Assassinating the Führer

As I was doing some background reading in preparation for this Sunday’s tribe meeting, I came across something which I thought was worth sharing. For those of you who haven’t heard of a bloke called Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who died at the hands of the Nazi Party in 1944 after a failed assassination attempt on Hitler.

Now, what’s this? A devout Christian who plotted to assassinate someone? Surely that must be one of the most unchristian things to do. Or is it? Aren’t Christians supposed to fight evil with good rather than fight evil with evil? Personally, I believe God would probably care less whether Bonhoeffer’s actions in conspiring to kill a leader of a nation are deemed ‘Christian’ or not by others, and probably care more about the moral reason and weight behind the decisions that he made. (Note – I am referring to external actions and/or attributes here that are traditionally deemed by society as either ‘Christian’ or ‘unchristian’ or strictly ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ within the context of a grey situation.)

But first, here’s a succinct account of Bonhoeffer’s life, taken from a book by Richard Foster.

In 1927, he was a 21-year-old student earning a doctorate in theology from Berlin. In 1930, he was a debater crossing theological swords at Union Theological Seminary in New York, In 1931, he was a teacher exegeting issues of Christian ethics at Berlin University. It seemed like Bonhoeffer was destined for the life of an academic. But the ominous storm clouds of the Third Reich changed everything.

By 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an activist attacking the idolatrous ‘Aryan Clause’, which excluded Jews from civil service. By 1934, he was a leader in the newly formed Confessing Church, denouncing the heretical defections of the German Christians. (German Christians was the term used for Protestants who supported Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a key figure in forming the Confessing Church as a chief opposition to the German Christians).

By 1935, he was a professor at a secret seminary at Finkenwalde, promoting orthodox doctrines instead of accepting the heretical teachings of the German Christians. By 1937, he was an author attacking ‘cheap grace’ – that is, the indifferent attitude and behaviour of Christians that ‘cheapened’ the free, unmerited favour and love of God towards them by taking it in vain or not taking their faith seriously enough, all this against the backdrop of a nation slipping into an increasingly dangerous and obsessive cult worship of Hitler. By 1939, he was a double agent seeking the defeat of his own nation and deeply involved in the conspiracy to assassinate the Führer. By 1943, he was a prisoner. By 1944, he was a theologian from a prison cell, searching, ever searching for a ‘religionless Christianity’, one in which “man is summoned to share in God’s sufferings” at the hands of what must seemed like a godless world to him then. Finally, on the dawn of Sunday, 8 April 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a martyr, whispering to his fellow prisoners as he left his cell to be hanged, “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life.”

Bonhoeffer was no perfect Christian, but even so, as a Christian who took his faith seriously – how did he reconcile his faith with being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate another fellow human being?

Richard Foster explains in his book Streams of Living Water (1999:78) that “Bonhoeffer rejected all legalistic systems for defining moral norms. He refused to reduce Christ and Scripture to ethical principles and rules. Instead, he stressed the ongoing, relational dialectic of encountering God’s will, often against our will, and in Christ, receiving the freedom to act responsibly in any given situation. When the centre is clear, the boundaries of responsible action can be open to meet the demands of the present moment.”

Quoting Bonhoeffer, Foster writes, “It is therefore impossible to define the boundary between resistance and submission on abstract principles: but both of them must exist, and both must be practised. Faith demands this elasticity of behaviour.” And so, according to Foster, Bonhoeffer framed an ethic that was responsive to the present but could also allow responsible resistance to the then growing Nazi regime.

Of Sheep & Goats

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me… I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Matthew 25: 42-43, 45

The earliest encounter with poverty that I remember having goes back to when I was five or six years old. I was at a market with my mother when we came across a beggar at the entrance to the market. I can’t remember whether it was a man or a woman but what I saw shook my little body with angst and sadness.

Not long after, the Ethiopia famine of 1984 was at its worst and the images of starving children made me daydream fervently of one day when I’d design and build mass produced low-cost dwellings in order to house those starving children and their homeless families for free. Never mind that food was probably what they needed most urgently rather than a mud shack but that’s another story. I also never did realise that dream either.

At age eight, I remember feeling embarrassed whilst clambering into our green-coloured Mercedes Benz family car. Embarrassed and awkward because I was by then old enough to be aware that it was an expensive car and there were many other poor children whom I’d seen begging at the marketplace who’d never get to sit on the leather seat where my little bum now occupied.

