Christianity
Bonhoeffer’s Catechesis: Foundations for his Lutheranism and Religionlessness
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply involved in educating youths. He saw the need for it and was apparently quite skilled, building a reputation in Barcelona for caring for a rambunctious group of students. When teaching at the illegal seminary at Finkenwalde, one of the many subjects he touched upon was catechesis–basic Christian education. Bonhoeffer’s teaching on catechesis revealed that his thoughts on religionless Christianity were already quite embedded at this middle stage of his theology, and that his staunch Lutheranism held throughout his life.
When starting his lectures on catechesis, he began with some commentary on Christian instruction. However, this commentary was fronted with the notion that Christian instruction is embedded in proclamation. Conceptually, this is because those involved in catechesis have been baptized, and, due to their baptism, they are already Christian. Thus, Bonhoeffer declares that, related to the education of young people: “the struggle, the victory belongs to the church because God has long since brought the children into the church through baptism. Whereas the state must first make itself master [Herr], the church proclaims the one who is Lord [Herr].” Bonhoeffer goes on to clarify, “Christian education begins where all other education ceases: What is essential has already happened. You have already been taken care of. You are the baptized church-community claimed by God” (DBWE 14:538).
Because of the status of those learning from the church as the already baptized, Bonhoeffer argues, the church can proclaim from the start the reality that they are already in the church community. Baptism has made this happen, by the power of the Spirit. It would be hard to imagine a more Lutheran understanding of the starting point of Christian instruction than this. For Bonhoeffer, baptism was not an abstraction or a symbol: it was a very real status change of the person being baptized as becoming part of the church-community.
The same lecture series shows Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on religionless Christianity were not merely a late development while in prison. While commenting on “What makes Christian education and instruction possible…” Bonhoeffer notes that it is “baptism and justification” (DBWE 14:539). This obviously hearkens back to the discussion above; baptism as a reality-changing sacrament. But he goes on: “People may well argue about whether religion can be taught. Religion is that which comes from the inside; Christ is that which comes from the outside, can be taught, and must be taught. Christianity is doctrine related to a certain form of existence (speech and life!)” (ibid, 539-540).
Bonhoeffer here links religion with that that comes from within–something he not-infrequently links to idol-building. Religion in his own time is what allowed the German Christian movement to join and overwhelmingly support the Reich Church of the Nazis. By contrast, Christ comes from the outside, through baptism, and can and must be taught. Our religious ways are attitudes we shape and create, but Christ, the God-reality, comes from outside of us and must be proclaimed. And, ironically, this leads to true foundations of doctrine that entail a “certain form of existence” which Bonhoeffer clearly links to the reality of everyday life but also to resistance and calls to repentance for the church itself.
In this way, we can see the foundations, at the least, are here in Bonhoeffer’s thought for religionless Christianity. The fact that there is a contrast between religion and Christ is quite evident. The link between Christ, word, and sacrament is fully there. So while some may claim Bonoheffer’s religionless Christianity is anti-ritual, this cannot be further from the truth. Here, Bonhoeffer very clearly links religionlessness to sacrament and true faith. For Bonhoeffer, what signifies religion is not traditions or sacrament, but rather that which comes from within us and causes us to create our idols.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer– read all my posts related to Bonhoeffer and his theology.
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SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Now Reading: “Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement inthe Third Reich” by Doris L. Bergen
“To me, the German Christian movement embodies a moral and spiritual dilemma I associate with my own religious questions: What is the value of religion, and in particular of Christianity, if it provides no defense against brutality and even can become a willing participant in genocide.”
Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross, Prologue
The German churches capitulated to Nazism. This is an historical fact. While there were notable exceptions–Dietrich Bonhoeffer is of special interest to me–the fact remains that a majority of Christians in Germany not only gave in but also willingly supported the Reich Church. In our own times in the United States, increasing calls for nationalism–not just patriotism–being united with Christianity provide eerie and alarming echoes of the same arguments used by the Reich-supporting German Christian movement.
Part of my studies with Dietrich Bonhoeffer include reading works about the times and places related to his work, and Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich by Doris L. Bergen is a work I am re-reading as part of that.
The cover image is an illustration by a German communist in 1933 who was opposing the unity of Nazism and Christianity. He, John Heartfield, wrote a few captions, including “The Cross Was Not Yet Heavy Enough.”
There’s a great quote from Bonhoeffer to lead it off: “Those who claim to be building up the church are, without a doubt, already at work on its destruction; unintentionally and unknowingly, they will construct a temple to idols.”
