Christian Moral Action

Bonhoeffer's Life:

• Family were Lutheran Christian 
• became a lecturer in 1930, saying that the Church should be more active in challenging the state to achieve justice. Went against Luther's view that the Church and the state were two sides of the same coin. 
• September 1930, travelled to New York to study. He was impressed by the chrurches teaching on Christian social responsibility but felt it underestimated the goodness of human nature. He learnt that Christianity needed to build relationships with different churches without racial or geographical boundaries.
• After Hitler was made Chancellor on the 30th January 1933, Bonhoeffer made a radio broadcast called 'the younger generations altered view of the concept of the Fuhrer'. He was clearly against 'the leadership principle' - the view that just becuase they are in charge, they cannot be questioned about their actions because they are in power. Once the state found out about the broadcast, the microphone was switched off. 
• Some German Christian leaders began wearing brown uniforms and linking themselves to National Socialism, promoting the Nazi Aryan Clause, prohibiting ministers who has Jewish ancestors from working for the Church - some campaigned for the removal of the Old Testament, as it was Jewish.
• Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church , who didn't believe only Aryan Germans could join the Church. He joined the resistance (widerstand), leading him to be investigated by the Gestapo.
• He returned to Germany after the war broke out, attempting to overthrow the Nazi regime, though he had been to a pacifist up to this point.
• Believed in Christian moral duty to overthrow Hitler. He could achieve greater peace through violence than he could be from being a pacifist.
• On 5th April 1943, he was arrested an imprisoned on the grounds that he helped Jewish immagrants escape to Switzerland. He spent 18 months in Tegel Military Prison.
• On 24th July 1944, the resistence failed to kill Hitler and in 1945, Hitler ordered all resisters to be killed. Bonhoeffer was sent to Bunchenwald. He was hanged shortly before the American Army liberated the area.

Bonhoeffer's Teaching on Duty:

In 'Ethics' he set out to explain Christian Ethics as different to form human ethics. He says ideologies are dangerous because they are simply extensions of human ideals to justify the use of power over things.

Christian Ethics are different because humans are finite and sinful (Augustine), and no human decision can be absolutely right or wrong. In some situations, humans can do nothing more but act out of dispair but with faith and hope. Human ethics will always be flawed whereas the authority of God cannot be flawed, so Christian ethics can't be flawed.

Bonhoeffer doesn't agree with authority, as God is the only true authority. In some insances, the state gains too much power and makes justice subordinate to its policies. The state thinks that it is the embodiment of power and uses this to justify any of its actions.

• the state inflates its power and hierarchy to…