Eric Metaxas
By Suzanne O'Keeffe, 700 Club Interactive
CBN.com – Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906 just ten minutes before his twin sister. He was the youngest boy and 6th in line of 8 children. His father was a renowned psychologist and professor at the University of Berlin and his mother came from a prominent family. The family grew up in a privileged district of Germany. Their oldest son Walter volunteered for the war but was soon killed. As men returned from war they were disillusioned and disheartened with the church that had supported the war effort. The death of Walter influenced Dietrich to enter the ministry and study theology. This surprised his family as Bonhoeffer had deep political convictions but not necessarily religious ones.
In 1924 Dietrich began his studies at Berlin University and soon he realized that it was God who was the source of revelation. At the age of 21 he graduated summa cum-laude and took with him the understanding that Christ is the physical manifestation of God on earth and that Jesus existed as community. There was a German organization that Bonhoeffer worked with that opened his eyes to the differences of the life of the privileged and the life of the poor and downtrodden; "I meet people as they are, far from the masquerade of "the Christian world"....it is just these people who are much more under grace than under wrath, it is the Christian world which is more under wrath than grace."
In 1930 he sailed to America with a teaching fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. While there he befriended Franklin Fisher an African American student who introduced him to an overwhelming yet wonderful experience in the African American Baptist church. He was moved by the sound of their emotional faith, social and political conscious, while hearing the gospel preached and someone speaking in truth about sin, grace, and the love of God. He particularly loved the gospel music and took records back to Germany with him to be heard in his classes in Berlin and later in the outpost of Finkenwalde.
He was bewildered and outraged as he came to understand the depth of racial abuse existing in America. In one letter written home, Dietrich recounted the story of wanting to share a meal in a restaurant "with a Negro, but I was refused service." He could find nothing in the Bible that supported a Christian stripping away the rights of another; it was contrary to the gospel. At the time of his visit to New York, Bonhoeffer was unable to see the same problem evolving in Germany or that Jews would ever be treated as second class citizens. As it turned out, it was a prophetic picture of what was on the horizon for the Jewish race in Germany.
When he returned to Germany he soon saw the parallels between the oppression of the Jews and the oppression of the blacks and he quickly decided to step in for the Jewish people.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Hitler called the German people to know that God was with them in order to establish the idea that they were a superior race to the exclusion of any other and there came the law one had to be obedient to government authority. The Aryan Paragraph came into effect in April of 1933. If one was of Jewish descent then the new law banned them from government employment and soon the right to exist. Hitler's fast moving assault on the Jews led German churches, in order to preserve state support, to dismiss pastors and employees with any Jewish blood.
Dietrich spoke to an audience on national radio on February 1; 2 days after Hitler became chancellor. "The Younger Generation's Altered Concept of Leadership" was the title and he spoke directly to the idea that under the leadership of a Fuhrer, people would be led to idol worship and a Fuhrer would become a "mis-leader." Before he could finish, the broadcast was cut off. As Dietrich taught salvation can only come from Christ, Hitler commanded all to believe he was the people's salvation
Dietrich knew the churches in Germany all had an unmistakable obligation to assist any victim of a state that was unjust regardless of whether they were Christians or not. He said that not only did one care for the victims but to also put a stop to the injustice and cruelty they suffered. The Catholic Church had negotiated with Hitler and did not resist the excessive use of force and intrusion as Hitler took over the church. There was a group of pastors who refused this new regime and division in the church grew. In 1934 The Confessing Church was organized. They were a group of pastors who confessed Christ and refused to obey the modern Nazi beliefs. In August of 1934 Dietrich emerged as the speaker for the church to stand for the Jews.
Dietrich was living in Berlin with his family who were deeply involved with the Nazi resistance. His brother-in-law was a lawyer in the German Military Counter Intelligence office and had access to the military atrocities. Soon it was the secret place where the plot to assassinate Hitler was planned. During the summer of 1940 Adm. Wilhelm Canaris recruited Bonhoeffer as a double agent for their conspiracy against Hitler. It was a strange role for such a religious man and loyal citizen of Germany to be involved in.
Mr. Metaxas writes that Bonhoeffer was able to take such a stand based on his understanding of the love of God and life and teachings of Jesus. Bonhoeffer responded with great empathy to the horror of the treatment of those around him. He questioned those who could live their life in a cocoon of ignorance and pay no attention to the travesty of injustice surrounding them. Bonhoeffer called for direct obedience to Jesus in every area of life to represent "the mark of authentic belief."
In 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested for resisting Nazi policies and assisting Jews. The Nazi regime was unaware at the time of his arrest of his involvement in the attempts to assassinate Hitler. In early April of 1945, when it was known about his involvement in the conspiracy, Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp. Knowing the consequences of his choices, Bonhoeffer kept his radical faith and obedience to God with courage and peace.