The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Mood and Men Without Chests

For Starters

How does a Christian in today’s culture respond to the evil that we see around us? Or more specifically, how is a Christian to respond to the forces of evil that are rising within our Western culture, festering within our nation, and even seeping into our pulpits and pews? This is a broad topic to be sure, but we have heard a few suggestions lately that suggest different routes. Years back, we were introduced to the suggestion of the Benedict Option, which advocated for Christians building a parallel or alternative subculture in the face of cultural hostility (a suggestion worth some critique, though also some consideration). More recently we have heard the suggestion of the so-called Boniface Option, which is a more aggressive approach that seeks to lay the proverbial axe to the idolatrous trees of worship (again, a proposal certainly worthy of further discussion). However, what I suggest in what follows is less of an option (a plan of action), and more of a mood (an attitude of approach). What I propose is that we consider the general approach to evil forces that seems quite aptly encapsulated in those somber eyes that gazed out from behind a pair of round wire glasses with a steady and serious fixation. I am suggesting we consider the Bonhoeffer Mood. 

Over the course of the past few days and weeks, there has been quite a bit of discussion in Christian circles about the place of Christian opposition to acts of evil. Not just evil, but that impossible-to-ignore sort of overt paganism that occasionally erupts in the public square. The particular circumstance that provoked this conversation was when members of a self-described Satanic Temple erected an idolatrous visage of Baphomet in the Iowa State Capital, after which a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot did his jolly best to embody the spirit of Boniface by toppling over the demonic goat-like visage and removing its head (with a flourish). It was quite the idealistic display: a man acting on conviction by chopping off the head of a goat-demon statue in the central public square. Though this particular occurrence was quite poignant, the overarching discussion of proper Christian opposition to overt paganism has been going on quite awhile in Christian thought, though it has certainly ramped up in recent years in the West. So this is not exactly new ground to till by any means, but it is certainly quite a bit of ground to cover for many Christians who are still struggling to gain a lay of the land. 

Yet while reflecting on these recent events of goat-demon-beheading, my mind naturally drifted to the example set by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is a bit of a personal hero in the faith to me. Bonhoeffer was a fascinating figure in Christian history that has been nearly universally adopted by the Christian West, which is surely no easy feat. Certainly, this widespread adoption has not been without some bumps in the road: there was the ubiquitous Eric Metaxas biography that was thoroughly critiqued for falsely baptizing Bonhoeffer as an American evangelical (a critique not without substance), the quite detailed Charles Marsh biography which included some truly unfortunate speculations, and the many other assorted efforts meant to frame Bonhoeffer as a posthumous champion of decentralized Christianity or social justice concerns. It is always a tricky business, anachronistically enlisting an historical figure to a contemporary cause (for those interested, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series through Fortress Press is doing valuable work in retrieving many of his writings). Yet for all this, Bonhoeffer plays quite well in most Western Christian circles, and he is certainly quite quotable. Maybe there is something about a solitary pastor who died standing against no less than the forces of Adolf Hitler that makes him difficult to criticize, even in our day of reflexive criticism. 

But would Bonhoeffer be so openhandedly welcomed if he were alive today, or if we were alive in his? After all, it can be quite easy to love someone at a comfortable distance, yet that is only made possible because the distance exists (as our days of online church attendance have attested). Most Christians love the flannelgraph stories of Elijah or John the Baptist, but I suspect that our love for such figures might change quite abruptly if those prophets showed up unannounced for our church’s quarterly business meeting. It is quite tempting to create a tame caricature of someone that ostensibly celebrates their virtues, while neglecting the person through whom those virtues come. 

Allowing for One Qualification

But how could anyone possibly take umbrage with Bonhoeffer? Most seminarians have read his account of community life in Life Together and find his reflections on Christian fellowship quite compelling (even inspiring). Others are familiar with his reflections on costly grace (a much more prominent theme than his well-known indictment of cheap grace) and find great devotional comfort in those musings. Even if his association with Barth and von Harnack may give cause for concern, this is usually forgiven. But there is something that runs a bit deeper than the rather benign Bonhoeffer that is well-received in the modern evangelical mind—a deeper current to what we may refer to as the Bonhoeffer Mood. 

