The Problem of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Politics or Gospel?
By Pastor Eric Tritten, Gloria Day Lutheran Church, Hudson, Ohio
"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."
You've probably seen this quote. Maybe it's been shared on social media by someone you know. Perhaps you've heard it invoked in a passionate sermon or political discussion. It's attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and martyr who stood against the Third Reich. The words are powerful. They're challenging. They cut to the heart.
There's just one problem: Dietrich Bonhoeffer never actually said them.
The Bonhoeffer I Studied
My interest in this quote is deeply personal. When I was in college, I wrote my senior thesis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As a Lutheran pastor myself, I was fascinated by a particular question: How did a Lutheran pastor justify getting involved in an assassination attempt against a governmental leader? Specifically, how did Bonhoeffer reconcile his faith with his participation in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler?
Here's the spoiler alert: He didn't justify it.
That might surprise you. After all, we've turned Bonhoeffer into a hero of Christian resistance, a man who knew when to take a stand against tyranny. And in many ways, he was. But the real Bonhoeffer is far more complex—and far more instructive for our current moment—than the sanitized version we often hear about.
The Misuse of a Hero
This quote about silence being evil doesn't appear anywhere in Bonhoeffer's extensive writings. We don't know where it came from. It's cleverly written, certainly. But these aren't Bonhoeffer's words.
So why does this matter? Because of the way we use names and quotes to baptize our own political agendas. We attach words and ideas to popular Christians in order to give more weight and authority to positions than they would have if you or I had simply stated them. Among Christians, invoking Bonhoeffer's name carries tremendous moral weight.
I've seen conservatives use this quote to argue about abortion, claiming that silence about the destruction of human life at any stage makes one complicit in evil. I've heard progressives invoke these same words in support of resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies, or more broadly against President Trump's administration, arguing that if you're not actively resisting what they perceive as racism and injustice, you cannot truly be a Christian.
By attaching these words to a man many see as a hero of the Christian faith, we attempt to set them up as a guideline—almost like a new law that says this is the way you must behave if you are going to follow Jesus.
The problem? Jesus never said these things. And apparently, neither did Bonhoeffer.
Who Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Really?
Let me give you some actual history about the man whose name gets invoked so frequently in our political battles.
Bonhoeffer was born into a relatively wealthy German family that was largely atheistic to agnostic. His decision to become a Lutheran pastor came as quite a shock to his family. Within his broader family circle, he had relatives with Jewish ancestry—some of his in-laws came from Jewish backgrounds, though many had converted to Christianity. Of course, under Hitler's regime, Jewish ancestry was enough to mark someone for persecution and death.
When we examine Bonhoeffer's initial resistance to the Third Reich, we find something interesting. While he was certainly concerned about the persecution of Jews—particularly given his family connections—much of his early opposition centered on the Reich's interference in the church and what the church was allowed to teach.
You see, churches in Bonhoeffer's time (and still in many places in Europe) were governmentally funded. This made a tremendous difference in how churches operated. When the government funds the church, your pastor is essentially a servant not primarily of the people or even of the Lord, but of the state. And that means the state has significant influence over what you're allowed to teach from the pulpit.
The Confessing Church Movement
The Third Reich didn't just want to control external religious practice—they wanted to shape theology itself. They wanted German Christians to embrace "Aryan Christianity," a perverted version of the faith that excluded Jewish elements and elevated German nationalism to a religious principle. They sought to remove the Old Testament from Christian teaching and reinterpret Jesus as an Aryan hero rather than a Jewish rabbi.
This is where Bonhoeffer drew his line in the sand. Along with other faithful pastors, he helped establish what became known as the Confessing Church—a movement of Christians who refused to let the state dictate what the gospel was or what the church should teach. They insisted on remaining faithful to Scripture and to orthodox Christian teaching, regardless of what the government demanded.
This resistance was fundamentally about the gospel, not about politics. It was about preserving the truth of who Jesus is and what He accomplished on the cross. When the government tried to interfere with that central message, Bonhoeffer and others stood firm.
The Line Bonhoeffer Crossed
Eventually, Bonhoeffer's resistance took a dramatic turn. He became involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. This wasn't a decision he took lightly, and the historical record shows he wrestled deeply with it. He was discovered, arrested, and ultimately executed in a concentration camp just weeks before the end of the war.
Here's what's crucial to understand: Bonhoeffer never tried to justify his involvement in the assassination plot through Christian theology. He didn't write treatises explaining how political violence was compatible with following Jesus. Instead, the evidence suggests he viewed his participation as sinful—as something he believed he had to do, but not something he could defend as righteous.
This is a far cry from the way we often invoke his name today. We want him to be a clear-cut example of justified Christian resistance, a model for when and how to take up arms against tyranny. But Bonhoeffer himself seems to have understood his actions as a desperate measure in extraordinary circumstances—one that required God's grace and forgiveness, not one that could be held up as a righteous standard.
