In the United States of America, most battles between our government and our faith take place within courtrooms. However, not all Christians in the world are granted the right to an attorney. In China, under the governance of a communist atheist government, Chinese Christians are facing a type of persecution that most Americans will only ever read about in news articles or watch on tv: churches bulldozed, crosses and pictures forcibly removed from private citizen’s homes, Christians banned from freely gathering.
In response to these injustices, hundreds of Chinese pastors composed and signed a declaration of faith in which they affirm the core tenets of Christianity and condemn their government’s blatant attacks upon their ability to practice their beliefs. The statement reads,
“For the sake of the Gospel, we are prepared to bear all losses—even the loss of our freedom and our lives.”[1]
These powerful words are reminiscent of a similar declaration of faith, signed many years ago by German Christians in response to the horrific deeds committed by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime.
In 1934, German theologians and pastors signed the Barmen Declaration in order to declare their allegiance to God before State and the authority of Holy Scripture over National Socialism.
The federation of churches who signed the declaration became known as the Confessing Church; they believed the church in Germany was in a state of “confessing” meaning, a state of crisis in which the “confession of the gospel was at stake.” German Christians had become unwilling to not only publicly profess their faith but authentically live it as well. The Confessing Church was an attempt the wake up their fellow Christians to the reality of Hitler’s evil regime.
One particular individual, at the forefront of this movement, was the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Many know Bonhoeffer for his involvement in the many plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis and shortly before the war ended, climbed the steps to the gallows where he took his last breath. The declaration of faith made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not just a signed piece of paper but an actualized commitment solidified by his actions and sacrifices.
Bonhoeffer’s story of faith and his fight for freedom involves espionage, assassination attempts, and executions. However, more important than his heroic deeds was the driving force behind them: his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Christ and understanding of the true essence of Christianity was the ever burning flame which sparked his boldness and fearlessness. For Bonhoeffer, it all boiled down to a willingness to “take Christ seriously.” He wrote,
“Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously. Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment.”[2]
During Hitler’s rise to power and even during his reign of terror, the majority of German Christians were unwilling to stand with men like Bonhoeffer. For some time, Christians had been exiling Christ
to their Sunday mornings, excluding Him from the rest of their day to day lives. This greatly frustrated Dietrich Bonhoeffer; he believed that the Christian life requires a full and unreserved commitment of oneself. The choice was simple: give Christ everything, or give Him nothing.
To give oneself to Christ entails choosing Christ in the present moment and serving His kingdom here on earth. Bonhoeffer preached,
“If you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.” [3]
For many of his fellow Germans, Bonheoffer was demanding too much of them. When the “times” in which one lives are as morally depraved as Nazi Germany, accomplishing God’s will could imply making the ultimate sacrifice. Essentially, German Christians had only two options: either take a stand against Hitler or make compromises against one’s conscience and one’s faith.
Bonhoeffer believed every Christian was called to take up their cross and walk the road to Calvary with Christ. He believed that in order to find God, one must go to the cross of Christ.
He wrote, "… whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament …"[4]
In no short measure did Bonhoeffer pick up his cross and respond to God’s call. Bonhoeffer made the difficult decision to fully commit himself to combat Hitler. Already a co-conspirator in the plots to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer joined an anti-Nazi resistance and became a double agent.
Bonhoeffer’s participation in the resistance was short-lived, however. In early 1943 the Gestapo caught wind of Bonhoeffer’s plans to help Jewish refugees escape and consequently, Bonhoeffer was arrested. Fortunately, they had not yet discovered his association with those who were conspiring to assassinate Hitler.
In an essay he wrote a few months before his arrest, he writes,
“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God -- the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.” [4]
On July 20th, 1944, the famous Valkyrie plot was executed. Unfortunately, Hitler would survive the assassination attempt unscathed, quite satisfied and amused by his luck. A few days later, the Nazis began arresting and executing many of Bonhoeffer’s brave co-conspirators, many of whom were family members. In October of that year, Bonheoffer was transferred to a Gestapo prison where he would remain for four months. Upon his arrival, Bonhoeffer was interrogated in regards to his knowledge of the conspiracy and the identities of his co-conspirators. Needless to say, Bonhoeffer revealed nothing. On the 7th of February 1945, Bonhoeffer was moved again but this time to the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp where he would join a band of 15 misfit prisoners, ranging from army generals and aristocrats to a prostituted woman and a concentration camp “doctor”.
As the war was nearing an end, only a few weeks before Hitler would take his own life, Hitler demanded the execution of all the remaining conspirators. Bonhoeffer was on that list. Bonhoeffer was taken to Flossenburg and on the 8th of April, Bonhoeffer was hung. Bonhoeffer thought of death as “the last station on the road to freedom.” The Flossenburg camp doctor, who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s execution, recalled, “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s story serves as a well-timed “reality check” for the modern day Christian. We may not be so dissimilar from the German Christians whose complacency and lukewarm faith paved the way for Hitler’s rise to power. In 21st century America, it is rare that we are forced to make formal declarations of faith in the public sphere. Yet, what of our interior declarations of faith? Bonhoeffer made his commitment to Christ clear not merely through his role in the Confessing Church or his participation in espionage. But rather, Bonhoeffer strived to foster a commitment to Christ always and in all ways.
Almost every day I’m confronted with a news headline regarding the continued persecution of my fellow Christians around the world: Christians in China, Indonesia, Syria, and Africa. However, my responses to these stories are not entirely sympathetic but rather, more so, envious. I want what they have. Like many other Christians, I desire to glorify my God through the gift of my complete and total commitment, obedience, and faithfulness. I do not envy their suffering per se, but I desire the opportunity they are given; the opportunity to experience the faithfulness of God during times of great persecution. Those Christians, resistant to their government’s coercion and attacks, are being given the grace necessary to accomplish God’s will on earth. They are experiencing what it truly means to be a serious Christian. What it means to walk the road of Calvary with Christ, to share in His sufferings and take comfort in the reality that they have already been saved.
The excesses we are granted in the western world are at times a blessing and at other times a curse. Our material excess has the ability to numb our spiritual senses. We eventually lose sight of the central message of the Gospel and its serious claim upon our lives. Heroic tales, like that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, read almost like fairytales rather than the timely wake-up calls they ought to be.
God is calling all Christians to heroic virtue in the here and now. But are we “ prepared to bear all losses” for the sake of the Gospel?
