A Book Bonhoeffer Never Finished…

The INHABITATIO DEI blog had a recent post about a book that Dietrich Bonhoeffer never completed…

In Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer includes a filled-in outline of a short book he hoped to write, which, sadly he was never able to begin.  It certainly would have been something if it had been written.  He intended it to be a short book, of no more than 100 pages consisting of three chapters.  First, he wanted to write a chapter that presented “A Stocktaking of Christianity.”  This was to deal with four subjects, 1) “the coming of age of humankind” (which Bonhoeffer writes about elsewhere in Letters and Papers), 2) “the religionlessness of those who have come of age (the complete uselessness of the “god of the gaps” idea), 3) the Protestant church (consisting of a critique of Pietism, Lutheran orthodoxy, and the Confessing Church under the rubric of Jesus disappearing from sight and most centrally, that there is “No taking risks for others”), and finally 4) public morals, chiefly related to sexual behavior.

Bonhoeffer’s second chapter was to deal with “The Real Meaning of Christian Faith.”  This was to consist of 1) a discussion of God and the secular, and 2) a discussion of the identity of God as rooted in Christ, who establishes our relation to God as “a new life in ‘existence for others,’ through participation in the being of Jesus.”

Bonhoeffer’s third chapter was set to deal with the vision of the church that this vision of Christianity required.  Here is his conclusion:

“The church is the church only when it exists for others.  To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need…. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.  It must tell people of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.  In particular, our own church will have to take the field against the vices of hubris, power worship, envy, and humbug, as the roots of all evil.  It will have to speak of moderation, purity, trust, loyalty, constancy, patience, discipline, humility, contentment, and modesty.  It must not underestimate the importance of human example… it s not abstract argument, but example, that gives its word emphasis and power.”

I think someone needs to write this book for the church in America today just as much as it needed to be written by Bonhoeffer for the church in Germany in 1944.  Who knows, maybe someone will still write it.