An encounter with another beggar at the market entrance later with my grandmother brought about an epiphany which seared the way I looked at the poor from then on. I was about to drop a coin into the beggar’s cup when my grandmother said something to the effect of, “When you give, remember to use your eyes and look because there are those that need it more so than others.” By that, she meant that I ought to give to those who were obviously disadvantaged because of their physical impairment, be it a handicap or by being blind rather than those who were perfectly able-bodied but who were after an easy buck. My grandmother had introduced to me a new way of looking at the poor and of poverty in a way that my little mind hadn’t yet thought of.

Fast forward 20-odd years or so, and I find that the tension in me about my response to the poor remains. The epiphany I had about poverty as a boy now finds itself competing with other considerations. Someone said at my tribe meeting today that “When I feed the poor, they call me a Christian. When I ask the poor why they are poor, they call me a Communist.” Poverty, when we ask why it exists, be it on a local or global level, suddenly turns it into a socio-political issue – of why some people are poor and others are not, of the different kinds of poverty in industrialised countries like ours versus the shanty towns of developing nations, of global economic policies that perhaps cripple some nations with spiralling national debt that they could never repay back.

For me, as a Christian, I find that even though Jesus himself said that we will always have the poor among us on earth (John 12:8), throughout the Old and New Testaments, God has nevertheless always called his people not to forget the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the marginalised and to speak out against oppression and injustice. I want to identify with and be alongside the poor and yet still want a reasonably fat wallet for myself at the same time. How do I identify with the poor when I, in proportion to the rest of the world, live such an affluent way of life? Yet, what am I doing? And if I am doing something, am I doing enough? Should I do more? When is it enough? How much is it enough? That’s the source of the tension I have within me about social justice and poverty.

It is easy to placate one’s sense of social justice responsibility by sponsoring a child through the many aid organisations. It is quite another to be alongside a stinky, foul-mouthed, unappreciative old man who hasn’t had a bath in weeks in his small boarding room in Fitzroy and spend time with him and helping to wash him. It is one thing to give generous amounts of money to the Salvation Army or the Australian Red Cross, mainly in consideration of how much tax rebate you’d get for that particular financial year, and quite another to volunteer your time freely to teach a refugee English so that she could at least get a job to put food on the table. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just to what extent do we need to get our hands dirty? I mean, we all have different gifts and talents and amounts of resources. So, how much is enough? How far do I need to go? Or as a Scottish friend of mine puts it, "How much isn't enough?"

Today, we looked at the social justice traditions of Christianity at our tribe meeting – for those of you unfamiliar with my church, what we call a ‘tribe meeting’ is basically like a house church or put simply, a group of people meeting at someone’s house on a Sunday for church.

As we read through the parable about the sheep and the goats amongst other passages, I began to realise that the tension which exists in me over poverty is a good thing insofar as it continues to point me to another world yet to come and in turn reminds me that my home isn’t here and not to depend on my material wealth for security. Easier said than done, I know. For C.S. Lewis, the only safe rule in his mind was to give more than he could spare.

He writes in Mere Christianity (1952: 86), "Charity – giving to the poor – is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns. . . I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear – fear of insecurity." I realised that looking after the poor and the giving away of our resources to help others be it in monetary terms or otherwise links back to not only the first and greatest commandment to love God with all your heart, soul and mind but to also love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). For John Wesley, looking after the poor also acted as guard against him placing his security in material wealth and storing up treasures on earth. He says, “I gain all I can… I save all I can… and by giving all I can, I am effectually secured from laying up treasures upon earth."

So C.S. Lewis and John Wesley both had their own measures of how much was required of them individually. However, as good as their suggestions may be, this still doesn’t resolve the questions I have for myself as to how much is enough.

At the end of the day, I believe it’s not about a guilt trip (and it shouldn't be) and it’s also not about bagging having material possessions per se. It’s what we do with it, what we place our security in and what we do about those in need around us. Jesus was in the rich man’s house as much as the poor man’s house, and he was willing to give generously to all those that came in contact with him. We are told to look out for the poor and the oppressed, but the weight of responsibility (of how much to give of one’s resources) lies on God himself to put that on our hearts. Our task is to respond to that challenge. James 1:4 tells us that if we lack wisdom in anything, including about what I, ought to do, or how much I ought to give in looking after the poor, I can and should ask God for the answer and He’ll place the burden on my heart appropriately. The last thing we want to do is act out of guilt or out of compulsion because God wants us to give willingly and cheerfully (2 Corinthinans 9:7).

Tim Hein at the tribe meeting summed it up appropriately, reminding those of us present that, ultimately, looking out for the poor and the oppressed is inevitably part of being oriented towards building and extending the kingdom of heaven right here right now. And that like Jesus, it’s not what you earn that matters, it’s who you eat with that says the most about your life.

RECOMMENDED BOOK:
Streets of Hope: Finding God in St Kilda (1998) Tim Costello

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