These questions resonate so much with me. Why has the church today seemingly chased after idols of power and prestige in the political environment? What does that say about the power (or powerlessness?) of Christianity and religion? I look forward to re-reading this book and seeking more answers.
SDG.
Book Review: “The Pursuit of Safety: A Theology of Danger, Risk, and Security” by Jeremy Lundgren
The Pursuit of Safety: A Theology of Danger, Risk, and Security by Jeremy Lundgren invites readers to delve deeply into concepts that seem quite simple on the surface–safety, protection, risk, security–and realize there is much more to these topics than might first seem obvious.
First, Lundgren dives into the concept of safety. What does it mean to have safety? What signs point us to feeling safe? Then, he goes through ways to analyze risk. Humanity has viewed risk differently at different points in history. Things that used to be risky are much “safer” now, but new risks have been introduced to deal with them. For example, travel across a continent is much safer than it used to be in any number of ways, but making such travel safe has introduced not just the risk of automobile accidents, but also has impacted the climate in negative ways. Humans don’t often realize the risks they are introducing while pursuing safety. These sections were insightful in many ways and certainly led to quite a bit of thought-provoking reflection later.
Next, Lundgren looks at ways humans have sought to avoid harm. Risk mitigation with the goal of zero accidents, for example, is pursuit of a goal that is both impossible and perhaps causes harms outside of safety that might not be worth the goal itself. The way we idolize technology looms large here, along with the many, many ways technology has actually made humanity open to new risks. Finally, Lundgren reflects on Christian discipleship and what it can mean to live as a Christian in a fallen, unsafe world. This last section includes the concepts of seeking to share news about Christ and what risks discipleship might lead to in the world.
One thing I thought was especially well done in the book was Lundgren’s bringing home of the realization that seeking safety does not always yield safety, and that mitigating risks can often lead to additional risks. Lundgren briefly cites Bonhoeffer in his discussion of discipleship and safety, but I wish he had gone further. Bonhoeffer has some fascinating words reflecting on peace and safety. He wrote that “peace must be dared” and refused to link peace with lack of bodily harm. I think this would have played well into Lundgren’s overall thesis.
The Pursuit of Safety rewards careful reading and reflection. Lundgren has written a formidable look at the concepts of safety and risk in Christian life, and it’s one that I think deserves serious study.
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SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Harmonization of Scripture, Inerrancy, and History- Can inerrantists harmonize like historians?
John Warwick Montgomery has been hugely influential on my own faith life, including in my development of theology while disagreeing with some of what he says. When he passed last year, I wrote a brief in memoriam. Since then, I’ve been rereading works by him and about him. One such work is Tough-Minded Christianity, a collection of essays in honor of Montgomery that was published in 2009 [1].
One essay in the collection takes on James Barr’s work, Fundamentalism. Barr was an extremely well-respected Old Testament Scholar who launched many a fusillade against fundamentalism and, in particular, against fundamentalist readings of Scripture. In particular, Barr wrote about how inerrancy would not work as a way of reading the Bible, and he especially attacked such a reading as impossible given the Bible we already have. Irving Hexham’s essay, “Trashing Evangelical Christians: The Legacy of James’ Barr’s Fundamentalism” clearly takes issue with Barr’s approach. Hexham frequently writes about Barr’s work in derogatory terms, such as calling it a “propaganda tract,” among other things. But Barr was a deep enough scholar to prompt Hexham to try to refute some of his arguments, and in doing so, I think he actually shows where Barr is right and evangelical defenders of inerrancy are wrong.
Hexham seeks to defend fundamentalist attempts to harmonize apparent contradictions in the Biblical text. One such example that he cites is the attempt to harmonize the cleansing of the Temple in John 2 with the same account in Luke 19, Mark 11, and Matthew 21). Barr writes about how some have argued that the best way to harmonize these passages is to assert that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, once at the beginning of his ministry and again near the end of his ministry. Barr writes that this harmonization is “simple but ludicrous.”
Hexham, by contrast, takes extreme issue with the use of the term “ludicrous,” and argues instead that it’s not unreasonable to make such an attempt at harmonization because, after all, we don’t have complete historical records. Hexham skirts around Barr’s incisive critique of the same evangelicals also attempting to harmonize two ascension accounts by arguing one is literal and the other is telescoping by asserting that Barr is just wrong to think fundamentalists can’t use both literal and non-literal techniques to read the Bible. At issue, however, is not whether one can defend inerrancy of Scripture by mixing ways of reading it; the issue is instead whether such readings are plausible or even necessary to begin with.
