Author: Charles Marsh
Title: Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Publication Year: 2014
Length: Long
Heft: Weighty, but not slow
Rating: *****
Who should read it: Anyone who struggles with the morality of politics or is interested in
modern theological divisions.
For years, when I thought and talked about the U.S., I always had a point to fall back on: through a long history of good and bad, we live in a place where every four or eight years the top leader willingly steps aside and hands over the keys to the White House to someone who may well be from the opposing party. No armed struggle. No insurrection.
I can't say that any more. So the question arises, how do you fight to keep that, or perhaps restore it? Of course, one works toward electing people who do believe in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power (and, if possible, broadly has the policy positions you agree with), but what if that doesn't work? When is something beyond legal behavior justified in fighting for the rule of law?
What better life to look at with this question than Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A theologanian, pastor, pacifist, German in the time of Hitler. He was an early, consistent and vocal opponent of Naziism, and even participated in plots to assassinate Hitler. How he could participate given his religious beliefs? Beliefs not consistent with political (or any) assassination.
Bonhoeffer ultimately came to a position where he believed that to participate in the efforts to assassinate Hitler was a sin. Also, to not do everything in his power to remove Hitler from power was a sin. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Literally. But Jesus died for all our sins. Nothing was more central to his beliefs than that. Jesus had already died for his sins. This was not an excuse for willful sinning, but in a circumstance where he had no choice but to sin either on one hand or the other, he relied on his (Bonhoeffer's) faith and His (Jesus') grace and do what he believed was best of the bad options.
The whole of his life which culminated in this position is the subject of Marsh's biography. From his youth (he saw himself becoming a theologian from a very early age), to his time at university, visits to the U.S., setting up a seminary for the dissident Church under Hitler, to his last days in a German prison.
Maybe it wasn't so strange that from the age when kids today would most likely want to be a firefighter or astronaut, Bonhoeffer wanted to be theologian. It was a defining era of Christian theology, not perhaps when the differences between more liberal and conservative strains that still divide the Church today were created, but the time that they were given their theological underpinnings. His interactions with the establishment theologians he studied with, Karl Barth, and American theologians during an extended visit to the U.S. have made my understanding of the theology I grew up with (theology was a big deal in my family) much clearer and richer.
And I can't end this write-up without commenting on Marsh's sense of humor. It pops up on occasions, wryly commenting on Bonhoeffer's academic passive-aggressiveness or Karl Barth's support of trinitarianism (his household included a very tolerant wife and a very dedicated and attractive assistant). It is remarkably engaging for subject matter where, in other hands, it would be the writing itself that was dry, and not the humor.
Bonhoeffer's influence as a theologian, while signficant, can't help but to play second fiddle next to his significance as the leader of the opposition to Hitler from the Church, which mostly fell under der fuehrer's sway. Strange Glory illuminates both and how they were entwined through his life.