This suggestion of a certain mood is offered with a bit of a wink-and-a-nudge, as there has been a great deal of discussion lately on certain moods within Christendom (here, here, and here, and also here). But there is a reason for examining Christian moods, as the preceding linked articles also discuss—mood matters. Having a general mood is about the ethos of a movement, as it reflects the general approach and also usually impacts what sort of things are produced. In other words, a mood is something much deeper than a surface-level façade, such as a general call to be manly or masculine (a surface level admonition that built some movements on rather shaky foundations). The sort of mood we are speaking about is reflective of one’s whole approach to life and faith. 

There are some reasons why mood is on the radar of many Christians at this juncture. In the face of a veritable tidal wave of cultural attack against anything that sniffs of faithful Christianity, the response of many Christian voices has been quite muted. Their mood is difficult to understand. In fact, the mood that seems to have been cultivated within many Christian circles is one that repudiates any sort of strong speech, and instead normalizes (and even celebrates) a weak and pacified response as the standard. This has been the discouragement of many Christians with Big/Mid-Eva, that a strong response to evil is regarded as an abnormality. 

What encourages this dynamic is that most Christians are quite comfortable with bemoaning evil (a sort of pietistic grumbling), yet they become quite cautious (or critical) when others suggest actually taking steps against such evil. This seems to be encouraged by some of the more “professional” takes in Christian circles, when the topics that are courageously engaged seem to offend no one—precisely because they are not the true issues at hand. This is akin to the pastor who declares the most general truths from the pulpit, truths greeted by loud “amens,” yet truths which do not address the idols of our day. Such faux-engagement ends up producing what C.S. Lewis (in That Hideous Strength) referred to as “the atmosphere of vague yet heavily important confidence.” This may go a long way to explaining why many Christians have taken courage from the “Moscow Mood,” and been likewise puzzled by the levels of vitriolic criticism that mood has engendered from some circles. It is here that Bonhoeffer may be of some help. 

Bonhoeffer at the Dinner Table

C.S. Lewis once railed against “men without chests”—erstwhile intelligent men who simply lack virtue and courage. The type of men whose heads are quite present while their hearts and spines are rather conspicuously absent. These are the type of men who succumb to the spirit of the age, while lacking the fortitude to stand for anything worthwhile. Or worse yet, they are quite bold in taking stands on the convenient matters of the day, the sort of stands that somehow challenge no one and serve to advance their own standing (such stands are popular today, as well). For whatever faults he had, Bonhoeffer certainly seemed to be a man with a chest. Bonhoeffer met his physical death in 1945, in the very final days of World War II. I emphasize it was his physical death, since Bonhoeffer quite clearly observed that it was not the true end for him: “This is the end—for me, the beginning of life.” He was preceded in death by his brother Klaus, along with his brothers-in-law Hans and Rüdiger—all executed as political enemies for resistance against the Third Reich. Again, this is one of those clear stands against evil that most (though certainly not all) would, to this point, agree that it was noble to stand against the Nazi empire and its atrocities. So far, we may find Bonhoeffer quite palatable. 

Yet the story continues. Bonhoeffer’s conflict did not actually start with the Nazis, it started much earlier in the conflicts within the German Lutheran church. Early in the 1930s, several years before the war broke out in earnest, groups of self-dubbed German Christians (Deutsche Christen) began promoting Nazi ideals within German Protestantism (curiously enough, one of the main areas of debate involved baptism). Many of these Deutsche Christen were not faceless enemies—they were Bonhoeffer’s former friends, classmates, and colleagues. In these conflicts, Bonhoeffer often stood alone, as many who opposed these German Christians were slow to speak (or silent altogether) to avoid addressing what they felt was a political argument. It should be quite easy at this point to marvel at a widespread Christian aversion to ostensibly “political” matters in the midst of such palpable evil. Many German Christians found themselves in the precarious (and untenable) position of trying to occupy a sort of middle ground—between a rapidly paganizing German culture on the one hand and a biblical Christian faith on the other. We should not be shocked that many quickly found that such middle ground was quite untenable, and only a matter of time before the ground gave way beneath them. Suffice it to say, many German Christians found themselves with a startlingly hollow quality to chests that had once seemed quite strong and vibrant, yet were revealed to be hollow mausoleums. 

