Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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  • Created by: wallagee
  • Created on: 02-01-22 17:00
From a young age, Bonhoeffer sought reform. What was his radical interpretation of Luther?
-Luther: church and state should be 2 sides of the same coin.
- Bonhoeffer: Church should challenge state to achieve more justice.
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What influenced Bonhoeffer's view on the boundaries of church communities, and when?
When studying in NY, he encountered the vibrancy of black churches - need relationships between Churches without racial/geographical boundaries.
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What was Bonhoeffer's first resistance of Nazism?
2 days after Hitler was elected to power, on the 1st of February 1933, Bonhoeffer held a radio broadcast where he criticised the "leadership principle" - has too much power, becomes an idol - was cut off.
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In what 2 main ways did Bonhoeffer resist Nazism?
1) Joined the Confessing Church
2) Returned to Germany and joined the Widerstand
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Why did Bonhoeffer return to Germany?
He had been staying in NY after investigation by the Gestapo for training CC Clergy- realised his "secular pacifism" was worth nothing, not acknowledging true justice/preparation for the Kingdom of God
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What did Bonhoeffer mean by a world of "terrible alternatives"?
- Joining the Widerstand was not intrinsically good, but the alternative was to will the destruction of Christianity so that the nation might survive.
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Explain the events that led to Bonhoeffer's death
He returned to Germany in 1940 and joined a government role where he and his brother-in-law secretly worked for the Widerstand to smuggle Jews into Switzerland. In 1943, he was arrested and implicated in an assassination plot, and killed in 1945 due to Hi
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Who said "Christ has come to us through Adolf Hitler"?
Herman Gruner
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Give some examples of how the German Church began to incorporate Hitler's ideas
- some priests wore brown uniforms
- removed the Old Testament
- viewed Hitler as head of Church and of State
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Which extract suggests obeying the state = obeying God?
Romans 13
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Why was Bonhoeffer critical of the German Church?
Had distorted the call to worship
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Why did Bonhoeffer believe it's important for the Church to obey the government?
In practice, what does this lead to instead?
- Attempts to impose order on us as finite, sinful beings
- Government becomes self-important and thinks of itself as the embodiment of justice, or makes justice subordinate to its own rules
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What did Bonhoeffer believe the roles of state and church were?
State: to govern, cannot impose God's will or have ultimate power
Church: keep the state in check, not be a part of it
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Romans 13
"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities since there is no authority except that which God has established"
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Jesus on obeying both state and God
"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's"
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Bonhoeffer on God's Will and ethics
Don't ask how to do/be good - ask what God's will is - only clear in the moment of action.
Human principles enslave us, responding to God's will is liberating.
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Cost of Discipleship on obedience and discipleship
"only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes"
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What is "single minded obedience" and how can it lead to Civil Disobedience?
Follow only Jesus and God - Christian principles over the teachings of the state
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How did Bonhoeffer distinguish leadership and a leader?
Leadership = founded in society
Leader = a specific person
We cannot rationally justify the leader.
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What is civil disobedience?
The active refusal to obey certain laws/demands/commands from a government or occupying power without resorting to physical violence.
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2 biblical references to support civil disobedience
Proverbs: "Who will speak up for those who have no voice?"
Matthew 25:17-48 - ideas of salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount
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Bonhoeffer lost his University job after speaking out against the Nazi party. What did he say about expediency?
"If we claim to be Christians, there is no room for expediency. Hitler is the Anti-Christ"
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In what way is tyrannicide justified?
Not in ordinary ethical terms, but rather by "bold action as the free response of faith"

