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Bonhoeffer on Church and State, Part 3

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The following is the text of a paper presented on November 15, 2006 at the Evangelical Theological Society 58th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, which was themed, “Christians in the Public Square.” Part 3 of 3 follows below (series index).

War and Peace

I will conclude with a brief word about Bonhoeffer and pacifism, given the ongoing claims about Bonhoeffer’s ethical commitment to the practice of nonviolence.[i] First, it should be noted, with Clifford J. Green, that it is invalid to talk about Bonhoeffer as advocating a principled pacifism, since “‘Pacifism’ for Bonhoeffer did not mean adopting nonviolence as an absolute principle in all circumstances. His ethic was not an ethic of principles.”[ii]

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Bonhoeffer on Church and State, Part 2

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The following is the text of a paper presented on November 15, 2006 at the Evangelical Theological Society 58th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, which was themed, “Christians in the Public Square.” Part 2 of 3 follows below (series index).

Relationship between Church and State

It must first be noted that Bonhoeffer’s conception of mandates was a statement about the ontological ordering of God’s rule in the world, not a particular statement about the precise form that rule would or should take in any given context. Bonhoeffer’s distinction between “government” as a divine mandate and “state” as a particular form of that mandate help us get at this difference.

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Bonhoeffer on Church and State, Part 1

Monday, November 20, 2006

The following is the text of a paper presented on November 15, 2006 at the Evangelical Theological Society 58th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, which was themed, “Christians in the Public Square.” Part 1 of 3 follows below (series index).

Bonhoeffer on Church and State
by Jordan J. Ballor

Introduction

Ever since his untimely death in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and work have gone through a variety of appraisals and reappraisals in the succeeding scholarship. The fragmentary and partial nature of his Ethics manuscripts, as well as the attention paid to other works, such as his Letters and Papers from Prison, combined to leave his mature ethical work relatively ill-treated. This necessarily had effects on the overall reception of Bonhoeffer’s theology, as the pervasively concrete orientation of his dogmatic theology makes understanding his ethical thought indispensable to gaining a comprehensive view of his theological approach.

With the work over the last decade, especially by the International Bonhoeffer Society, to bring authoritative critical translations of his entire corpus into English, we are currently experiencing an increase in the quality and quantity of engagement with Bonhoeffer’s theology in English-speaking countries.[i] It is in this spirit of increasing critical engagement with Bonhoeffer’s thought that I offer this paper.

A brief comment is in order about the treatment of Bonhoeffer’s views on “Church” and “State.” We will note some of the potential for us to be misled by the use of this second term, “State,” in particular later. But at this point, I want to simply observe that while these two realities usually occupy places in what we call “social ethics,” Bonhoeffer himself would have probably resisted such categorization. One overriding emphasis of his life-long ethical thought was unity and wholeness, something which he felt was undermined by an artificial separation between personal and social ethics. Bonhoeffer always contends that institutions or social realities are at their core made up of individual persons who each have their own moral duties. Here’s a representative quote: “Human beings are indivisible wholes, not only as individuals in both their person and work, but also as members of the human and created community to which they belong.”[ii]

My own approach in addressing the topics of Church and State in Bonhoeffer’s thought is justified, not only because of the prominence of these two themes in his thinking, but because they occupy distinct and unique positions within his mature ethical framework. We begin with a brief sketch of this framework.

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Reflections on ETS Day Two

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Got back from the annual ETS meeting yesterday and finally have a chance to sit down and summarize the events of the last couple days. Thursday morning was highlighted by parallel sessions. I attended one on Melanchthon and his shifting view of free will, in addition to papers on economic imagery in the Scriptures and the prospects for natural law theory as a strategy for political discourse. The latter was part of a session that revolved around evangelicals and natural law, and began with a paper presented by Acton’s Stephen Grabill, author of Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics.

The plenary session on Thursday at the lunchtime hour featured a talk by prominent radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt, who gave an exciting overview of the power of new media. Hewitt also spoke about the views evangelicals have toward the participation of those from other religious and theological traditions in governing. Using the case of Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, in particular, Hewitt challenged those in the audience to respond to him via email in their answer to this question: “Would you vote for a Mormon president?”