A more powerful critique from Hexham is the note that historians do this kind of harmonization all the time. And this is an extremely vital point. Hexham writes, “Harmonization, far from being an unhistorical attempt to explain discrepancies, is precisely what most traditional historians do every time they discover conflicting accounts in the archival record.” He goes on to cite others who note that historians often have “no external evidence as to whether the event recorded happened once, twice, or even three times…” and that in almost any historical writing, a selection effect is occurring which means the authors are intentionally highlighting aspects of the narrative at hand.
It is true indeed that no author can comprehensively write every detail of anyone’s life, nor do the Gospels claim to be doing so for Jesus. I think it’s also largely true that historians are quite comfortable harmonizing different stories to make them make sense. Indeed, it would quickly become impossible to write or engage with history if, every time there was a discrepancy between accounts, one simply said the account was unreal or did not happen. But there’s a huge gap between conceding that point and conceding that therefore the historical documents can be considered inerrant. Indeed, the opposite seems to be true.
When historians are harmonizing differing texts about an event, they aren’t doing so with the assumption that either text is completely without error. This is a far cry from what evangelical/fundamentalist readers of Scripture have to do in order to harmonize texts. Once one holds a doctrine like inerrancy, in which the entire Bible is supposed to be completely free from error, the process of harmonization takes on entirely new difficulties. One cannot, as historians do, harmonize two passages by simply stating one is mistaken. If one document says an event occurred at 14:00 and the other says it occurred at 04:00, the historian can do many things, such as find another source that might confirm one and deny the other. But the inerrantist cannot do that. They must come up with a harmonization that not only brings two passages together, but also makes them both somehow emerge from the harmonizing completely unscathed. And that is where things start to become absurd. Because for the inerrantist, the only way to harmonize the two times for the same event above is to multiply the event. After all, the times cannot be wrong; admitting one of the times is wrong is to admit an error into the text. Therefore, the event itself must have occurred at both times. And that is what Barr is getting at with his critique of fundamentalists readings as being ludicrous.
Certainly one may punt to the broad possibility that we don’t have the Bible telling us that a cleansing of the temple only occurred one time, but every indication seems to be that such an event was unique and powerful, not something that Jesus decided to do, say, every Tuesday or so. The ascension is even more absurd to multiply, which is what leads the inerrantist to suddenly abandon their attempt to read the historical narrative as historical reportage and instead read it as a telescoping timeline. That’s the only way to salvage the text–by turning it into something that is intentionally not reporting things in the exact timeline in which they occurred.
Hexham’s attempt to salvage inerrantist harmonization methods, then, fails. While it is still remotely possible that some events happened twice, allowing there to be a direct, historical reporting happening in both instances of an event; such a broad possibility is not all that matters. Not every harmonization can be achieved by simply multiplying instances of the event occurring. And no historian is attempting to harmonize other historic texts by assuming they are entirely without error. The parallel Hexham attempts to draw upon is undermined by his own prior commitments. Inerrantists aren’t mashing two texts together by using other sources to determine their accuracy or looking at the plausible explanations. No, they are absolutely committed to the assumption that any two (or more) Scriptural passages they are trying to harmonize are entirely without error, and therefore any harmonization must preserve that central assumption. There’s a vast chasm between those two methodologies, and one that makes the inerrantist reading seem, at times, ludicrous.
Notes
[1]It’s remarkable looking at the book now, with its foreword by Paige Patterson, who has since been implicated in covering up sexual abuse (see here), an essay by Ravi Zacharias (multiple allegations of sexual abuse here), and thinking about how highly touted this book was at the time. In apologetics circles, I remember seeing a lot of discussion, though I’ve rarely seen it mentioned since about 2014. This might be, in part, due to JWM not being as well-loved in those circles as some other apologists. In any case, this collection purports to carry on JWM’s “tough minded” approach to Christianity, one built upon strength of evidence and an apologetic approach of the same.
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SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary”
The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary is an attempt to bring together people from many different backgrounds to offer commentary on the New Testament.
After an introduction, readers get essays on African American, Asian American, Hispanic, Turtle Island, and Majority-Culture biblical interpretation. Then, the book launches into individual authors offering commentaries on each book of the New Testament. Interspersed are a few selected essays on gender in the New Testament, resources for the mental health of the oppressed in the NT, multilingualism, and immigrants in the Kingdom of God.
The commentaries on individual books of the Bible are usually close to chapter-by-chapter, with authors seemingly getting a good amount of leeway with how focused they ought to be verse-by-verse. The format lends itself to deeper discussion of individual topics each author wants to write about, but makes it a bit less useful if one is looking specifically for a verse-by-verse commentary.
