The Confessing Church relied on this kind of camaraderie to bind its members relationally together in their common cause. This relational dynamic is a major key to understanding the success of the Preacher’s Seminaries, and also helps to put flesh on gatherings like the one that took place that August of 1935. It is unlikely that the conference was very large; in fact, it probably was not unlike the class-sized gatherings assembled for the previous several months at Finkenwalde, a factor that contributes to a more intimate
communicative context for the lecturer and hearers. In this case, the lecturer was the twenty-nine year old Bonhoeffer, fresh out of a couple of years of pastoral ministry, still relatively fresh out of an academic career in theology and having the time of his life praying, reading the Bible and teaching
theology in a relationally rich environment. One can imagine the scene: here, gathered before him, were likeminded pastors and assistant pastors, committed both to their congregations and committed to the Confessing Church, but also experiencing the day-in and day-out realities of pastoral ministry that
Bonhoeffer just left behind him. He is realistic and sympathetic to their
challenges, while unswerving in his convictions about preaching in the context of the ongoing Kirchenkampf. Lecturer and hearers, even though they were slightly suspicious of this no-name theologian before them, were united in their tradition and their current confession, and they were also united against the German Christians. Bonhoeffer’s target is clear from the outset. The context sharpens up the rhetoric and the sense of urgency: Bonhoeffer, possibly feeling somewhat self-important in his new leadership role, is set to galvanize his hearers such that their attention and preaching is focused solely on Jesus Christ, the one whose presence determines the present moment’s reality – the genuine concerns and tasks that need focus and action – for both the German Christians and the Confessing Church.
2. Exposition
What would a conversation about Scripture and its interpretation look like between the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer of 1925 and the more mature Bonhoeffer of 1935? In what ways would staging such a conversation help to elucidate both continuity and discontinuity in this area of Bonhoeffer’s theology and practice? And, maybe most importantly, would this exercise
provide some help in shaping expectations for the actual biblical work that characterizes the Finkenwalde period, the subject of the next, final chapter of the thesis, and the period which I argue provides us the quintessential
Bonhoeffer on the Bible? An affirmative answer to this final question is the reason for structuring this chapter in terms of such a conversation. As a result, what follows is an exposition of Bonhoeffer’s 1935 lecture,
“Vergegenwärtigung neutestamentlicher Texte,” but it will be described and unfolded through comparison with the earlier essay from 1925. At the outset some of the conclusions can be anticipated: the contingencies of the
intervening decade account for the vast majority of the differences between these two offerings on Scripture and its interpretation, Bonhoeffer’s
developing sense of vocation and satisfaction in finding himself fulfilling it as described above, the concrete tasks of interpreting the Bible in preaching as well as other genres and training preachers, and the contested sphere of the
Kirchenkampf. Simply put, by 1935 Bonhoeffer has just done a lot more with
biblical texts, so a notion continuous with his earlier theology of what Scripture is and is for is now accompanied by the concrete reality of interpreting it.