Maybe most shocking of all, many in the Confessing Church (the theologically-conservative church formed in reaction to the paganizing German Christians, one which Bonhoeffer helped establish) were also quite silent about the horrors of the Nazi rule. Many of those who Bonhoeffer labored alongside were quite slow to speak out against their country’s political leaders, and many remained silent even as the horrors of persecution against the German Jews became public. Yet in all this, Bonhoeffer resolutely found his chest. He proclaimed that the National Socialist order was illegitimate, and that Christians were obligated to stand in opposition to it. Later, once persecution became far more prevalent, he turned down offers of exile to England and instead remained with the church in Germany to stand against the Nazi rule (a decision which would lead to his arrest and eventual execution). 

But note the progression that took place in the above sketch. Bonhoeffer did not foist his opposition to Hitler because he had toured the concentration camps or seen the rubble of Europe’s cities. Long before those open atrocities, there was a steady progression of evil—an evil which began around German dinner tables, which steadily crept into the highest levels of German churches, and then which settled at last into the open rot of the German state. That progression was quite clear to those who took note (such as Bonhoeffer), but there were a great many who either refused to look very closely or simply refused to speak. Many Christians criticized Bonhoeffer’s actions, whether in his early days of opposition or in his latter days of far more active subversion against the Nazi regime. In short, many Christians in Bonhoeffer’s day were quite critical of the Bonhoeffer Mood—though unfortunate, it is quite possible that our modern affection for Bonhoeffer is greatly helped by the time and distance which separate us, as it seems we would likely find much to object to in his actions as well. 

Hating the Right Things, out of Love

Contrary to what many modern Evangelicals believe, God hates some things. In fact, there are a great many things that God hates. We may identify some intangibles that God hates, such as sin or death, but we get a bit skittish beyond this point. In fact, it is usually at this point that someone will object that “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” but that common statement misses the point by quite a wide margin. On the one hand, we celebrate the fact that Christ has come to save and love the sinner: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). But that is only part of the picture. God’s wrath dwells on the unrepentant sinner—a truth that is repeated dozens of times in the Psalms, emphasizing that God’s wrath dwells upon both the sin and the sinner alike (John 3:36).

Therefore, we cannot be shy to confess that God hates evildoers (Ps 5:5), the works of heretics (Rev 2:6), the as-yet-unborn Esau (Rom 9:13), and there is even a list of six things that God hates (and a seventh that is an abomination; Prov 6:16–19). Scripture needs no apology on this account. Yet here I feel compelled to offer up a necessary qualification: if we are called to have God-imitating affections of the heart, there is certainly a sinful hatred that Christians should not entertain. For example, we are commanded to not hate our brothers in the faith (1 John 3–4). Christians should not be filled with a hatred for one another—yet that does not mean we do not hate anything. On the contrary, a Christian should hate the things that God hates, both out of a fealty to God and out of a love for one’s brother. If there is a sin that brings death that threatens our brother, we should hate that sin. Yet this hatred is a sort of constructive hatred, one that hates evil things out of a true love for God and for one another. 

As Chesterton memorably observed: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” Such is the confession of many soldiers that have seen battle. This implies that our love (if it is true love) drives us to defend the things we love from evil (from the things which threaten). A soldier that never fires his gun is not displaying much love for the things he defends, after all. As a result, we will hate the things which threaten that which we love—we will hate the things that are opposed to the God we serve. This is the message from Paul when he defines what love truly is: “Let love be genuine. Abhor [hate] what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Rom 12:9). Genuine love is love that stands against the things of evil. 

This does not mean that Christians can embrace hatred without discernment—after all, we know that there is a time for hate (Ecc 3:8), and we are not to imitate the evil hatred of this world (3 John 1:11). So, what is the point of this godly hatred? The point is that we hate the things we must hate. That is to say, we are called to hate certain things, and we must actually be diligent to do so. As an example, in the Perelandra installment in Lewis’ Space (or Ransom) Trilogy (a greatly underappreciated series), there is a liberating moment with the protagonist (Ransom) discovers the joy of hating what is truly evil: 

“It is perhaps difficult to understand why this filled Ransom not with horror but with a kind of joy. The joy came from finding at last what hatred was made for. As a boy with an axe rejoices on finding a tree, or a boy with a box of coloured chalks rejoices on finding a pile of perfectly white paper, so he rejoiced in the perfect congruity between his emotion and its object.”

Like an axe to a tree, Ransom rejoiced in finding the inexplicable joy of the proper hatred of that which is truly evil. 

