Bonhoeffer: The man who stood up to Hitler.

Maybe somewhere along the way, you've heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He gave us several great books including "The Cost of Discipleship." It's ironic that I should read a book about Bonhoeffer after reading David Platt's Radical, because Bonhoeffer was a radical in the truest sense of the word.

As I read Eric Metaxas new biography: "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" I became acquanted with a complex Christian who was an academic, teacher, son, brother, friend, pastor and a man who lived his faith. Throughout the book Metaxas shows how Bonhoeffer's decisions were guided by his faith. Bonhoeffer lived out his faith in his daily life. 


Here in the 21st century, we live as Christians in America without much opposition. We are not forced to make hard choices or life and death decisions. We are not really persecuted, really and truly, we aren't. 


How would you or I handle some of the decisions that confronted Bonhoeffer on a daily basis? Do we lie to the Nazis, or do we give them information that leads to the deaths of innocents? Do we obey our nation's laws, or do we defy them by leading Jews into safety? Do we fight in Hitler's army, or do we refuse, knowing that we will be beheaded and leave our family destitute? These are some of the questions that Bonhoeffer and other believers in Nazi Germany had to answer, and their response doesn't fit our nice little Christian stereotype. The Christianity depicted in this book is hard-core, rubber meets the road kind of faith and trust in Almighty God.

Metaxas has clearly done his homework and given us as much information about Bonhoeffer as is possible through personal letters, essays and the recollections of others.

Bonhoeffer was raised in an affluent family of German intellectuals where success was assumed. He was afforded the opportunity to travel and advance his education. Dietrich chose the nonintellectual pursuit of theological study. Bonhoeffer became one of the leading voices of the German Confessing Church in the 1930s challenging the state authorized and often anti-God church of the Third Reich. 

Bonhoeffer refused to accept the German position regarding the Jews which would eventually lead to the extermination of over six million Jews by Hitler's Third Reich. He took a stand early on when many Germany's were acquiescing to Hitler and even turning their backs and a deaf ear to the cries of their Jewish neighbors. Bonhoeffer took no thought for his own well-being. In fact, on four different occasions, Dietrich could have escaped from Germany and settled in the U.S. or England as an esteemed professor-theologian. But, as Bonhoeffer felt that he had a destiny and even if it ended in his premature death, he could not shrink or run from it. 

Bonhoeffer's resistance eventually led to his participation in a conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler leading to the failed Stauffenberg plot of July 1944. In the aftermath of this attempt of the Fuhrer's life, Bonhoeffer and other conspirators were arrested with Bonhoeffer. He was executed by Hitler during the last days of the war in April 1945.

Let me close by saying that I am attracted to these kinds of books because they hold up a mirror to my own life and I am forced to ask myself, "What would I have done?" "Would I have stood up for my Jewish neighbors, at the risk of my own life?"  I am afraid that at times, I think I may not have behaved as nobly as Bonhoeffer. For that, I ask God's forgiveness and seek to be strengthened in my faith so as not to love my life and to be willing to stand for righteousness regardless of the cost. 


I believe in my lifetime that we as believers may be forced to take a stand against evil that could cost us our lives. 


Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy introduced me to Bonhoeffer whom I grew to know as well as any friend of mine. He is my brother in the faith and I am thankful for his courage, conviction and faithfulness. His legacy is one that will inspire and challenge me in the days to come. I look forward to embracing Bonhoeffer in heaven.

Where were you on 9-11?

As I write this, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of 9-11. Where were you on 9-11? What do you remember saying or doing on 9-11? How did 9-11 change you, if at all?

When I first heard the news that American Airlines flight 11 had flown into the World Trader Center North Tower, I was driving a rental car through the suburbs of Maryland, about 25-min outside Washington DC.

Earlier that morning, I had flown into Baltimore, MD on a roundabout trip to a Foursquare Eastern District church conference in York, PA. I had planned on a day of sightseeing in Washington DC before making the drive up to York, PA for the opening session of my church conference later that evening. 

