Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“The family trees of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer are everywhere so laden with figures of accomplishment that one might expect future generations to be burdened by it all. But the welter of wonderfulness that was their heritage seems to have been a boon, one that buoyed them up so that each child seems not only to have stood on the shoulders of giants but also to have danced on them.”

This is Metaxas’s description of the highly cultured, intellectual family environment in which Bonhoeffer grew up. His early experiences developing in such an environment, marked by high expectations but also love and support, likely helped to shape his vision of the ideal church community as a place of deep, intentional connection, of mutual encouragement and support.

“To think of the church as something universal would change everything and would set in motion the entire course of Bonhoeffer’s remaining life, because if the church was something that actually existed, then it existed not just in Germany or Rome, but beyond both.”

This quote, describing Bonhoeffer’s reflections upon his journey to Rome as a young adult, ties in with the theme of The Nature of Christian Identity and Practice. For Bonhoeffer, the communal dimension of Christian life is at the core of one’s identity, and that communal dimension is preeminently found in the church. His theology of the church, then, as the universal communion to which all Christians belong, sat at the center of his thought.

“Bonhoeffer would identify the church as neither a historical entity nor an institution, but as ‘Christ existing as church-community.’”

This quote also relates to Bonhoeffer’s theology of the church, this time in the context of Bonhoeffer’s academic thesis. His description of the church being Christ existing as church-community is an allusion to a metaphor commonly used in the New Testament, in which the church community is referred to as “the Body of Christ.