Here is the point: there is a teleology to this whole business, as we are made to hate evil. Further, hating that which is evil is actually a joyous affair—not because it is unserious or sought out, but because we doing so out of obedient love for the God whom we serve. Consider this biblical command, one which is situated in the midst of a series of “woes” (curses): 

Woe to those who call evil good

    and good evil,

who put darkness for light

    and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

    and sweet for bitter!  (Isa 5:20)

One might wonder what would lead to such a command—what would lead God to call His covenant children to hate that which is evil? In the case of the above passage, those who are the object of this curse (woe) have rejected God’s law (5:24). The consequences for rejecting God’s law are swift and severe, as God strikes them and leaves their corpses in the streets: “For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still” (5:25). God’s children fight because the Lord they serve leads them in battle. 

But Further—It’s Not Just About Hate

There is obviously a great deal more to this whole thing than hate (even a proper, godly hatred of evil), but hating evil is usually such a foreign concept for American Christians that it is worth having mentioned at some length. But the Bonhoeffer mood I am advocating is about quite a bit more than hate—it is truly about love. We are speaking about loving the things that God loves and acting accordingly. This means that we put ourselves in the uncomfortable-yet-fully-biblical position of letting God tell us what He loves and how He loves, and we accordingly shape the contours of our hearts in keeping with this revelation. It means that when God tells us that He is love itself (1 John 4:16), we understand that His will and ways are the very definition of love, and we act accordingly. 

Further, we are speaking about loving the things that God loves and taking action in keeping with this conviction, even in the face of daunting challenges and insurmountable odds. This is at the heart of this proposal, this mood—a strong, unwavering, even defiant adherence to divine truth in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. If we may think to the example of Bonhoeffer, his testimony and stance only grew bolder as the opposition steadily increased. While other German Christians wilted back from the fight, carefully calculated their nuanced approach, or even remained silent in abject trepidation, Bonhoeffer fought quite boldly in a battle that seemed insurmountable by human standards. Yet the drive for such bold action did not arise because there seemed to be a practicable avenue for change, or any expectation that success would be achieved in the short term, or any other such expedient thought—rather, such drive always arises from the pressing burden to declare what God has spoken regardless of the antagonism. That stand may have fallen on deaf ears in the case of the German Christians, it may have been poorly received in the political halls of power, and it may later have been quite unnoticed in the Gestapo jail, yet his words are still circulated today as a testimony to a bold, unflinching Christian witness. 

But, to fairly mitigate against any triumphalist attitude that Bonhoeffer’s account may inspire, we ought to recognize that such bold stands do not often end well in the short term. Bonhoeffer did not witness widespread reformation and revival among the German Christians in his day, nor certainly among the German people at large. There was no victorious parade which welcomed him home, nor any family waiting expectantly for his return. Instead, Bonhoeffer was unceremoniously hung by the neck, naked and cold in the early morning hours, behind an inglorious outbuilding of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. His ending did not seem glorious by worldly standards, yet Bonhoeffer gave his life as the truest sort of soldier (2 Tim 2:1), one who was seeing the battle turning toward a glorious victory—there was a longer view of things at play than the short span of his own life. We might even say that the deaths of such saints are precious in the sight of God (Ps 116:15), and that to die is gain for the faithful Christian (Phil 1:21). 

From the look of things, this is what we seem to be sorely lacking today in American Christianity—the conviction to boldly stand against the threat of darkness that seems to be impossibly stacked against the light, yet with the mettle to declare with a divinely-wrought courage that God has spoken. The fact that our culture is resolutely driving at high speeds toward a cliff face (if it has not already begun its plunge off the edge) is not grounds for restrained caution. The fact that our political and social consensus has begun to regard Christianity as an actual threat to some vague conception of a secular social good (as opposed to a dismissible absurdity, see here) is surely not a reason for our silence. Rather, what is desperately needed is Christian leaders, pastors, and laypeople to boldly stand against such odds and make a courageous appeal to heaven. This certainly seems to be a biblically defensible mood, as Scripture (in both Testaments) is full of stories of shepherd boys confronting giants and their armies (1 Sam 17), of solitary prophets confronting hundreds of assembled prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18), of faithful deacons boldly declaring truth and judgment against the people and religious leaders who gathered round in murderous rage (Acts 7). And in each of these stories, we also find God’s people watching from close by, perhaps standing back a bit timidly and unsure of what to do, yet eagerly observing how God might work through His faithful servant. And always, God honored the bold, faithful witness of His people. 