I remember calling my aunt on my cellphone to tell her that I was driving through her old neighborhood in Beltsville, Maryland. It was then that she informed me a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. That was how I first learned about 9-11. I had been listening to a music cd, totally oblivious to what was happening in NYC and elsewhere. My immediate response was that it was a terrorist attack.

I would later learn that most observers including the media were slow to jump to the conclusion of a terrorist attack. However, at 9:03 am when United Flight 175 crashed into the face of the South Tower, it became obvious to everyone that these were terrorist acts and America was under siege. 

I was inside Washington DC city limits when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Without giving it much thought, I immediately turned around, got to the nearest on-ramp for I-95 heading east toward Baltimore. Traffic was light, but after 15 min. or so, I noticed an substantial increase in traffic headed east as many other drivers had the same idea. 

I drove up to York, PA. Along the way, stopping at rest areas, there was an errie silence from everyone you encountered -most seemed to be in some state of shock. While driving, I  spoke with my family who were concerned about my own well-being since they thought I was in Washington DC. My son, Josh, 17 at the time, was profoundly affected by the terrorist attacks. Two weeks later, Josh would inform us that he wanted to drop out of his senior year at Londonderry High and enlist in the Army. He would later be part of the initial invasion into Iraq which began on March 19, 2003.


When I arrived at the hotel in York, PA around 6pm that evening, I saw my first television coverage of the planes hitting the World Trade Center. It was almost unbelievable, almost like watching something out of a movie. What I had been listening to all day on the car radio, the reports and word pictures of what had transpired, I was now witnessing with my own eyes and it was unfathomable. It was hard to wrap your head around the idea that all of this had taken place in our nation that day.

Needless to say, our Eastern District Foursquare Pastor's conference was cancelled. We spent some of that evening in prayer for our nation, for the families of those who were on the planes, including United 93, the only plane which didn't reach its intended target and crashed in a farmland field in Shanksville, PA. We prayed for all those who lost loved ones in at the Trade Center as well as for those who were on each of the planes. Some of the prayers were uttered in broken words punctuated by tears.

The next morning, I drove back to Baltimore Airport. With all flights cancelled, I had to resort to Plan B, spending the entire morning at my car rental agency pleading with them to let me drive my rental car up to New Hampshire and do a drop-off in Manchester, NH. The car rental company (I don't remember which one) was in chaos, because every other airline passenger had the same idea. Fortunately, since I already had a car which I was dropping off a couple days early, I was ahead of the curve and they finally relented, charging me a nominal drop-off fee, and sending me on my way back to Londonderry, New Hampshire. At this point, all I wanted to do was get home.

Arriving back in Londonderry, NH, there were signs for asking people to pray for our country, flags on display (all this was atypical for Londonderry, NH because New Englanders are not all that demonstrative or religious). Everywhere you went, the World Trade Center attack was the only topic of conversation. Bonhoeffer said, "We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God."  Americans allowed God to interrupt their lives for the next 2-4 wks. That's about it. Church attendance in NH and elsewhere in New England saw an increase in numbers for the next two weeks. After that, it dropped back to "normal." I remember that in other parts of the country, church attendance increased for the next 4-8 wks after 9-11.

For me personally, 9-11 opened my eyes to the fact that we are in a real clash of cultures between Islam and Christianity. I went on to do some local TV interviews with a Muslim cleric in Manchester, NH. I began to pray for Muslims as never before. I also became less trusting of my government. I think that for myself and many others, it was a sobering realization that our government can't protect us all the time. We are more vulnerable than we might think. Certainly those Americans who boarded those 4 flights on 9-11 were not protected by our government agencies. Our government can only do so much. Whether we want to admit it or not, we really are in the hands of Almighty God.

"We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men..." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Letters and Papers from Prison).

Where were you on 9-11? Did 9-11 change you in any way?