68 years ago, on April 9 1945, the German Lutheran minister and theologian involved in the resistance movement to Hitler,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
, spoke his last words: „Das ist das Ende. Für mich aber der Beginn des Lebens” (“It’s the end. For me however it’s the beginning of
life”). In an instant he was dead. He was hanged in the last says of the war by the order of Hitler himself, who wanted at any cost to prevent “the traitors” involved in the unsuccessful assassination attempt of July 20 1944 not to outlive him. The obedient official who carried this order from Berlin to Flossenbürg is supposed to have done this risking his life, barely avoiding fire and bombardments… We know Bonhoeffer’s last words because British prisoners conveyed them to
Bishop George Bell
of Chichester, his friend and collaborator from the ecumenical movement.
There are many deep and less deep analyses of Dietrich Bonoeffer’s thought on the internet and today a few more have undoubtedly been published. I do not intend to write another one. I would like to share a memory. Eighteen years ago I studied at the Theological University of the Reformed Churches in Kampen (the Netherlands). On the 50th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s death the University organized a conference. I have to say that Bonhoeffer’s name had not meant a lot to me before. Yes, I had read what could be found in Polish, but I had never had any book of his in German. Bonhoeffer was for me the “forefather” of the “God-is-dead theology” who replaced theology with anthropology and reduced Christianity to religiously colored humanism. I admit that I was even a bit surprised that the University devoted so much time and attention to him. I was completely unaware of the peculiar veneration of him as a martyr. In Polish historiography Germans were always depicted as evil and Hitler’s assassination attempt as a result of a cold and cynical calculation of German officers who realized the war was lost. In the GDR (German Democratic Republic, East Germany) historiography, on the other hand, to which I had more access, the only thing that mattered was the Communist resistance movement. So I listened to the talks at the conference with a lot scepticism and even some disbelief at least up to the moment when I heard words that struck me: „Was glauben wir wirklich?, d.h. so, dass wir mit unseren Leben daran hängen? Problem des Apostolikum? Was muss ich glauben?, falsche Frage, uberholte Kontroversfragen“ (“What do we really believe in?, that is, so much that we make our lives depend on it? The problem of the Apostolic Creed? What do I have to believe in?, it’s a bad question, out of date controversies”). Juxtaposing these two questions: “What do I really believe in?” and “What do I have to believe in?” made me realize for the first time something that I had been actually suspecting for some time. Of course, my membership of the Reformed Church was undeniably a conscious decision resulting from conviction. In the Reformed tradition there had certainly been something that attracted and inspired me. Yet when I decided to become a member of the Reformed Church, I actually stopped asking myself what do I really believe in and focused on what I “should believe in” as a Reformed Christian. This is why I began studying Calvinism with such zeal, which eventually brought me to Kampen. And indeed I was getting to know it better and better, at the same time however gradually losing any existential relation to its content. I studied and preached it because it was Reformed and not because it corresponded in any way with my life. And it was what Bonhoeffer helped me to discover. This discovery marks the beginning of the path that brought me to the Anglican tradition. This is why when I received his “Collected Works” as a gift for my confirmation as a beautiful symbol seven years ago I read that as a beautiful symbol. It was a symbol of a certain development in my life.
The so called “Upper Church” (Bovenkerk) in Kampen. On the left you can see the building of the former Theological University.
Today’s commemoration of Blessed Dietrich, which also the Episcopal Church observes, is thus for me not in the first place a commemoration of a martyr or great thinker (even though in the meantime I learned to value Bonhoeffer’s thought). The most important content of this day is from my point of view the realization of the necessity to remain faithful to what I believe in, confess, preach and how I live. There is great fear among many Christians of trusting oneself, one’s inner conviction, one’s discernment and conscience. We are afraid that by trusting our convictions and following them we will go astray towards radical individuality and religiosity made in our image and likeness – “light”, demanding little. Bonhoeffer also realized the dangers of “cheap grace” – grace without conversion, without discipleship – and he wasn’t certainly a lone seeker who didn’t appreciate the role of the church. To the contrary, more that most Protestant theologians of his day he saw the need and meaning of the Community of Saints. So it is not about ignoring the dangers. But may the awareness that they exist not lead to muffling in ourselves the only question which really matters: “What do I really believe in?”, REALLY….