Boldly Declaring that God has Spoken

Here is the Bonhoeffer mood: the Christian must boldly declare all that God has spoken, into every place that rebels against its King, loving whatever is good and hating whatever is evil. This is not the place for nuance. We can later have the carefully nuanced discussions about tone and strategy, but that is downstream from this current contention. There is a reason why our churches profess a deeply abiding love for Christ, and yet entertain veritable mountains of heretical teaching within their walls. There is a reason why Christians widely claim to be pro-life, and yet make endlessly nuanced arguments for why untold numbers of children in the womb may still be murdered. There is a reason why Christians gladly claim that Christ is Lord over all, yet proceed to find an endless number of ways to accept laws, governance, and social mores that pronounce evil as good and good as evil. There is a reason why Christians dutifully affirm that we must have no gods but the one true God, yet still somehow find themselves regularly supporting the formation of idolatry and blasphemy in the public square. There is a reason why Christians can affirm that Scripture is truly God-breathed truth, while hollowly allowing contemporary social pressures like the LGBT agenda, third-wave feminism, and critical race theory to make seemingly-unchecked advances into Christian churches. 

The pressing reason is that Christians have ceased to boldly declare all that God has spoken—which by definition includes hating the things which God hates and loving the things which God loves. This is the physician that forgets that the infection spreading throughout the patient’s body is, in fact, a pressing threat to life and wellbeing. This is like a soldier on the front lines who forgets that the man who is charging against his position with extended bayonet is, in fact, his enemy. This is, to use biblical language, the watchman on the wall who ignores the sounds of enemies at the gates and yet remains silent (and their blood is on his own hands, Ezek 33). It is here that the Bonhoeffer Mood may be of some much-needed help—that while enemies seem to be arrayed in front and behind, and many may bow their knee in the face of such adversity, the Christian may stand firm and boldly declare that Christ is Lord, and there is no other. 

However good the intention of such a charge, these sorts of things are often understood in one of two ways: either as a call to a vague sense of Christian devotion that leads to very little perceptible action (which is quite off), or as the careless call to a hopeless plunge into the jaws of defeat (which is also quite off). A reckless charge into enemy battle lines may be symbolic and inspiring, but it does not typically accomplish much of value (and certainly not for the one doing the charging). This is more along the lines of recognizing an increasingly-common modern maxim, that “strong men make good times, good times make weak men, and weak men make bad times.” This is a call to be strong men who strive to build the good times—or, in biblical language, this is about faithfully fighting the giants that God gives us, wherever and whenever those giants are found (cf. Num 13). To tie together two quite different stories I referenced above, we may observe that we modern American Christians find ourselves in a very dangerous spot if we are on a train that is heading straightway off a cliff, and we find neither the chest needed for action nor the voice needed to warn others. The train of Western society certainly seems headed toward the cliff-face, and many would likely agree with that assessment—yet what can reasonably be done? Ought we not adjust our mode of engagement, or limit how much we engage, or taper our expectations of victory? In the case of Lewis’ trilogy, Lord Feverstone (aka Richard Devine) observes that there is a self-destructive idiocy that comes from those who “take the right train, or even […] drive it, [but] haven’t a ghost of a notion where it’s going to, or why” (That Hideous Strength). Simply riding the train, or (worse still) helping it forward without discernment, is idiocy (we even might say it is wicked). This observation is certainly in good keeping with Bonhoeffer, who (while writing from his final prison cell) observed that an even greater threat to the good than outright malice is idiocy, which he termed stupidity. This stupidity occurs when facts and truth about things are simply pushed aside and dismissed. Stupidity flourishes when our own sense of self-satisfaction leads us to proclaim our own subjective truth(s) while growing quite hostile to the objective Truth. In keeping with this, Bonhoeffer observed that if one finds oneself on a train that is headed in the wrong direction, it is insufficient to stay on the train while running in the opposite direction—rather, one must get off the train. Small, inconsequential steps are insufficient—drastic action is required. And if the train is headed somewhere that God hates, the Christian cannot be an acquiescent bystander—the Christian must love good and hate evil, and act accordingly. If we find ourselves on a train that is headed for the cliff, it may be past time that American Christians begin to adopt the Bonhoeffer mood.