In outline, the lecture has three main sections. Part 1:
Vergegenwärtigung neutestamentlicher Texte is devoted to contrasting a
negative example of Vergegenwärtigung and its accompanying method and the positive form and its method. This positive form is then developed by drawing attention to how this is done in practice in Part 2: Vergegenwärtigung
als Methode [Contemporizing as a Method]. Finally, in Part 3:
Vergegenwärtigung der neutestamentlichen Botschaft, [Contemporizing the
New Testament Message] form and method are brought into relation to the various genres that make up the New Testament and the practicalities of preaching (choosing texts, translating texts, and making them credible). The lecture is geared to meet the needs and address the concerns of pastors who have preaching responsibilities. As a result, it is mostly about method, examples and practicalities. Though dogmatic resources are present and employed, especially as they situate human action in the positive explication of Bonhoeffer’s form of Vergegenwärtigung in part 1, they are pretty thin on
the ground when compared to the bulk of the lecture’s material content (parts 2 and 3).12
The shape and proportions of the lecture already lend themselves to a comparison with the essay from 1925. In a broad way, the two pieces share a rhetorical strategy, since in both Bonhoeffer develops his positive vision through opposition to some well-formed alternatives. In 1925, Bonhoeffer opposed and only then related his notion of the revelation-Scripture dynamic to historical criticism and differentiated it further from alternative options for envisioning Scripture’s relation to revelation and history. A major difference between the two, at this big picture level, concerns their respective purposes: the purpose of the 1925 essay is to stake out Scripture’s relation to history and revelation for the theologian’s task. The result is a more academically oriented approach, in which the material is formal and more detached from the concrete realities of dogmatics and preaching and church life (though he nods to these in the Conclusion). It serves as a way for Bonhoeffer to stake out his position in respect to some interesting contemporary conversations being had, so to speak, between Harnack and Barth. The purpose of the 1935 lecture is to clarify a false consciousness in the German Christian’s theological and practical methodology and, in so doing, stake out a space for an ecclesial hermeneutic, the hope of an interpretive effort that would enable faithful preaching of Jesus Christ. In this case, as noted above, the result is a greater emphasis on the concrete sphere. The exposition of the 1935 lecture will continue to point up these sorts of similarities and differences.
Before the exposition itself begins, it is again important and necessary to note that in what follows Bonhoeffer’s German text will be partly
reproduced and paraphrased. This is done intentionally, in order to capture a sense of the rhetoric, as is also the case in the other chapters, but in this instance it is also necessary to ensure that the entire shape of the lecture is discerned and each section’s proportions are treated rightly. Reproducing large sections of his German text does not mean that every detail of the quoted material will receive comment, and in fact, that is not necessary. It does mean,
12 The lecture can be found in DBW 14:399-421; DBWE 14:413-433.
Bonhoeffer’s manuscript does not contain the final section of the lecture, so we are reliant on some notes made by Bethge.
however, that the reader will have the opportunity to engage his text and can discern the movement of it and what it displays, as well as what has been and has not been incorporated in the choices of the exposition. This close reading strategy, applied to hermeneutical pieces and to acts of interpretation,
continues to be fruitful as a way of keeping careful attention to the details and their interrelationship.
2.1. Bonhoeffer’s Lecture, Part 1: Vergegenwärtigung
neutestamentlicher Texte [Contemporizing New Testament Texts] 2.1.1. Introduction
Bonhoeffer was given his theme and title, leading him to simply begin his expansion on his topic without feeling any need to define
Vergegenwärtigung in respect to any ongoing conversations happening at the
time.13 Of course, it is possible that he did so extemporaneously. The lecture as we have it simply begins straightforwardly with two briefly stated accounts of contemporizing New Testament texts. This contrast pits opposites against one another. The result is clarity in the presentation since each form has a corresponding method, and the stakes are also clearly delineated since interpreters will find themselves siding with the German Christians or with Bonhoeffer. What is left underdeveloped is whether there are any other options. Is this truly an either/or? Bonhoeffer clearly thought so, and though this is a lecture it is not strictly an academic exercise, making distinctions for the sake of clarifying distinctions on the way to a synthesis of some kind. Bonhoeffer is presenting alternatives as a call to action. He says,
Entweder man meint damit, daß sich die biblische Botschaft vor der Gegenwart rechtfertigen müsse und sich deshalb der
Vergegenwärtigung fähig erweisen müsse, oder man meint, daß sich die Gegenwart vor der biblischen Botschaft rechtfertigen müsse und deshalb die Botschaft gegenwärtig werden müsse.14
13 For some comments on the text of the lecture and a good discussion
of certain aspects of the lecture in conversation with Bultmann, demythologizing and New Testament theology, see Werner Kahl, “Evangeliumsvergegenwärtigung” in Dietrich Bonhoeffers Christentum:
Festschrift für Christian Gremmels, eds. Florian Schmitz and Christiane Tietz,
(Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2011), 134-155.
