Fides etffistoria 25,1 (1993): 12-25 SCRIPTURE AND MYTH IN DIETRICH BONHOEFFER By Richard Weikart, University of Iowa Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become a mythic hero in the pantheon of late twentieth-century Christianity. Admiration for him flows from such diverse and contradictory movements as fundamentalism and radical death-of-God theology, as well as from most groups located between these poles. American evangelicals1 have joined the chorus of his praise and actively promote his works. A recent review of A Testament of Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Christianity Today enjoins a predominantly evangelical audience to "sit... at the feet of Dietrich Bonhoeffer," whose life "rings with Christian authenticity."2 Two guidebooks to evangelical literature list Bonhoeffer's writings as important reading material for evangelicals.3 My own contacts with evangelicals and funda- mentalists confirm that Bonhoeffer enjoys widespread approbation among them. Numerous factors have contributed to the popularity of Bonhoeffer among evangelicals. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he showed great courage in opposing Hitler's policies. However, this could also be said of Karl Barth, the theologian exercising the greatest influence on Bonhoeffer. Barth took a decisive stand against Nazism and penned the Barmen Declaration, which was the manifesto for the Confessing Church, yet most evangelicals reject his neo- orthodox theology. Of course, Bonhoeffer gained great stature by his death at the hand of the Nazis, which is usually described as a Christian martyrdom. Bonhoeffer's reputation among evangelicals, however, does not rest solely on his political involvement. Two of his theological works, The Cost of Discipleship 12i ' The words evangelical and evangelicalism will be defined in this essay as pertaining to the movement in the late twentieth century (especially in the United States) that emphasizes the inerrancy of scripture and is exemplified by Carl F. H. Henry and Christianity Today. Bonhoeffer was an evangelical in the sense of belonging to the German Evangelical Church, which is the official title of the Lutheran church in Germany, but this is not the sense in which I am using the term. 2 Kevin A. Miller, "A Man for Others," Christianity Today 35.8 (22 July 1991): 58. 3 Edith L. Blumhofer and Joel A. Carpenter, Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism: A Guide to the Sources (New York: Garland, 1990), 327; Mark Lou Branson, The Reader's Guide to the Best Evangelical Books (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982), 2, 104, 149. SCRIPTURE AND MYTH IN DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1937) and Life Together (1939), are favorite books in evangelical circles.4 Since Bonhoeffer was so closely allied with Barth, it is not surprising that evangel- icals sympathetic with Barth respect Bonhoeffer's work so highly.5 However, even evangelicals hostile to Earth's theology endorse Bonhoeffer's works.6 The evangelical attacks on neo-orthodoxy have generally ignored Bonhoeffer, con- centrating instead on Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Emil Brunner, and others. By their uncritical support for Bonhoeffer, evangelicals have created and perpetuated a myth. The depiction of Bonhoeffer as an evangelical is no closer to the truth than the presentation of him as an atheist, which is how the death- of-God theologians tend to portray him. Evangelicals often misread Bonhoeffer because they are unaware of the theological and philosophical context of his work. Words that mean one thing to Bonhoeffer can mean something quite different to evangelicals. Further, evangelicals tend to read Bonhoeffer's works the way they read the Bible—literally, if possible. In Bonhoeffer's case, this is problematic, as I will demonstrate. In order to illustrate the chasm separating Bonhoeffer from evangelical—and especially fundamentalist—theology, I will explore Bonhoeffer's view of scripture in this essay. My analysis will demonstrate Bonhoeffer's simultaneous acceptance of biblical criticism and the primacy and authority of all scripture. His views concerning history, myth, and language must be understood in order to explain his paradoxical stance. While emphatically rejecting a dualistic ontology that separates the spiritual from the secular or the earthly from the heavenly, an epistemological dualism underlay Bonhoeffer's view of scripture.7 Although he rejected many aspects of liberal theology, he continued its tradition of distin- guishing between religious and secular truth as two completely distinct realms of knowledge. Bonhoeffer's career can be divided into three periods: (1) pre-1931, during which time he studied under liberal theologians at the University of Berlin, embraced Earth's dialectical theology, and wrote his first two theological works; (2) 1931-1939, the period including the Church Struggle, during which he pub- lished The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, (3) 1939-1945, the time of Bon- hoeffer's prison writings. Bonhoeffer's attitude toward the scriptures changed some from one period to the next. Even a superficial reading of his major works reveals this. In his doctoral dissertation, Sanctorum Communio (1927) and in his "Habilitationsschrift," Act and Being (1930), scriptures play a subordinate role and Bonhoeffer cited philosophers more often than scripture to substantiate his ^ ~ 4 Blumhofer, Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 327; Branson, Reader's Guide, 2, 149. 5 Donald G. Bloesch, Freedom for Obedience: Evangelical Ethics in Contemporary Times (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 10-11. 6 John Warwick Montgomery, The Suicide of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Bethany Fel- lowship, 1971), 476. 7 On ontological dualism, see Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, trans. Eric Mossbacher et al. (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 777. Richard Weikart points. The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together provide quite a contrast, since in them scripture is everything and philosophers are rarely if ever mentioned. Further these latter two works enjoin the use of scripture and hold it up as a standard and authority. In his prison writings scripture remained important, but Bonhoeffer began grappling with the question of interpretation of scripture, a theme absent from earlier writings. The change in Bonhoeffer's life and thought in 1931 was so pronounced that his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge described it as a conversion experience. (This should not be confused with the contemporary evangelical understanding of conversion, for which Bonhoeffer had no sympathy.) Although Bonhoeffer rarely mentioned his experience, in 1936 he claimed it "transformed my life to the present day. For the first time I discovered the Bible.... It was a great liberation."8 From that time forward Bonhoeffer was captivated by the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount. The transformation to the third period was not so clear-cut and 1939 is only an approximation. Nevertheless during this final period Bonhoeffer appears to have lost some of his earlier zeal for the Bible. In January 1941, June 1942, and March 1944 he admitted to Bethge that he went days and weeks without reading the Bible much, though sometimes he would read it voraciously.9 He wrote: I am astonished that I live and can live for days without the Bible—I would not consider it obedience, but auto-suggestion, if I would compel myself to do it. ... I know that I only need to open my own books to hear what may be said against all this.... But I feel resistance against everything "religious" growing in me.10 As he wrestled with the problem of interpreting scripture, his attention shifted from the Sermon on the Mount and the New Testament to the Old Testament. These shifts in the treatment of scripture, however, important as they are, represent differences in emphasis and attitude more than doctrinal differences. Underlying the superficial twists and turns of his theology were important con- tinuities, which are apparent when one compares his early works with his Letters and Papers from Prison.11 Although some of his views submerged during the 8 Ibid., 154-55. 9 Bonhoeffer to Bethge, 31 January 1941, in Gesammelte Schriften (hereafter cited as GS), ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Berlag, 1958 ff.), 5:397; 25 January 1942, in GS, 5:420; and 19 March 1944, in Widerstand und Ergebung: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft (hereafter WE), (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1954), 163 (Eng. trans., Letters 14 and Papers from Prison [hereafter LPP], trans. Reginald Fuller et al. [New York: Macmillan, 1971], 234). 10 Bonhoeffer to Bethge, 25 June 1942, in GS, 5:420. 11 Scholars upholding continuity in Bonhoeffer's thought include John D. Godsey, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 264; Andre Dumas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian of Reality, trans. Robert McAfee Brown (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 154; Ernst Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. Martin Rumscheidt (Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 54; and others. David H. Hopper, however, in A Dissent on Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 97, argues for discontinuity in Bonhoef- fer's thought, but does not show discontinuity in the area of scripture interpretation. SCRIPTURE AND MYTH IN DIETRICH BONHOEFFER middle period, they were never entirely absent. Toward the end of his life Bonhoeffer denied that he had changed much: "Neither of us [Bonhoeffer and Bethge] has really experienced a break in our life."12 He also acknowledged in 1944 that he "still carries within himself the heritage of liberal theology."13 Indeed liberal theology dominated the University of Berlin theological fac- ulty while Bonhoeffer studied there from 1924 to 1927 under Reinhold Seeberg. The famous church historian Adolf von Harnack was not only one of his teachers, but a personal friend whom he admired.14 Bonhoeffer was thoroughly imbued with biblical criticism and always rejected attempts to dispense with it. In 1933 he wrote that the doctrine of verbal inspiration of scripture must be rejected in favor of biblical criticism. However, he indicated that biblical criticism is not decisive in interpreting scripture.