Germany, Evangelical-Catholic
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: This freedom is grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man of spiritual freedom, ready for Christ to the limits, to the point of death to go. A grace-filled freedom, said father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ in the contribution of the Catholic Church.
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Thoughts for the week 13.02.2016
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Thoughts for the week 13.02.2016
The Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer 70 years ago died, was a man of spiritual freedom. He found it by Faith in Jesus Christ. You can make him a Martyr of intellectual freedom. A few days before the end of the war he was in Berlin hanged. As a professional theologian, he criticized again and again parts of his Evangelical Church, which is not openly opposed the Hitler Regime and the Nazi era debates. It was for him a spiritual and mental battle, in which he Jesus Christ come closer and closer and him becoming better understood. Through hard struggle, he came to the Belief that Tyrannicide is permitted, even if the Bible teaches: Thou shalt not kill. He had this decision made it very difficult.
Many years before his death, he had already clearly recognized that there is a deadly conflict between Hitler and the dedicated Christians would give. At the time he received the offer in the United States, a professorship. He refused, because he did not flee wanted. He would have a justification had, in the conflict between the Christians and the Nazis to avoid. He did not do it, because it’s an escape would have been. In contrast, he tried, more and more, Evangelical Christians on his side and to the resistance against the national socialism to move. At the same time, he used his contacts to Kirchenleuten in England, to the resistance against Hitler to strengthen.
Testimony instead of escape
Finally, but were the Nazis clearly on his trail. He was preaching and Schreibverbot. His contact to other Hitlergegnern was discovered. In April 1943 he was because of so-called military force decomposition is arrested. But it still took two years before him, the Nazirichter to death by the strand convicted. Naked he had to the 9. April 1945 to the gallows go. He said the Mitverurteilten, said a prayer and died in great peace, as the camp doctor.
Bonhoeffer went from a free and deliberate consent to Jesus Christ in death. He had theologically and spiritually thoroughly and self-critically reflected. He made his decision not easy, because he tried, obedience to state authorities to take it seriously. Also for him was: “Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22,21). But he had recognized that the Hitlerstaat to the place God had set. Many of his contemporaries saw the not so clear. They were cowardly, or saw themselves to obedience to the state’s obligation. Bonhoeffer realized that he to the resistance asked. And he knew that this his death could mean. In the readiness for death for Christ shows himself to freedom. To be Christian means freedom.
To be Christian means freedom
This truth threatens to be forgotten. This freedom is grace. You will grundgelegt in baptism. But the freedom must be maintained and staff will be accepted. Jesus is looking for people who are not just authorities blindly obey, just submit, and your responsibility review. He is looking for people who think for themselves, the car, your life to throw in the mix. He himself is the cause of God to the gallows gone. Free and sovereign. As Jesus by the soldiers was caught, he said to them: “If you are looking for me, so let the Others go” (Jn 18,8). Christianity needs witnesses who are willing, up to the limits, people who are in spiritual freedom to the man of God from Nazareth. Thank goodness there is at all times and in all churches and communities of such people. But unfortunately, they are mostly from the General Public and the media overlooked. One speaks rather about betrayal and murder, than the death of love and Belief in the Faith of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the greatest spiritual and cultural source in Europe. It can be maybe even the biggest Europeans call even though he lived in the Middle East and died.
Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ in 1936 in Bad Rappenau born. After 1957 he the Jesuit order has occurred, he studied in 1959, philosophy in Pullach near Munich, and theology in Innsbruck and Tübingen. 1968 was his ordination to the priesthood. Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ was a member of the Ecumenical Laienbewegung action 365, bischöflicher appointee to the ZDF and head of the German editors of Radio Vatican. Since 2010 he has been the Fundraiser of the German Jesuits.
Church responsibility: Dr. Silvia Becker, Catholic Hörfunkbeauftragte and Alfred Herrmann