On April 9, 1945, the Nazis executed the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. Shortly before he died, he said: “This is the end, but for me it is the beginning of life.”
Your example for our times is full of meaning. The opposite of the “Fuhrer principle” that demanded the authority of a leader’s words was above all law and politics and ordered absolute obedience. We are not there yet, but the strange deference to Trump’s rhetoric and its extreme statements of executive authority evoke comparisons with that early authoritarian author.
Bonhoeffer also opposed any easy alliance of Christianity and the State. On behalf of the Christian denominations, he signed the 1934 Barmen Declaration that rejected the Alman Almano Ally with the Nazi regime. Nor are we there either, but the increasingly fluid identity between the right -wing Christians and the Trump federal government are steps on the road to that problematic adjustment.
But I would like to notice a dimension or the thought of Bonhoeffer or that he himself was a magnificent example: awareness.
In recent years in the United States, the idea of consciousness has been assumed by conservative religion: if consciousness has become a public problem, it is because it has had to do with a baker or a nurse or a county employee who has an informed religious conscience that opposes participation in a practice that implies an appearance of traditional norms that belong to contraception, the same sex, or abortion.
But Bonhoeffer sacrifices a broader and better vision of consciousness that can help us navigate our present moment of a lies policy. First, his own personal witness stands out forever as an example of Word and joined the greatest danger: he cools his life for what he believes before a regime dedicated to murder.
Secondly, he pointed out how an ethic of consciousness could reach in the midst of the thousand daily commitments that the Nazi regime forced a person. People were easily fooled and did not realize that a bad conscience (“I have done it and I know”) can be better than a deceived (“I must commit to this evil for good”).
Third, he argued that a commitment to a fair consciousness could be a subtle escape form. I can defend the moral law and do the right thing and not take the answer for a disaster that develops around me because I am very worried about my own moral purity.
Finally, he argued that the origin and objective of consciousness was the living presence of God in the world and in the neighbors of one. In making such a statement, Bonhoeffer moved away the objective of the awareness of obedience to the rational principles and the most demanding and concrete love for God and the living neighbor, breathed and suffering. In fact, he said that we must have “the opinion from below”, as he expressed, and consider neighbors who are especially for the worst part of injustice and live in worlds marked by evil, failure and commitment. Love must demonstrate your worth there.
The understanding of Bonhoeffer’s awareness inspires a heroic action: people can really do the most dangerous and noble things, a good reminder in our low and dishonest times.
And the understanding of Bonhoeffer’s awareness is inspired by religion so as not to protect religion, but to convert religion into service to the concrete and suffering world in which Christ is present in total.
The leadership principle; Christian nationalism; Criminalized lies and stereotypes or vulnerable populations: Bonhoeffer rejected and challenged the awareness of any Christian who found a home in that world. In case we are not persuaded by his words on such matters, we can take the opportunity today to reflect on the even more persuasive power of his death.
David Decosse is the director of Religious and Catholic Ethics at the Markkula Center for Ethics applied at the University of Santa Clara.
