Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Transformation” from Pacifist to His Involvement in the Resistance

One of the puzzling aspects of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is his apparent transformation from vocal pacifist to taking a role in the resistance against Adolf Hitler. In the book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Testament to Freedom, Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson write that to Bonhoeffer, a Christian’s response to the evil in society will vary:

According to Bonhoeffer, the movement from life in the Christian community to service of one’s neighbor is the only one true movement toward God that God’s gift of faith makes possible. He argues, moreover, that the demand for spontaneity in one’s response to people in need makes it impossible to produce a systematic ethic. Every changing situation of need can become the specific locus of God’s command.[1]

This “demand for spontaneity” explains why it seemed that Bonhoeffer went from a pacifist to an active role in the assassination of Adolf Hitler. When he wrote The Cost of Discipleship in 1937,[2] Bonhoeffer “offered a compelling argument on behalf of pacifism as blessed in Jesus’ beatitudes…”[3] However, when he wrote Ethics:

…his thoughts…became conditioned by the reality of an entrenched, seemingly insurmountable evil that no ordinary means, least of all that of pacifism, appeared capable of nullifying. The times called for another approach, one inspirited by his practical sense of responsibility for the victims of Nazism and his trust in the incarnate presence and forgiving power of Jesus Christ.[4]

Larry Rasmussen offers legitimate questions about this possible shifting of Bonhoeffer’s position:

But what about that most intriguing journey of all, from a committed Christian pacifism to Christian participation in tyrannicide and coup d’etat? What explains Bonhoeffer’s twisting path of resistance in the Church Struggle and in the military-political conspiracy? Does this journey, varied in form and perhaps contradictory and ethically problematic, also belong and hold together?[5]

To Bonhoeffer, however, there was no contradiction because he would maintain that his devotion to the example of Jesus allowed times for pacifism and also times for a more active role in representing Christ in the world:

Although the peacemaking dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s Christian spirituality seemed muted by his arguments in Ethics in favor of tyrannicide and violent interventions to the end of the war, in truth Bonhoeffer’s reliance on Jesus Christ’s example and mandates of responsibility never ceased to be his primary motivating force.

Hence, however, it is the Christ who lives and acts for others, to take on the guilt of sinners. He who did not hesitate to place his healing touch upon the rotting skin of lepers, to associate with the hated Samaritans, to become one of society’s deviates and outcasts of all sorts, now sets the example for those who must enter into the sinful, guilt-ridden world of a political conspiracy.

To act on behalf of the victims of the widespread suffering inflicted by Nazism militaristic bloodletting meant that law-abiding citizens had to break the laws and plan the violent death of a dictator.[6]

Rasmussen also argues that there was no inconsistency in Bonhoeffer, and that the seemingly different approaches to Nazism are simply the unfolding of his Christology:

…Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s resistance activity was his Christology enacted with utter seriousness. Bonhoeffer’s resistance was the existential playing out of christological themes. Changes and shifts in his Christology were at the same time changes and shifts in the character of his resistance. In the other direction, changes in his resistance activity had an impact on his Christology.[7]

This is one reason why I have been intrigued by Bonhoeffer ever since my days at Bethel College.

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[1] Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson, eds., Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Testament to Freedom, 34

[2] Ibid., 533.

[3] Kelly and Nelson, The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 112.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Larry Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance, 8.

[6] Ibid., 113.

[7] Ibid., 15.