When it comes to Christians wrestling with the question of Civil Disobedience, few have given us such insight into their soul’s struggle as the young Lutheran pastor Deitrich Bonhoeffer.

Born in Germany in 1906, Deitrich’s theology of the Church’s relationship with the State was anything but theoretical and academic. As he witnessed the rise of National Socialism, Bonhoeffer sensed from an early stage the acute tensions that were over the horizon. To begin with he was almost a lone voice. In fact, many Church leaders were initially positive toward the policies of Hitler, feeling that he was perhaps restoring a moral context in which the Church would feel at home. Hitler would explicitly (though duplicitly) promise that his government would make Christiantiy the ‘basis of our collective morality’.

But in spite of the rhetoric, Bonhoeffer and others recognised the peril Christians - and Christianiity - would face under the Nazi party. He was appalled at the powerless state of the Church which he sensed would be unable to stand against the coming terrors. He railed against the spiritual blindness and moral weakness of pastors and theologians, preaching as early as October 1932 that the Protestant Church was in its eleventh hour, and that its congregations needed to realise they were attending its funeral service. He saw that many were sleepwalking towards a terrible precipice in thier refusal or inability to recognsie the dangers that were looming in the future. The Church’s unwillingness to speak and act in the face of growing darkness was spiritually catastrophic.

The Nazi policy of total politicisation of life in Germany still didn’t raise the alarm for many pastors and theologians, and some even saw their seeking to create a single national Church as a positive move. The theological and spiritual issues are complex, and it is easy for us to be bewildered at how badly many seemed to mis-interpret the signs of their times. I’d caution against taking the moral high ground, which is often a temptation that accompanies hindsight. I wonder what, in future years, the Church will look back to and be equally bewlildered that we didn’t speak up against or act on. In 1930’s Germany there were powerful theological and cultural forces at play that meant the issues weren’t anything like as clear cut as we might assume (in part because of the Lutheran heritage of the German Church). The hideous enormity of Nazi policy was only incrementally revealed; the German Church was devestatingly weakened by theological liberalism and ethical confusion; and many Christians felt that certain compromises were justifiable in terms of perceived gains in the public life of the nation and the prestige of the Church. Amongst those who did recognise the danger signs, there was no clear agreement on how to best respond. This is an important point to meditate on. The question of how and when to disobey civil authority is rarely asked or answered with any degree of unanimity, even in situations where in retrospect it may appear to have been obvious. Often many Christians will still believe the state should have their loyalty and support, while others will maintain that critical spiritual, political and theological issues hang in the balance. The question often divides the Church at the key moment.

None of this is to legitimise the mistakes some Christians made in 1930’s Germany. Tragic and costly errors of judgement were made, and they led the Church into sin. But it is to recognise that it requires a prophetic insight and uncommon courage to look past the superficial cultural and religious milieu that is often the limits of what others see. In the moment, things are rarely as clear cut as they seem like they should have been when those from later years look back. But some pastors possessed both the insight and the courage. When Hitler was democratically elected Chancellor, it took all of two days for the 26 year old Bonhoeffer to write and deliver a speech on the radio in which he explained that such a leader would inevitably become an idol and a ‘mis-leader’. Immediately, Bonhoeffer was anxious to show that political leadership in a nation must recognise the limitations of its authority.

By the end of 1933, it was clear that democracy, in any meaningful sense of the word, had ceased in Germany. Hitler became de facto dictator when Hindenburg signed an emergency decree in the wake of the Reichstag fire. A nation surrendered its civil and personal liberties in the name of national security.

As the reality of Nazi-ism slowly became apparent, the German Church was in turmoil. Open division, with allegations of schism, quickly came to the surface. In May 1934, a group of dissenting theologians and pastors met at Barmen and brought into existence the ‘true evangelical Church of Germany’, known to posterity as ‘the Confessing Church’. At its foundation was the famous Barmen Declaration (primarily authored by Karl Barth), which understandably focussed on the question of the relationship between the Church and the State. The logic of the Declaration is brilliant in its simplicity. It affirms that the message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political context; that the Church should not be ruled by a Fuhrer (or any civil government), or made subordinate to the State, but that both Church and State should function within their legitimate sphere of authority and God-given responsibilty. Bonhoeffer developed this point: ‘The Church must reject the encroachment of the order of the state, because of its better knowledge of the state and of the limitations of its actions’.

It was, for Bonhoeffer, entirely appropriate for the Church to question the state, and to challenge the legitimacy of its actions. And further, the Church must stand with and aid the victims of unjust state action (this obviously in the light of Nazi-ism’s persecution of the disabled, Gipsys, the Jews etc.). But Bonhoeffer’s final step was the most dangerous. It is not enough, he argued, to help those who are oppressed by a ungodly state. When the Church sees its very existence as threatened by the state, when the State ceases to be the State as defined in Scripture, then the Church must take direct action against the State to stop it from perpetrating evil.

Where this led Bonhoeffer, we’ll see in the next article.