A Bonhoeffer Paradox
One of the problems of reading Bonhoeffer's work in a devotional is that I get small snippets taken out of context everyday. Somedays I have to wrestle with a concept for a day only to find that the thing I was wrestling with is addressed the next. The paradox I deal with today goes beyond the reading, it goes into Bonhoeffer's actual life. The past couple of days I have been reading about the defeat of evil coming through its endurance and not through its opposition. This is a hard enough concept to deal with. For most of us, especially the social justice-minded of us, the opposition of evil is oftentimes a natural preoccupation, sometimes it is even seen as an imperative. In today's reading, from A Testament to Freedom, he talks about how not resistng evil is not condoning its right to exist. Okay, but it is hard to see how it is not.
But here's the real problem; the problem we all face as people who rarely practice what we preach. Bonhoeffer lent his talent and energy to the opposition of what many consider the greatest evil to walk the earth, embodied in the form of Adolf Hitler. It has been documented that Bonhoeffer lived the remainder of his life with guilt over his part in conspiracies to assassinate Hitler (which, of course, ultimately failed). Was what Bonhoeffer did right? Is this a matter of 'do as I say, not as I do'?
Here's the thing: given the options, Bonhoeffer felt like he had no choice but to defy one of his deepest convictions. Isn't that scary?! Unsettling?! Most of us live our lives with deep principles that we would put down on paper, but when the rubber meets the road, many of our choices involve choosing the lesser of two evils. That's how I've voted in the last two presidential elections! In theory, I agree with Dietrich. Opposition of evil just breeds more evil. instead we are to overcome evil with Good. Still, there are some evils that I bet we will never stop opposing, for better or for worse.
But here's the real problem; the problem we all face as people who rarely practice what we preach. Bonhoeffer lent his talent and energy to the opposition of what many consider the greatest evil to walk the earth, embodied in the form of Adolf Hitler. It has been documented that Bonhoeffer lived the remainder of his life with guilt over his part in conspiracies to assassinate Hitler (which, of course, ultimately failed). Was what Bonhoeffer did right? Is this a matter of 'do as I say, not as I do'?
Here's the thing: given the options, Bonhoeffer felt like he had no choice but to defy one of his deepest convictions. Isn't that scary?! Unsettling?! Most of us live our lives with deep principles that we would put down on paper, but when the rubber meets the road, many of our choices involve choosing the lesser of two evils. That's how I've voted in the last two presidential elections! In theory, I agree with Dietrich. Opposition of evil just breeds more evil. instead we are to overcome evil with Good. Still, there are some evils that I bet we will never stop opposing, for better or for worse.