Either one thinks that the biblical message must justify itself before the present and therefore show that it is capable of being contemporized, or one thinks that the present must justify itself before the biblical message and therefore the message must already be contemporary. In good rhetorical form, and reminiscent of the 1925 essay, Bonhoeffer first develops the then popular form of contemporizing before he suggests serious problems with it and offers his own account.
2.1.2. A Negative Form of Contemporizing
The first form of contemporizing traces its genealogy back several centuries to, according to Bonhoeffer, the advent of rationalism. There is a straight line drawn between rationalism in the 17th century and German Christian interpretive practice in the 20th century because:
Sofern der Rationalismus nichts anderes war als das Zutagetreten des bisher latenten Anspruches der Menschen auf autonome
Lebensgestaltung aus den Kräften der gegebenen Welt heraus, ist die Frage allerdings eine in dem menschlichen Anspruch auf Autonomie selbst schon gestellte Frage; das heißt der auto- | nome Mensch, der sich zugleich als Christ bekennen will, fordert die Rechtfertigung der christlichen Botschaft vor dem Forum seiner Autonomie.15
Inasmuch as rationalism was nothing other than the emergence of the formerly latent claim of man to autonomously shape their lives from the resources given by the world, the question is indeed a question already posed in the human claim to autonomy itself; that is, the autonomous person, who at the same time wants to confess him or herself as a Christian, demands the justification of the Christian message before the forum of their own autonomy.
The claim to autonomy is the claim to define the present as the time or place of one’s own presence before which other claims must be judged. Bonhoeffer has already begun filling out the shape of the first form of contemporizing by replacing der Gegenwart [the present] in the first articulation of the contrast above with Autonomie [autonomy] here. This is given further historical situating when he identifies versions of this essential claim to autonomy, whether in reason in the 18th century, culture in the 19th century, or
nationalism [Volkstum] in the 20th century. These expressions of autonomy are united because in each case, they (1) ask the same question: “Läßt sich das
Christentum vor uns, die wir einmal so sind, wie wir – Gott sei Dank! – sind, vergegenwärtigen?” [Can Christianity contemporize itself before us, given the way we are (as – thank God! – we are)?];16 (2) have the same urgent need to
attach the cultural capital of the word “Christian” to their endeavor; (3) begin with the same presupposition, namely, that the fixed point is in hand and the flexible element is the Christian message; (4) they share the same method in which the biblical message is forced to run through the sieve of one’s previously determined understanding, keeping that which will aid the construct one is after while leaving behind that which does not fit into the framework. This final element is briefly illustrated with two images, that of an eagle with its wings clipped so that it can be put on display as a special but tamed household pet and that of a farmer who purchases a feeble, tamed horse rather than a powerful stallion. Christianity is tamed and made useful for some other end. The Christian message is fitted into the unquestioned views of these various modulations of autonomy in the present.
What is the result of this form of contemporizing? Bonhoeffer writes:
Diese Vergegenwärtigung der christlichen Botschaft führt direkt ins
Heidentum.17
This contemporizing of the Christian message leads directly to
paganism.
This evaluative judgment is initially a bit extreme and seems to come out of nowhere, but in point of fact Bonhoeffer has prepared the listener for a
conclusion along these lines. When he set out the basic similarity between this form of contemporizing and rationalism, he suggested that the success of this type of contemporizing was identified in the ability to hold together one’s claim to autonomy and Christian faith. In such a situation, internal reasoning has validated the Christian message. If one cannot succeed in justifying the Christian message before the judgment of autonomous reason, then one simply, and honestly, declares oneself, not a Christian, but a pagan. Bonhoeffer has respect for the intellectually honest pagan, but he has no respect for those who want to continue to assert dishonestly that their reconstructed form of
Christianity is the genuine article.