God will forgive the man who becomes a "sinner in the process"
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In what situation is civil disobedience justified?
When the state makes "reasonable people face unreasonable situations"
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Bonhoeffer - can civil disobedience be rationally justified?
No - the best a Christian can do is act out of despair, but in faith and hope
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What was Bonhoeffer critical of (ethically speaking)?
Having ideologies/broad over-arching principles that enslave us
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Name 3 ways in which Hitler limited the freedoms of the Church
1) Created the post of "Minister of Church Affairs" to limit the existence of the Confessing Church
2) Pastors had to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler
3) Imposed the Aryan Paragraph
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Hitler forced pastors to swear an oath to him, and imposed the Aryan Paragraph. How did Bonhoeffer and Niemoller respond?
They created the Confessing Church
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The year of Hitler's Aryan paragraph, the Confessing Church produced the foundations of the Barmen Declaration. What did this entail?
1) Lordship of Christ
2) Against idolatry
3) Church should not change its teaching to the prevailing age/politics
4) State cannot fulfill church's role, and church should not become an organ of the state
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What were the key ideas of the religious community at Finkenwalde?
- Discipline
- An outward looking community
- Brotherhood
- Changed director frequently
- Sang Psalms and spiritual songs
- Listen to God - story of Mary and Martha
- A theological denial of Nazism
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Bonhoeffer believed his community at Finkenwalde only presented "limited disobedience". What did he develop?
His "ecumenical theology" - without denomination
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Bonhoeffer on the church, community, and moral action
Church is a group of people with a shared "spiritual discipline". Christians cannot act morally in isolation (Kantian)
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Why must the Church engage with a religionless world?
It relies on community and must be prepared to equip people on how to act morally in today's world.
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How did Bonhoeffer believe modern liberality had created a void?
Attempts for tolerance and considering Christian views "irrational" leads to a moral and spiritual vaccuum which can quickly be filled by totalitarian powers.
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"No rusty swords"
Christianity needs to leave behind unhelpful ideologies from the past
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"Christianity and ethics do indeed have nothing to do with each other." Explain.
Ethics relies on ideologies which enslaves us. Christianity is about responding to God's will, which is liberating.
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What is cheap grace?
The Cost of Discipleship
"deadly enemy of our church"
"Grace without price"
e.g. forgiveness without repentance
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What is costly grace?
"It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life"
E.g. whoever wants to save their life will lose it, whoever gives up their life for Jesus will be saved
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Bonhoeffer met Barth and Finkenwalde, and agreed with most of his ideas on Revealed Theology. Which part was he sceptical about?
Passivity - ethics requires action
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Bonhoeffer on sacrifice and suffering
- Costly grace underpinned his realisation he'd probably die for his cause
- Paul called Christians to be a "living sacrifice"
- To be Christian is to pick up one's cross and struggle like Jesus did - suffering is a Christian's engagement with the world
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3 aspects of Authentic Christianity for Bonhoeffer
Only Faith
Only Christ
Only Scripture
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Bonhoeffer: Solidarity and Jesus
"the man for the others"
The church is the body of Christ, so also ought to be the church for others
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Bonhoeffer: Solidarity against injustice
Church responsibility - to not just bandage the victims from under the wheel but to put a spoke in the wheel itself
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Bonhoeffer: Solidarity with the Jews
Bonhoeffer explicitly criticised the Nazi Regime in his works, and after Kristallnacht rejected the view that it was God's punishment of the Jews, saying instead it was the act of a godless, violent regime
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Relevance today: Global politics
2 negative
- Focussed on a single threat, a localised notion of politics
- Only works under similarly extreme circumstances
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Relevance today: Global politics
4 positive (not localised, moral conscience, action, Hauerwas)
- Held a radical challenge to state and church with his ideas of boundaries even before Hitler's rise to power
- Ethics of engagement + challenge - gives Christians a place as a moral conscience in world politics
- Theology of action = social justice
- St
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Relevance Today: Plural moral societies
1) What is moral pluralism
2) What was Fletcher's interpretation of Bonhoeffer and how can it be criticised?
1) Means right/wrong are relative and assumes a pragmatic tolerance of others
2) F called B the most extreme version of situationism, showing how nothing can be Absolutely wrong - but Bonhoeffer was not a relativist - ethics are developed within the disc
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Relevance Today: Plural moral societies
3) Religionless Christianity as an advantage and a disadvantage
- Emphasis on love, conscience, and engagement means positive engagement with others, can develop Christian ideas with contemporary moral issues
- Undermines distinctiveness
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Relevance Today: Plural faith societies
1) Relig
- All should be protected by state and have equal rights, helped the Jews
x belief Jews should eventually convert
- not aggressive in this aim

- experiences genuine sympathy, not just tolerance
-teachings on brotherhood, discipleship, community and tru
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What influenced Bonhoeffer's view on the boundaries of church communities, and when?

Back

When studying in NY, he encountered the vibrancy of black churches - need relationships between Churches without racial/geographical boundaries.

Card 3

Front

What was Bonhoeffer's first resistance of Nazism?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

In what 2 main ways did Bonhoeffer resist Nazism?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Why did Bonhoeffer return to Germany?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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