The afternoon sessions I attended revolved around the relationship between liberal Protestant theology and the rise of National Socialism in Germany. These were very informative and valuable papers, and generally highlighted the possibility that existed for liberal theology to be co-opted by neo-pagan Nazis, while also underscoring the fact that there is no necessary logical connection between liberal theology and National Socialism. All this is contra, for instance, the view of Karl Barth, which I juxtapose with the view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in my recent article, “The Aryan clause, the Confessing Church, and the ecumenical movement: Barth and Bonhoeffer on natural theology, 1933–1935,” Scottish Journal of Theology 59, no. 3 (August 2006): 263-280.

I attended a lecture sponsored by Crossway Books given by John Piper, which focused on William Tyndale’s efforts to translate the Bible into English from the best contemporary Hebrew and Greek editions available at the time. Thursday night was a dinner and plenary address by outgoing ETS president Edwin Yamauchi, who has been at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio since 1969. This marked the end of the formal events I participated in, as I left to return to Grand Rapids early yesterday morning. Since Friday was pretty much a travel day for me, there’s not much of interest to tell.

All in all, my experience at ETS was excellent, having learned a great deal from the papers presented as well as meeting new folks or putting faces to names that I had only previously met via email or the Internet. I look forward to attending and participating in future ETS meetings.

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Reflections on ETS Day One

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Things were busy here yesterday at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Washington, D.C. With over 1800 registered attendees and 600+ papers being presented, the ideas are flying fast and furious. My paper on Bonhoeffer’s views of church and state went well. A few people asked me to send them copies of the paper, so expect a series of blog posts containing the text in coming days (once I clean up the textual apparatus).

One highlight of the day was the brief chance to visit the exhibitor’s booths. There are some great book deals to be had. In fact, Stephen Grabill’s book, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics, sold out in an hour and a half! (Never fear, you can get yours from the Acton Book Shoppe today.)

Last night J. Budziszewski delivered a challenging and thoughtful plenary address on competing views of tolerance. He juxtaposed what he calls the classical/patristic view over against the modern/liberal grounding of tolerance, finding in favor of the former over the latter.

I also found out yesterday that another Acton adjunct scholar, Eric Schansberg, is giving a paper today, so that can be added to the slate of Acton activities at ETS (updated here). Today’s schedule is full again, starting bright and early with sessions beginning at 8:30 am.

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This Week at ETS

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

A number of us who are affiliated with the Acton Institute in various ways will be traveling to Washington, D.C. this week to attend the 58th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, “Christians in the Public Square.”

I hope to bring you updates from some of the more interesting and engaging presentations. With that in mind, for your interest below are the papers scheduled to be given by Acton scholars:

Wednesday, November 15

E. Calvin Beisner, “Scientific Orthodoxies, Politicized Science, and Catastrophic Global Warming: Challenges to Evangelicals Navigating Rough Waters in Science and Policy,” 2:30-3:10 pm (Jr. Exec. C: “The Church in the Public Square”).

Jordan J. Ballor, “Bonhoeffer on Church and State,” 2:30-3:10 pm (Georgetown West: “Church History and Historical Theology”).

Thursday, November 18

Stephen J. Grabill, “Evangelical Public Theology and Natural Law: Rediscovering the Theological Resources of the Reformation,” 8:30-9:10 am (Hemisphere: “Natural Law and Evangelical Theology”).

Jay Richards, “Don’t Just Care. Think: Fallacies Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty,” 8:30-9:10 am (Adams: “Ethics, Politics, and the Public Square”).

D. Eric Schansberg, “Turn Neither to the Right nor to the Left: A Consistent Christian Philosophy of Government,” 2:10-2:50 pm (Adams: “Ethics, Politics, and the Public Square”).

Friday, November 17

Anthony B. Bradley, “Beyond Bono and Jim Wallis: Politics and Economics For Post-Conservative Social Justice,” 10:00-10:40 am (Monroe East: “Ethics, Politics, and the Public Square”).

Anthony B. Bradley, “Emerging Ethos Does Not Mean Anti-Traditional Theology,” 10:50-11:30 am (Monroe East: “Pastoral Theology Study Group”).

If you’re planning on attending, please stop by and hear the ones that interest you.

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