The commentary itself is consistently excellent and thought-provoking. I recall especially one moment while reading the commentary on Luke in which the author, Diane G. Chen, whose parents are Chinese, reflected on the passage about treasures in heaven (Luke 12:13-34). Chen wrote about her parents teaching her to save, live within her means, and how to balance that with the concern of a safety net turning into worldliness and power. Time and again insights are offered into the Bible that spring from the cultural traditions of the authors included. The contributors hail from all over the world, with many different background represented.
There are a number of ways a commentary like this could have been formatted. I think about the series of Reformation Commentaries in which individual verses or sections are given comments from multiple different Reformers. I’m glad the editors chose a mode which allowed the authors to give running commentary on entire books of the Bible as it allows readers more insight into the thoughts and breadth of ideas of each individual author.
The New Testament in Color serves as a fantastic resource and, frankly, a fascinating read. I highly recommend it for those interested in diving deeply into what the Bible is telling us today.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Learning about Reformation History: “Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer” by Clyde L. Manschreck
I have long wondered about Philip Melanchthon. He seemed to get vilified in a lot of Lutheran circles I ran in, but he also was clearly at the forefront of Lutheran theology at the time of its formation. Luther rarely seemed to have said anything negative about Melanchthon, but the charge was that he turned away from Lutheranism later in his life and compromised. Enter Clyde L. Manschreck’s excellent biography, Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer. Manschreck presents a fascinating, balanced perspective on Melanchthon, one of the most intriguing of Reformation persons.
Manschreck starts off, appropriately enough, with looking at how Melanchthon has been treated historically. Surprisingly few biographies exist of the Reformer, especially compared to other luminaries of the period who had less of an impact. After his death, there was criticism from three fronts: he was too Lutheran for Catholics, too Calvinist for Lutherans, and too Catholic for Calvinists. That’s oversimplifying it a bit, but it becomes clear that his legacy was marred by attacks from all sides. So who was the man, and what did he really believe–and was he an infamous compromiser?
Manschreck moves very swiftly past Melanchthon’s early life, almost immediately settling into the time that brought him to Wittenberg. But as Manschreck paints the picture of Melanchthon’s time there, first as an extraordinary lecturer with phenomenal skill and later as a Reformer, we also get deep insight into his character and beliefs. Melanchthon, like many early Lutherans (and a huge amount of the surrounding population) believed in astrology. It’s a strange thing when you look back on it, but it was conceived as a kind of science. Melanchthon was a firm believer, even lamenting the sign a child-in-law was born under when he came to dislike them. Melanchthon also was a champion for public schools, creating the first publicly funded schools across Germany, and advocated for (and got) living wages for teachers. His reasoning was that if a teacher had to work yet another job to just be able to eat or live, the wouldn’t be able to focus on bettering their mind and, in turn, their students’ minds.
Melanchthon and Luther hit it off almost immediately, and Melanchthon joining the Reformation was an organic thing, rather than something one can just point to a single moment as the moment of changing of heart. He clearly believed in the arguments of justification, and ultimately became one of the primary (or the primary) authors of much of the Lutheran Confessions. Setting the writing of these alongside the circumstances in which they occurred makes them more understandable. The Augsburg Confession being prepared to try to, in part, make it clear that their movement wasn’t heretical and could be defended on Scriptural grounds is a fascinating story. Additional clarification due to attempts to unite with other Reformers–attempts that ultimately failed with Zwingli and Calvin–is also set in its historical perspective. The writing of the Confessions should not be separated in understanding from their historical circumstances.
Fascinating historical details about Melanchthon’s life can be found in abundance. Did you know that he had no small amount of correspondence with Henry VIII? The latter desired Melanchthon’s comments on his marriage, hoping the Reformer might be open to giving him an out. Even when Melanchthon failed to deliver for Henry VIII, the King realized the political expediency of an alliance and, perhaps, even was swayed ever so slightly towards some Protestant points. Manschreck makes it clear Henry VIII’s interest was almost certainly political–how to get out of an undesired marriage in a desirable way.
