[April 8, 2016] It was once said that “evil prospers when good men do nothing.” So it was with Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer; recognized for being someone who we can all look up to for courage in the face of certain death. Today, I’m recognizing Bonhoeffer as a hero to all free peoples and holding him up as someone to emulate. He was hanged on this date, April 8, 1945 for actively resisting the evil of the Nazi Regime.1
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran Pastor and Theologian
Bonhoeffer was born to a prominent family in 1906 with his twin sister Sabine in Breslau, Germany. He began his studies of theology at Tubingen University under prominent theologians of the time and later gave a number of sermons in Spain, New York City (Harlem), and in Germany prior to Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany. Nazism had been growing in Germany and was reaching new heights in the early 1930s.
In response to the Nazi philosophies, Bonhoeffer published an essay called The Church and the Jewish Question calling for an uncompromising stand on the Word of God by the Church of Germany. Two days after Hitler became Chancellor, Bonhoeffer took to the radio and denounced the Nazi Führerprinzip, the leadership principle that was a synonym for a dictatorship. His broadcast was cut short before he could finish.
Bonhoeffer gave his support to the Confessing Church movement in Germany; a declaration by pastors and theologians that they would not have their churches co-opted by the Nazi government for propagandistic purposes. It didn’t take long for the Nazis to shut down his ability to lecture or publish in Germany. After joining the German resistance movement he was arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death.2
While in prison he acted as counselor and pastor to prisoners of all denominations. Fortunately for us all, his letters and papers from prison were later found and published. Among his celebrated works of theology are The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics.
[Don’t forget to “Like” the Leader Maker at our Facebook Page.]
———————
- Some report the date of his execution as April 9, 1945. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
- http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/defiant-theologian-dietrich-bonhoeffer-is-hanged