Bonhoeffer, a Letter, and Stupidity

Ten Years after

Photo by Trinity Treft on Unsplash

Dear reader,

This is a lengthy article so make a coffee/tea first, then find a comfortable spot to read it. I’ve broken it into sections so it’s something that should be easy to come back to if you can’t read it in one hit.

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I’ve noticed a letter popping up in various places as one of my favourite deceased theologians - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - has become the darling of a particular political flavour, and is being contorted for their purposes.

The complexity of Bonhoeffer’s life and work has meant that he has been used by various opposing factions and ideologies to bolster their causes at different times - right now it’s those in the US who seek to justify things like the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capital and a reshaping of the US government in the image of Trump.

Because Bonhoeffer is near on impossible to place in any particular theological or political box, he gets selectively used by all sides to bolster their views.

The letter he wrote that is doing the rounds, is being shared in contrast to the group that currently wants to use him for their political purposes in the US. It’s a letter that can help us grasp and respond to the times we find ourselves in - or indeed many different times and cultures as there is a timelessness to it.

The pitfall of the letter being shared in our current climate is that I can well imagine the political left hearing in it the problems they see in the political right, and the same with the right towards the left, with neither side using it for self-examination. Nevertheless there is real value in it if we are willing to take the time for honest and nuanced thought.

There’s a part of it that I want to hone in on for our reflection, but first, some context.