Ultimately, Manschreck paints Melanchthon as a man of convictions who was willing to change his beliefs as he learned more. One of the most obvious examples was Melanchthon’s shift towards a kind of spiritualized view of real presence regarding the Lord’s Supper. What’s interesting with this is that Manschreck is able to document that Luther was aware of this shift and yet explicitly did not condemn it, despite multiple means and opportunities to do so. Was it out of respect for Melanchthon? Or was it a recognition that Melanchthon’s position was somewhere within the Lutheran fold (a fold that is anachronistic to apply to the situation anyway)? I don’t know, but it is worth reading the whole account, including Luther’s non-condemnation. Perhaps Melanchthon could be somewhat welcomed back into Lutheran teaching on some level? Again, I know not. But what’s clear is that Melanchthon sought to go back to the source (the ad fontes of the Reformation and Renaissance) and to understand Scripture’s teaching without trying to invent new doctrines.
Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer is a superb biography that is well worth the read by any wishing to learn more about one of the most important figures of the early Reformation. I found it informative, balanced, and of interest to even broader world events.
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Reformation Theology– Check out all my posts on various topics related to the Reformation (scroll down for more).
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing” by Justin L. Barrett with Pamela Ebstyne King
Thriving with Stone Age Minds is a fascinating journey into looking at a combination of evolutionary psychology and Christian faith.
First, this book is not located in the space of debating Christianity and evolution. It simply assumes mainstream science is correct and that Christianity remains viable given that. Frankly, that makes the book more useful, in my opinion, than it would have been if it spent pages trying to justify those premises. There is an introductory chapter that goes over some basic assumptions and background knowledge necessary for at least diving in to the later chapters.
Next, there’s the question of what it means to “thrive.” The definition is more complex than a reader may think, especially when one is attempting to balance both evolutionary and Christian theological assumptions. Thriving in this space means there can be gaps in understanding, and that finding a niche means more than successful procreation and passing on of genetic code. Humans also tend to expand into whatever space they find and modify nature to suit their needs; this creates a kind of nature-niche gap that is crossed repeatedly by humans, but might not also yield thriving.
The authors go over various features of human anatomy and what those features might suggest about human nature. For example, humans have large white sclerae in our eyes that allows others to see where we’re directing our attention. The nature-niche gap also refers to how quickly humans are moving various aspects of our lives ahead of nature. For example, our nutrition is linked to our evolutionary past, when finding sugar and fat-rich foods would have been important sources of large nutritional importance; but they are hyper-abundant now and our bodies and minds haven’t been trained or evolved to combat this massive availability.
Some focus of the book is on contrasting the pace of revolutionary change and adaptation and the extremely rapid advancement of technology and–tying into the above–diet and availability of food. Evolutionary psychology can help us understand some of the gaps in understanding and the necessity of learning more about how technology is changing our minds and bodies. Each chapter has a number of ways to focus on the concept of thriving and tying it into both Christian theology and evolutionary biology.
Thriving with Stone Age Minds is a highly recommended read. It rewards careful reading and spurs quite a bit of thought.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Bonhoeffer and the Challenge of Ecumenism
Ecumenism–the work of bringing unity to worldwide Christianity–is a constantly challenging work throughout the history of the church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply involved in ecumenical movements in his own time. One fascinating aspect of this is that while Bonhoeffer worked for ecumenism, he also was quite clear that the German Christian Church, which had been taken over by the Nazis, was no longer a Christian church and could not be designated as such. In calling out the German Christians, Bonhoeffer presented one of the great challenges of ecumenism: how to define “in” or “out” when it comes to Christianity.
The obvious and immediate objection here, of course, is that the German Christian church was actually being run by Nazis. Historical retrospect with 20/20 vision allows us to say that clearly, such a church had indeed lost the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, at the time, such historical vision did not exist. Instead, we can see some of the challenges inherent in ecumenical work in a fascinating exchange Bonhoeffer had with Canon Leonard Hodgson[1]. The exchange can be found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works in English, Volume 14: Theological Education at Finkenwalede: 1935-1937. Bonhoeffer was invited by Hodgson in 1935 to come to the World Council of Churches as a visitor to the meeting of the Continuation Committee. Bonhoeffer declined, writing, “I should very much like to attend the meeting. But there is first of all the question if representativies of the Reichskirchenregierung [Reich Church Government (of the Nazi-sanctioned German Christian Church)] will be present, which would make it impossible for me to come” (DBWE 14, 68). Hodgson wrote back, imploring Bonhoeffer to attend. After noting that representatives of the German Christian church would be attending, Hodgson wrote, “I think you will understand our position when I say that we cannot, as a Movement [the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement], exclude the representatives of any Church which ‘accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.’ Right from the start, there has been a general invitation to all such churches, and we cannot arrogate to ourselves the right to discriminate between them…” (Ibid, 69).
