Best of It: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Christian and the Church in and for the World (Part 1)

[Series Index]

We've been discussing Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. So far, we've revisited Richard Neibuhr's Christ and Culture typology, and we've reviewed two of the three theologians Stackhouse believes we can draw on as resources for thinking about Christian realism (i.e., C. S. Lewis and Reinhold Niebuhr.) Today we turn to the third theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the longest chapter in the book; as you might imagine, it is packed full of rich material. I'll break this into three posts, but even so, I'm simply gleaning some themes.

Stackhouse summarizes the questions Bonhoeffer pursued this way:

• How am I to understand and speak, and how are we to understand and speak?
• Who am I, and who are we?
• What am I to do in the world, and what are we to do in the world?

Christ is at the center. Bonhoeffer believed the church should be silent before Christ and the Word. Bonhoeffer wrote, "The way of Jesus Christ, and therefore the way of all Christian thinking leads not from the world to God but from God to the world." (122-123)

Bonhoeffer did not believe in Christ as "the divine principle" of liberal theology. He affirmed the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Although, Stackhouse points out that he had doubts about the Virgin Birth and the historicity of the empty tomb. In footnote 15, Stackhouse points out that Bonhoeffer seemed to look for a path between "naïve and dogmatic realism" and "skepticism," but not entirely with success.

We encounter Christ through Scripture. Bonhoeffer recognized that the Bible has its flaws, but nevertheless "… [Bonhoeffer] emphasizes God's encounter with humanity through the figure of Chris and the text of the Bible despite whatever limitations or even flaws might be discerned in either." (121) Concerning Bonhoeffer's take on the role of Scripture, Stackhouse writes:

As we continue, then, to encounter Christ particularly in Scripture, in preaching, in the sacrament, and in church fellowship, we must construct theology in order to know better who Christ is and what he wants us to be and do. Bonhoeffer was no mystic: theology is to be worked up from Biblical and historical sources with care, and only then applied to contemporary challenges. (122)

Lutheran categories – While not always agreeing with traditional Lutheran categories of "law and grace" or "two kingdoms," Bonhoeffer was in direct dialog with Lutheran theology and regularly quoted Luther himself.

"Come and Die." When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die," from The Cost of Discipleship, is probably Bonhoeffer's most quoted line. The death, however, is, "… in order to live again in life abundant. Cost of Discipleship was both "… an invitation and an instruction." (123)

"Costly grace" vs. "cheap grace." Stackhouse says that, "The Lutheran emphasis on justification by faith alone, through grace alone, had been set adrift from Luther's own concern for holiness and rectitude." (125) Cheap grace is sort of a warm fuzzy sense forgiveness of sins as a general truth that makes no demands on us. In Discipleship:

Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old ways. (124)

Christ offers us costly grace … a grace which God procured at a costly price. It is a grace that calls us into discipleship and sole commitment to Jesus Christ.

Radically connected through Christ. Jesus calls out to as radically free disciples … free from family, class, nation, etc. Stackhouse writes:

"… the individual, called by Christ as such, who then is related to everything else in creation by way of Christ, who is the center. (126)

But the individual does not live and function apart from Christian community:

Our identity, Bonhoeffer asserts, is found in, and formed by life in community, and our Christian identity – our true self – takes shape in the church. The church is both the agent of God's will and a realization of God's will. (127)

This quote from Ethics was particularly important:

"… the church is not a religious community of those who revere Christ, but Christ who has taken form among human beings." (127)

Tomorrow we dive into Bonhoeffer's thoughts about the state and society.

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Comments

[Ivy]

Excellent. I love Bonhoeffer. In Integrative Seminar that went along with Teaching Parish, we discussed Neibuhr's Christ and Culture applying it to the parishes we were assigned to. Thank you.

[Michael W. Kruse]

You're welcome. Lots more to come.Bonhoeffer raises some important themes.