitler and the Nazis. The evidence for this is overwhelming (so much so that I have not bothered to even go into that subject). Needless to say, one cannot call and plan for the head of the ‘Fuhrer’ without being committed to violence.

Wrong view of kingdom

Bonhoeffer’s view of one kingdom caused him to blend Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of heaven with man’s affairs within the kingdoms of men. Jesus himself rejected this model and could not have been any clearer if he had tried:

“Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” ” (John 18:36)

Jesus’ kingdom invaded this world and its kingdom; it did not build upon it, nor were they merged, or were there two faces of the one kingdom of God. In the above teaching, Jesus implies that men, in removing evil on earth, use physical violence and armies. That is the way of this world. Indeed, Jesus commands Peter to put his sword in its sheath, not to throw it away (John 18:11). Luther got is right: there are two kingdoms. We must give that which is Caesar’s to him, and that which is God’s to him (Matt.22:21). Of course, God’s kingdom rules over man’s and has priority. But they are separate, not united.

No Christian pacifism

We may extend this teaching to say this: the entire model of Christian pacifism is utterly muddleheaded, for it is a this-world doctrine that pertains to the rule of life in the kingdoms of men. Jesus’ kingdom was not interested in the ways and means of men, for his disciples were heavenly in both nature and destiny. It is one thing to point out that Jesus walked in this world, but quite another to say that his kingdom was of an earthly fabric. In other words, in Jesus’ kingdom pacifism isn’t even a ‘thing’!

War is not necessarily sin

Due to conflating the realms of men and Christ, Bonhoeffer conceived of all war as evil and sin, and that the Christian sinned by going to war. Yet, in his typical dialectical manner, he maintained there was such a thing as a just war. Although Jesus was making a throw away comment concerning mankind’s reliance on warfare, in John 18:36, still it conveyed that warfare was necessary to extirpate evil. It does not imply that all war was evil, or that the Christian, in going to war, was sinning.

Rejection of the Christian ethic

It is vexing and bewildering that Evangelicals read Bonhoeffer with rose-color spectacles, especially his Cost of Discipleship. How can they endorse a man who said that Christ sinned? Wherein lies Christian ethical teaching? What nonsense is it that subordinates the Christ’s teaching on the Sermon on the Mount to a form of existential decision-making? What heresy says that the Christian sins unavoidably and is not, really, to blame for this, yet he must seek forgiveness? How can war be both just at times yet always evil? How does this convoluted form of moral thinking represent the clear-cut Christ-model of Scripture? Who says that to focus exclusively on Christ’s teaching and its Scriptural nature is ‘doctrinaire’?

Abhorrent Christ

Bonhoeffer’s Christ is God in name but not in practice, being confined, seemingly, to a world that reminds one of a Greek drama. For he is ‘in the midst of it all’, forever obliged to help man in his mess. This teaching allowed Bonhoeffer to produce his despicable doctrine that Christ in the flesh was a sinner- in touch with us all, in the midst of it all. It also meant that the Christian and his individual choice, such as advocated by Enlightenment reason, was the determining factor. Where is the Christ’s superior authority as Lord and as author of all Scripture? Do not man and reason bow the knee to Christ and his Scripture?

In the light of these things, I wish to issue a challenge to Evangelicals. When is enough enough? Is morality a sliding scale? Is doctrine a mere option? If so, continue to ignore what Bonhoeffer shamelessly declares about Christ. If not, do something about it, and start to tighten up your view of him. He is not Saint Bonhoeffer!

[1] Bob Smietana, “Stop taking Bonhoeffer’s name in vain, his relatives and scholars warn Eric Metaxas, Project 2025,” RNS, October 21, 2024, https://religionnews.com/2024/10/21/stop-taking-bonhoeffers-name-in-vain-scholars-warn-eric-metaxas-and-other-christian-nationalists/.

[2] See my series of articles on Bonhoeffer’s theology at allthingsnewcovenant.com.

[3] Indeed, the new Rome so successfully adapted to its flexible, Liberal, outlook that many an Evangelical was duped- as Evangelicals and Catholics Together clearly reveals- thinking that Rome’s use of Protestant language, along with some Protestant churchmanship, was a sign of Rome’s turning to the Lord. It is apparent to most that Rome has gone down the road of pluralism.

[4] Bonhoeffer, Collected Works, Vol.14, 134.

[5] Bonhoeffer, Deitrich Bonhoeffer Works in English (DBWE), Vol.14, 791.

[6] DBWE 10, 372.

[7] Angus Harley, “Bonhoeffer 5: the incarnation and Jesus the sinner,” in All Things New Covenant, December 2, 2024, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2024/12/02/bonhoeffer-5-the-incarnation-and-jesus-the-sinner/.

[8] Angus Harley, “Bonhoeffer 2: the fallible word and the powerful Word of Genesis 1- a lesson in the Neo-orthodox dialectic,” All Things New Covenant, November 28, 2024, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2024/11/28/bonhoeffer-2-the-fallible-word-and-the-powerful-word-of-genesis-1-a-lesson-in-the-neo-orthodox-dialectic/.