Craig Slane's interesting book "Bonhoeffer As Martyr" makes the case that Bonhoeffer was indeed a martyr (surprising I know, the title kinda gives it away I guess...).
This isn't obvious of course. Bonhoeffer was arrested and executed not for his explicit testimony to Christ, but for his part in a plot to kill Hitler. He was guilty in other words of attempted tyrannicide.
However, it is hard not to have sympathy with his course of action given that Hitler was exceptionally bad as a tyrant. But does he then fit the pattern of martyrdom?
Slane argues that in the 20th Century, martyrs have become 'political' - by which he means, they have often died because of their intervention in political affairs. They have testified to Jesus not by their words so much as by their actions. They have risked and accepted death for the sake of others. Thus, Bonhoeffer's case fits this expanded pattern.
But there is a certain circularity here: Bonhoeffer's case has been central to this suggested redefinition of martyrdom; and yet by this redefinition according to B's case, Slane tries to judge his case. So, of course Bonhoeffer is a martyr by these terms...
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I've heard B. described as a martyr before, and I always thought it was a bit strange. I really don't think the label fits.
exceptionally bad as a tyrant
Do you mean he wasn't very good at it?
I am no expert on Bonhoeffer or martyrdom, but from what I know of both I wouldn't class him as a martyr, but as someone who was executed for political actions that were (arguably) inspiried by his Christian beliefs.
Similarily, Johnny Cash wrote music inspiried by his Christian beliefs, but I wouldn't put him in the 'Christian Music' section at a record store. (maybe thats a poor analogy)
there is a certain circularity here
Yes, but it is not necessarily vicious. It depends on how many other cases there are which may be able to substantiate this claim, and upon an analysis of martyrdom that is 'open' to 'political' martyrs being included.
Perhaps something else which has contributed to Bon as martyr is that he was a theologian and so was very reflective about what he was doing in his attempted tyrannicide. Try reading his essay 'After Ten Years' - it seemed to me without too much reading between the lines to be an apologia for his actions (I'm not sure of chronology, but I think it was written around the same time as the failed assassination attempt) - and a theological apologia at that.
Ah yes Byron: Slane actually makes this case by citing his theology as evidence of his being-towards-death...
Slane would point to other examples of martyrdom in the modern era. However, I would reply than Bonhoeffer is so central a figure to this redefinition that it is impossible to exclude him in defining what a modern martyr might be and then apply the definition to him later...
There is more to it of course.
People need him to be a martyr more for the sake of saving Christianity in Germany than for honouring a political activist.
I think this a good point, "we" the "good" Christians align ourselves with the Bonhoeffers and Wilberforces of history, holding them as the norm through which Christianity should be assessed, and blot-out Christian involvement with the Nazi's or opposition to the abolition of slavery.
Maybe if we remembered the failings and failures of Christians, we (mainstream Christianity) wouldn't be so apathetic towards social/political issues.
Also, to make a tangent on tangent, in John Rawls's Law of Peoples he has a footnote citing Bonhoeffer making anti-Semitic statements. This is the first I have heard of this, but it was a little disappointing.
Did rawls say anything about Mel Gibson?
Certainly, the Bonhoeffer of the Ethics and the Prison years was not at all anti-semitic. The Jewishness of JEsus was a big theme in this too.
I am not sure if that was a serious question, I suspect not.
Rawls doesn’t have much to say about Mel. A Theory of Justice (1971) was before the rise of Mel, Political Liberalism (1993) was of the Lethal Weapon era, but Mel didn't get a mention there, while Law of Peoples (1999) was post-Braveheart, and Mel still didn't come up on his radar despite the Academy Award. Rawls then died in 2002 pre-Passion and the anti-Semitic controversy that has surrounded the Gibson family. So he was unable to comment.
I wonder if figures like Bonhoeffer or MLK or Barth weren’t presented* as Protestant Saints but as fallible and sinful, as well as remarkable Christians, we would have more realistic picture of what it means to be a Christian over time.
*(i.e. it was secular avenues that I first heard of MLK’s adultery, whereas the pulpit focuses on his social justice)
Well interestingly... Bonhoeffer was very good at not claiming sainthood for himself.
It was great to go to a Bonhoeffer conference this year where his niece Renate Bethge reminded us that he was in many - most - ways an ordinary man.
I think he would have liked to have been remembered in that way... but that is because his life was a witness to Christ ie if you look at him properly you don't see him at all, but through him to Jesus...
Kenneth Woodward, a liberal Catholic who writes on religion for Newsweek, noted in his book "Making Saints" how the Catholic Church's criteria for canonisation had to be revised after the experience of Nazi Germany. Previous Catholic saints had been martyred for explicitly religious reasons, because they were Christian (or because they were Catholic). Whereas Nazi Germany, like Fascist Italy, did not care about someone's doctrinal or denominational allegiance as such, but did demand cooperation in actions that any true Christian would (we realise today, in the safety of hindsight) refuse.
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