Defining a Christian church as one which “accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior” seems like a reasonable step, especially within an ecumenical movement. But is it enough? That must always be the lingering question, and I’m not sure it is one I can answer. Bonhoeffer, however, answered Hodgson directly. After thanking Hodgson for the repeated invitation to attend, he wrote, “Can there be anything finer and more promising to a Christian pastor and teacher than to co-operate in the preparation for a great oecumenical[2] synod…?” But, then he went on to note that the Confessional Church in Germany did not believe the German Christian church did in fact believe that Jesus Christ is God and Savior. Wrote Bonhoeffer, “There may be single representatives…. who propound a theology which is to be called a Christian theology… But the teaching as well as the action of the responsible leaders of the Reich Church has clearly proved that this church does no longer serve Christ but that it serves the Antichrist… The Reich Church…. continues to betray the one Lord Jesus Christ, for no man can serve two masters…” (DBWE 14, 71-72).
It is hardly possible to issue a more direct and explicit statement than Bonhoeffer did regarding the status of the German Christian Church. He simply asserted: it serves the Antichrist. He went on to note the Confessional Church’s condemnation of the German Christian Church and some specific points thereof.
Hodgson, however, persisted. And his letter is one that highlights so many difficulties with ecumenism. Before diving in further, it is worth noting I am in favor of ecumenism, generally. Just as Bonhoeffer quoted Jesus’s words in John 17:21 to note that Christ wishes all of His followers to be one; so we should also wish for that and work towards it. However, where do lines get drawn, if at all? And surely, a church being taken over by a Nazi state is enough to draw the line? But even so, the historical difficulty of doing so, reflected in the words of Hodgson, should give us some fuel for thought in our own time.
Hodgson countered first by noting the 400+ years of the Ecumenical Movement, always seeking to unite the churches that had been separated. The Movement itself, Hodgson argued, must never act in behalf of individual church bodies; instead it worked as a kind of outside guiding body to bring those individual churches together. Hodgson highlighted that acceptance of Jesus Christ as God and Savior is the “one and only qualification” for a Christian church and that “the Movement has never taken upon itself to decide which churches conform to this definition and which do not” (DBWE 14, 78). He raised a neutral example of a Czechoslovakian National Church and internal debates with others over whether that church was Trinitarian or Unitarian. Turning to the Confessional and Reich church in Germany, Hodgson noted that the former appeared to have stated that the latter no longer accepted the sole criterion required by ecumenism. However, he also argued that the Reich church did not seem to see itself as outside the bounds of that confession; and who is the Ecumenical Movement to arbitrate such disagreements (Ibid)? After all, if they took up the question of the Confessional vs. Reich Church, where does it end? Could not various American churches raise charges against each other that, even while denying such a denial existed, one church does not really believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior? Wrote Hodgson, “If we once begin doing this kind of thing, would there be any end to it?” (Ibid, 79). Finally, Hodgson wrote that the Movement doesn’t necessitate setting aside all differences. Instead, it allowed for people from different churches to stand side-by-side and even highlight differences; not with the goal of eliminating or washing them over, but with the goal of understanding and to “speak the truth in love” (Ibid, 80).
Bonhoeffer wouldn’t attend the conference, and while he would reach out to Hodgson four years later in 1939, Bonhoeffer would again be met with the kind of “open to interpretation” answer Hodgson gave in the letters of 1935.
This fascinating historical insight into arguing over the inclusion (or not) of a church literally overtaken by Nazis should serve as at least a partial warning to those interested in ecumenism. And, again, I am largely favorable to the idea. But is it possible that the definition defended by Hodgson is too broad? Or, is it possible that Bonhoeffer’s own certainty was too strong? I don’t think the latter is true. It should be possible for someone to look at a church body and say “the teaching as well as the action” of some church body, Christian leader, or whatever can be defined as no longer reflecting Christ as God and Savior. But how does one go about doing that? And how much should a body like the World Council of Churches stand back from seemingly intramural conflict?
Surely in today’s era, there are American churches that would label others as outside the bounds of Christianity or serving the Antichrist. Anti-LGBTQ+ church bodies might say that affirming church bodies are un- or anti-Christian and vice versa. The rise of Christian Nationalism begs the question of how one can serve two masters–the Nation State and Christ. The prominent sacrifices of orthopraxy for the sake of purported orthodoxy could yield countless other difficulties even as those who claim orthodoxy for themselves argue the contrary.