16 DBW 14:400.
This train of thought, that this brand of contemporizing results in paganism, if one is honest, is explicitly connected to the German Christians. One implication of the German Christians employing this form of
contemporizing is that they are functionally pagans, dishonest pagans, but pagans nonetheless. Bonhoeffer says it this way:
… daß auch der unzweifelhaft teilweise mit großer Leidenschaft und subjektiver Ernsthaftigkeit erschollene Ruf nach Vergegenwärtigung der christlichen Botschaft in den Anfängen der D. C. als solcher kirchlich und theologisch nicht ernstgenommen werden durfte; er war bestenfalls der Schreckensschrei dessen, der den Bruch zwischen Christentum und Welt sichtbar erfährt; der sich seiner völligen Weltförmigkeit bewußt wird, der erkennt, daß es für ihn mit dem Christentum aus ist, der nun aber weder stark genug ist, ein klares „Ja“ und ein ebenso klares „Nein“ zu sagen,sondern der feig das Christentum in seinen Verfall an die Welt mit hineinreißen will.18 …the call for contemporizing the Christian message that the German Christians raised at their beginning, a call raised undoubtedly partly with great passion and subjective sincerity, cannot, as such, be taken seriously ecclesiastically and theologically; it was, at best, the cry of terror of one who visibly experiences the break between Christianity and the world; this person has become conscious of his complete worldliness, and recognizes that Christianity is over and done with for him, but he is not strong enough to say a clear “yes” or equally a clear “no,” but instead wants, in a cowardly way, to take Christianity with him in his apostasy to the world.
Bonhoeffer is offering an interpretation here. He is not afraid, amongst friends sympathetic to the cause, to propose a reading that goes beneath the surface, providing “the” perspective on the German Christians’ motivations. The reason he offers for the recent and urgent calls for contemporizing is the fear of having to honestly confess that the Christian message should be left behind in favor of the present moment’s privileged or enlightened point of view. The proof given to substantiate this reading is the fact that all the talk about contemporizing is just that, talk about the act of contemporizing, rather than that which is contemporized. The difference between Bonhoeffer’s soon-to- be-unveiled form of contemporizing and that of the German Christians is where the emphasis lies. In the case of the German Christians, according to Bonhoeffer, all the emphasis rests on “contemporizing the Christian message.” In the case of the form promoted by Bonhoeffer, the emphasis is placed on
“contemporizing the Christian message.” He writes, “Wo aber die Frage nach der Vergegenwärtigung zum Thema der Theologie wird, dort können wir gewiß sein, daß die Sache bereits verraten und verkauft ist” [Wherever, however, the question of contemporizing becomes the theme of theology, we can then be sure that the essential content is already betrayed and sold off].19 The introduction of the word Sache is crucial. It features in this first part of the lecture numerous times in various forms because it is at the heart of
Bonhoeffer’s positive alternative vision of the relationship of the Bible in the modern world.
But there are two steps in the argument before we get to that positive vision. Bonhoeffer is aware of how easily one could be drawn into a debate about contemporizing the Christian message according to the terms of the opposition. If one is not careful, before he or she knows it, the question of contemporizing itself, with all the assumptions about the importance of the present that it contains, will overshadow the real concern of the content of the Christian message. This is precisely what Bonhoeffer thought had recently occurred with some theologians sympathetic to the Confessing Church, namely, Paul Althaus, Karl Heim and Adolf Schlatter. One option when responding to an opponent is to make common cause by employing similar language or even assuming the question that is being asked is worth asking rather than worth upending from the start. The danger identified in the various books Bonhoeffer mentions is that they may have already given away too much by assuming that the word “German,” defined in a very specific way since 1933, had theological freight. The terms of the debate have forced a certain way of thinking and asking questions that has displaced the heart of the matter, a beginning point with the essential content of the Christian message. These comments underscore that Bonhoeffer’s form of contemporizing is not only to be differentiated from the German Christians, but it is also to be differentiated from others within the Confessing Church as well.
Are there any faithful left in the land? Is there anyone left who has not sold off the Sache in favor of passing fads? Consistent throughout the whole of Bonhoeffer’s life, if one looks around and only finds examples of unfaithful
representatives, whether they are the historical critics or Roman Catholics or Lutheran scholastics in the 1925 essay or they are the German Christians or somewhat compromised members of the Confessing Church in 1935, then one can always hold out hope that Luther will stand out as a positive and faithful representative of real, genuine Christianity. Bonhoeffer says: