Bishop Dominic writes…

Tom Cruise’s latest film in which he plays the part of a German army officer is called Valkyrie. It is the story of the attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler although the film does not include the part played in that attempt by the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer was a young German theologian who was working in the United States when war broke out. He returned to his native Germany and joined the German resistance movement. He was eventually imprisoned in 1943 and from his prison cell wrote his Letters and Papers from Prison. Bonhoeffer was hanged just days before the end of the War.

The great message that Bonhoeffer proclaimed even in the midst of imprisonment was of God’s tremendous grace and the gift of hope. He said that grace may be free but it is not cheap. The costly gift of God to us is seen whenever we look at a crucifix and when we recognise the costliness of our own discipleship. Jesus warned his followers that life would not be easy and to be a true disciple would involve suffering.

Bonhoeffer wrote much that speaks to us today as we face the challenges of a deepening financial recession in the West, fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Holy Land, and as we witness the suffering of people in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Bonhoeffer wrote that God lets himself be pushed out of the world onto the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. The Bible directs us to God’s powerlessness and suffering: only the suffering God can help.

In analysing what had led to the rise of Nazism, Bonhoeffer put it down to moral relativism, the abandonment of the divine law, a loss of conscience and the belief that politics and education were the keys to improving society. If we add to that the greed for money and self-interest, along with the credit culture and the breakdown of family life, he might be describing our world today.

Bonhoeffer’s hope was rooted in the incarnation and the cross. He spent two Advents in prison and wrote: one waits and hopes and potters about, but in the end what we do is of little consequence, for the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside. In the birth of Jesus and through the resurrection, God unlocks the door of our spiritual imprisonment from the outside. Somehow we need to know that the God of the powerless is himself in the mess with us, and we also to recognise how he is opening the door from the outside to set us free to be his Church and people.

The new President of the United States and other Western leaders will be expected to bring new hope to the world and we must pray for them. Nevertheless, as Christians we need to recognise our own call to discipleship and return to the true source of all our hope which is found in God.

+ Dominic