All of this is to highlight what is a very frustrating situation in which we find ourselves. It is one in which we cannot easily navigate our Lord’s wishes that we might truly be one. One temptation is to give it all up and say we may just have to wait for the eschatological future in which Christ will be all in all before any of this happens. But is it worth just giving up? I don’t think that’s the case, either. Instead, I think it is worth seeing this back-and-forth between Bonhoeffer and Hodgson about a church literally overrun by Nazis as a warning. What is confessed with lips must also be done in deed. What that means for ecumenism is something we must work out with fear and trembling.
[1] Fun fact- Hodgson unsuccessfully proposed to Dorothy L. Sayers. I couldn’t see that on Wikipedia and not share it.
[2] Simply an alternate spelling of ecumenical.
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SDG.
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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
John Warwick Montgomery (1931-2024)
John Warwick Montgomery died on September 25, 2024. John Warwick Montgomery is the most well known apologist from Lutheran circles in decades. From within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, he fought not just external threats to apologetics, but also internal ones. As a Lutheran, he was forced by turns to defend even the prospect of apologetics from those who would lean towards fideism or some form of Lutheran irrationalism.
Montgomery was highly prominent in discussions about apologetic method. When the presuppositional method arose within Reformed circles, Montgomery was perhaps its most vocal and engaging critic. His famous (or infamous, depending on one’s stance) essay “Once Upon an A Priori” used fables to engage with presuppositional method and showed that the method would likely collapse under its own arguments when faced with an equally staunch presuppositionalist from another faith tradition. He wrote quite a bit in defense of evidentialist apologetics, and generally believed and argued that the Resurrection was historical fact and can and should be investigated as such.
Inerrancy was another of Montgomery’s pillars of argument. He argued against positions which would qualify inerrancy more, and attempted to defend it within the Lutheran tradition. He argued against other Lutherans who left his own denomination, asserting that their changed stance on inerrancy was the “fuzzification” of inerrancy to the point at which it would become unrecognizable as such. Indeed, I find his arguments to that effect fairly convincing, and that is part of the reason I don’t hold to inerrancy; it simply does not work with how the Bible was written. Montgomery would vociferously disagree, but I’m thankful to him for clarifying quite adroitly how qualifying a position like inerrancy begins to make it difficult to pin down.
Montgomery was a lawyer as well. He wrote on a vast range of topics, from law to demonology, from apologetics to historiography. His texts show a man whose mind was capable of absorbing and expanding on countless theologically-inclined topics in ways that, if they didn’t reflect particular expertise, still would show a general grasp of the topic and drive engagement with it. I have read and re-read some of his books to the point where covers are beginning to fall off. It’s often popular to read only those with whom one agrees, or to read one with whom one disagrees only to challenge and condemn. Montgomery, for me, is a constant challenging duelist. Where I disagree, I continue to find reading his works fruitful and challenging. Where I agree, I find pleasure in seeing his defense ably lay out points of impact.
I had the pleasure of meeting him at a conference in 2012. He was friendly and vivacious. The lecture he gave on religious conversion was fascinating to me at the time. I wrote up the lecture notes for a blog post here, and he sent me an email about my post, apparently thinking I had simply re-posted his lecture. He wrote, “Can you inform me as to where you obtained it and whose permission you obtained for doing so? I am willing to have you retain it on your website–but I need to know your source for posting it.” I wrote him back, explaining I had based my post upon my own notes based upon his lecture. His response was gracious, and to the point, thanking me for my detailed response and exposition of his lecture. It was my last interaction with him–I wish I’d had the courage to e-mail him again later.
Montgomery’s voice will be missed. He was an able defender of his positions and his mind wriggled into the logical holes in others’ positions in ways that made it uncomfortable to disagree with him. I admire the man, and I hope to see him in the hereafter.
SDG.
Links
John Warwick Montgomery– See all my posts tagged about John Warwick Montgomery (scroll down for more).
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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
“Bearing Sin as Church Community: Bonhoeffer’s Harmartiology” by Hyun Joo Kim- A fascinating look at the doctrine of sin through Bonhoeffer’s theology
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology continues to contribute enormously to discussions of theology today. What is especially rewarding about the work being done on Bonhoeffer’s corpus is finding topics that haven’t been explored as deeply as others. Hyun Joo Kim’s Bearing Sin as Church Community: Bonhoeffer’s Harmartiology specifically explores Bonhoeffer’s theology for the doctrine of sin, and the book richly rewards careful reading.