Three Principles for Our Time
So what can we learn from Bonhoeffer's actual life and teaching, rather than the sanitized version we've created? Let me suggest three principles:
1. We Must Always Be Faithful to God and the Gospel
God holds us to a very high standard. Often in life, we don't have good choices available to us, and we're encouraged to choose the lesser of two evils. While that might sometimes be necessary from an earthly point of view, I want to encourage us to strive for a third option—to not choose evil at all.
There's a wonderful account in the book of Joshua, just before the Israelites took the city of Jericho. Joshua was anxious about the coming battle when he encountered a man he didn't recognize—the commander of the armies of the Lord. Joshua asked him, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" The commander replied, "Neither. But as commander of the armies of the Lord, I have now come."
Abraham Lincoln captured a similar truth when he said he was less concerned about whether God was on his side or the Confederate side, but that he wanted to be on God's side.
We must always be faithful to God, to what He teaches in the law in terms of morality, but also in terms of the gospel. We must stay focused on Jesus and His cross, always pointing people to the hope of salvation, to something greater than what this world offers.
2. When Christians Resist Government for the Gospel's Sake, We Should Expect Consequences
I think sometimes there's an idea that if we go out and do the right thing, nothing bad should happen to us. But consider this: eleven of the twelve apostles died by martyrdom. Throughout church history, many Christians who sought to do the right thing, who shared the gospel and proclaimed the hope of the kingdom of God, were put to death—sometimes in ways as grotesque as what Bonhoeffer experienced.
Notice the specificity here: when Christians resist the government for the sake of the gospel, we should expect retribution. This is different from political resistance.
We need to be careful about confusing politics with what God has actually said. It's crucial for us to know God's Word, to understand what He actually teaches. Unfortunately, we live in a time of widespread biblical illiteracy. As a result, people sometimes substitute what political parties say for what Jesus actually said and meant, rather than examining what Scripture truly teaches. This happens on both the conservative and liberal sides of the political spectrum.
We also need to be cautious when non-Christians tell us what the Bible means. We should be people who know what the Scriptures teach and cling to them, so that we can share that truth wherever God gives us opportunity. Yes, this will mean calling out sin and evil. But it must also mean proclaiming Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, because that's actually the power that changes people's hearts and lives.
3. Humility and Love Are More Powerful Than Pride and Hate
The message of the gospel is that Jesus humbled Himself in love for His Father and for us. In humility and love, He laid down His life as the sacrifice that would pay for our sins, so that we could be reconciled to God.
I think Bonhoeffer modeled this in his ministry. He showed humility and love for his fellow citizens, even as he resisted the evil of the Nazi regime.
We should keep this important truth in focus: God deals with us through both law and gospel. But His ultimate work of salvation is in the gospel, and it's the power of the gospel that changes lives and brings salvation. When we interact with injustice and conflict, we're not just bringing power against power. We're bringing the gospel—new life into a situation characterized by death.
We must be careful to maintain our focus on the right thing. Yes, we should call for justice. Yes, we should support goodness and life and care about people who are mistreated—the immigrant, the poor, the marginalized. But at the same time, we must also bring the hope of everlasting life that is only possible through Jesus' death and resurrection.
Practical Guidance for Today
As we navigate our current political moment, with voices on all sides telling us that we must act, that silence is complicity, that our faith demands we take a stand, let me offer some practical guidance:
Be prayerful. Ultimately, it's God who changes people's hearts, not our political activism or our social media posts. Bring everything before Him in prayer.
Always go back to God's Word. Make sure the foundation you're standing on is what the Scriptures actually say, not what somebody told you they say. Check what the Scriptures actually teach—not just one isolated verse, but what the whole counsel of Scripture reveals.
Live under the cross. Live in Jesus' forgiveness. This might mean, as Luther put it, that you "sin boldly"—going out in confidence and doing your best while recognizing it will fall short. It might mean making the best choices you can and striving forward, knowing that at the end of the day, your confidence for a better future rests not in yourself and your efforts, but in what Jesus has done for you and for the whole world. This is the message you get to share as you go out.
Conclusion
The real Dietrich Bonhoeffer is more complex and more challenging than the hero we've made him out to be. He doesn't give us easy answers about when Christians should engage in political resistance or what forms that resistance should take. He doesn't provide a simple formula for navigating the tension between faithfulness to the gospel and engagement with worldly powers.
What he does give us is an example of someone who struggled to remain faithful in extraordinary circumstances, who valued the truth of the gospel above political expediency, and who ultimately trusted in God's grace even when his own actions fell short of the ideal.
Perhaps that's exactly what we need in our current moment—not a hero who justifies our political positions, but a fellow struggling Christian who reminds us that our ultimate hope is not in politics at all, but in the cross of Christ.
As we engage with the powers and injustices of our world, may we do so with humility, grounded in Scripture, empowered by prayer, and always pointing toward the hope of the gospel.
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