One of the central beliefs of Lutheranism, Catholicism, Calvinism, and several other branches of Christianity is that of original sin. For my own part, I find it an incredibly fruitful doctrine when contemplating the state of the world. Humans are incredible adept and finding imaginative ways to bring harm to each other. The horrors of the world are immense, and for me, one way to explain humanity’s awfulness to itself is to hold to a notion of original sin. Bonhoeffer’s views, by Kim, also make the position of original sin less incredible to believe, particularly in regards to explaining how it works. Instead of being linked to a (likely non-extant) original human couple, or being passed along through intercourse, Bonhoeffer’s view makes original sin and the Fall linked to human community and brings it into his ecclesiology. It all helps lend itself to his broader ethical stance, while still preserving the Lutheran view of original sin and guilt.
Before diving into Bonhoeffer’s doctrine of sin (harmartiology), Kim dives into the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin is closely linked with the notion of concupiscence–original sin as being transferred through the act of intercourse. Obviously, there is much more to it, but for Augustine, explaining original sin eventually boiled down to a kind of generational passing down through the act of intercourse itself. This saddled the doctrine of original sin with quite a bit of theological and other baggage. Kim then outlines Luther’s move from Augustinian original sin to a shift of seeing original sin integrated within Luther’s Christocentric theology. In essence, Luther’s focus on Christocentrism leads to a holistic theology that, while maintaining several aspects of Augustine’s view of original sin, centers Christ even in the doctrine of original sin. Luther’s view already started driving a wedge between concupiscence and original sin because while he apparently viewed the former as an essential aspect of transmitting the latter, he also held that original sin is forgiven in Baptism but that concupiscence remains a powerful influence on humankind (43).
Next, Kim turns to Bonhoeffer’s view of original sin. This includes a rejection of concupiscence as the basis for original sin. Rather than framing original sin in the “the biological and involuntary transmission of culpability…” Bonhoeffer frames original sin in “the relational and ethical bearing of the sin of others” (71). One of the main aspects of Bonhoeffer’s ethic is that the Christian has freedom for the other, and in this case, his doctrine of sin echoes that but in the bearing of sin for the other; it remains an alien guilt imputed, but a guilt nonetheless. Bonhoeffer’s reflection on original sin moves the alien culpability of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin from the sovereignty of God and to the church community. For Bonhoeffer, “the culpability of Adam is not biologically inherited; however, it is inseprably related to all human beings individually and corporately by the universal sinfulness after the fall” (72). This has some relation to Orthodox understandings of the fall [so far as I know from thinkers like Richard Swinburne–I admit very little direct knowledge of Orthodox teaching on the topic]. Bonhoeffer’s move, however, neither requires an original couple from whom all humanity is descended, such that the culpability can be passed down from one to another like a genetic lineage; nor does it need a specific means by which the original sin can be passed along. By sidestepping these two issues, essentially assigning guilt not to the individual through inheritance but rather through the very nature of humanity as sinful beings, he avoids many of the modern challenges to original sin, such as the question of human evolution–despite this clearly not being in Bonhoeffer’s mind as he wrote about the doctrine.[1]
Kim does draw some distinctions between Bonhoeffer’s earlier thinking on the doctrine of sin and his later theology, but to me these largely seem to be things that could be reconciled together as a continuum of the same theology. And of course the whole story is not told simply through Bonhoeffer’s views on original sin. Quite a bit more is featured on Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on sin and Christian life and ethics. Kim pays careful attention to Bonhoeffer’s book Creation and Fall and his exegesis of the Genesis narratives here. Kim’s argument is that Creation and Fall exists in the same sphere as his other works, Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, and as such, it focuses on communal personalism and still integrates aspects of Lutheran and Augustinian notions into the reading.
Bearing Sin as Church Community is an absolutely essential read for those wishing to dive deeply into Bonhoeffer’s theology. It also is an exceptionally powerful theological work that demands close and careful reading. It provides new ways forward in understanding some of the core doctrines of some branches of Christianity, and new challenges to those that do not hold those doctrines. Highly recommended.
Notes
[1] It seems fairly clear in reading Bonhoeffer’s corpus both that he was largely aware of scientific consensus on his day on various topics, which would have included the evolutionary lineage of humankind, and also that he was supremely unconcerned with scientific truths related to theology. For him, it seems, there was no conflict between Christianity and science unless Christians themselves decided to make such a conflict by purposely moving theology into the sphere of science (or vice versa) when that is an utterly inappropriate move. See, for example, his brief comments about science near the beginning of Creation and Fall.
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Links
Dietrich Bonhoeffer– read all my posts related to Bonhoeffer and his theology.
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
J.W. Wartick - Reconstructing Faith 