(354)S14E4: Bonhoeffer's Dark Past: Rooting Out Nationalism w/Dr. Reggie Williams
Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. In today's episode, I had the privilege of talking with Doctor. Reggie Williams, author of Baumhofer's Black Jesus. And I think this is a really important work because it does something that so often gets overlooked when we have these heroes of the faith or heroes of the nation or you know, whatever. These people who make monumental decisions that happen in a moment but don't come from just a moment.
Derek:They come from formation over a long period of time. You know, it's a cheesy analogy thinking of a diamond, right, that you you see worn on somebody's finger or around somebody's neck, and it's beautiful, but that diamond, the formation of it, to get to the point where you see that glimmer of light reflected off of it, I mean, that moment of beauty is really brought to you by many, many, many lifetimes, years, decades, millennia of formation in seemingly trivial moments of pressure and darkness. Right? Well, same thing is true of people. The monumental decisions that we see people make are done in a moment, but they come from a lifetime of formation.
Derek:And that is no less true with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This thing that we praise him for, his stand against the Nazis, was a, you know, just a fraction of his life. If you take his whole stand, okay, it's about, what, a quarter of his life, which is significant. But even in the war years, when Bonhoeffer was making his stand, most of the moments that he experienced were moments with family and students and fellow disciples of Jesus laughing, playing the piano, conversing, planning all kinds of things. And those are the things that shaped Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be able to make those decisions in a moment which we now remember him for.
Derek:What Doctor. Williams is going to argue in his book and what we're going to discuss here a little bit today is one of the very formative times in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life. His time in New York City, not just Union Theological Seminary because he was actually, you know, not too fond of that and had some issues with some of their solely social gospel focus and the lack of theological rigor. But his actually his time in Harlem, his interaction with the Black church and the Black community, which was transformational in his life. You know, Bonhoeffer came over to New York City, somewhat nationalistic or at least with a strong emphasis on his own people, with somewhat limited experiences, and from a family of who was fairly aristocratic, fairly well off.
Derek:So his time in New York City, particularly in the Black church, where he was able to experience a diversity that he had never really experienced before, and where he was able to experience or at least see firsthand the abuse and the oppression of other people, his brothers and sisters in Christ. I mean that transformed Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In the next couple episodes, we are going to take a look at how Dietrich Bonhoeffer was able to fight off the Nazi propaganda, how he was able to cling to truth and see through a lot of just the terrible ideology that came from the Nazis and from Nationalism. But that ability to see through that is going to start here, or at least be significantly formed here in Harlem where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was discipled. Because as I argued in my discipleship season, it is discipleship which gives us a vision to see.
Derek:And that can either give us a vision to see what we're indoctrinated with, or it can give us a vision to see truth. And here in Harlem, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was exposed to the true reality of the world, the reality of oppression and evil that exists, but also the reality of the cross, the reality of Jesus present with us, and how we as His community were to be with one another and be the hands and feet of Jesus. And that is going to enable Bonhoeffer, when he gets back, to seek to disciple others and continue to be discipled by what he learned and by the Jesus who is seen in the Sermon on the Mount. This Jesus who is not always easy to follow because He's idealistic. He has these ideals and He demands no compromises.
Derek:But He is also a Jesus who never leaves us or forsakes us. He is always with us. So hopefully you enjoyed this discussion with Doctor. Reddy Williams today, and hopefully you go and pick up his book because he gets into a whole lot more than than I get into here. Also, check the show notes because Doctor.
Derek:Williams has a he was a huge contributor to a documentary on Dietrich Bahnhoffer and he has provided some ways that we can access that material because it's not quite out yet. So if you go to the links in the show notes, you can find some of Doctor. Williams' other, like other interviews and discussions on YouTube, but also you can get access to this documentary on Bonhoeffer. So I think that's all. Without further ado, here is the discussion with Doctor.
Derek:Reggie Williams. Alright. Well, thank you so much, doctor Williams, for being willing to to chat with me. I've I've been looking forward to this as I as I was finishing your book, and it's always really exciting to me to be able to to talk with the people that I'm reading from because as as much as you write down and as much work as you put into it, there are always so many questions that that are yet to be answered. So, hopefully, we can get to a couple of those things today.
Derek:But first, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to to study Bonhoeffer.
Dr. Williams:Sure. Nice to meet you. Good to be with you and your your listening community. My name is Reggie Williams, and I'm an associate professor of theology at Saint Louis University in the city of Saint Louis. This is my first semester out here in Saint Louis, actually.
Dr. Williams:I've just moved here from Chicago, Illinois where I was a professor of Christian ethics for the past twelve years. And before that, a year at, Baylor University as a Christian ethicist. And before that, I was in, Pasadena, California where I was finishing my degree. There at in Pasadena, I came to the study of Bonhoeffer because my mentor, Glenn Stassen, made quite a number of Bonhoeffer scholars. He was very interested in and actually a mentee of Dietrich Bonhoeffer posthumously mentored by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Dr. Williams:And Bonhoeffer was very important to him, and he he just passed on that love of Bonhoeffer. So that's how that happened. My and I came to Bonhoeffer studies in my first year of a PhD program back in I wanna say when was that? It took me four years to do my degree. It was maybe 02/2006 or 02/2006, '2 thousand '7, something like that when I first met Bonhoeffer.
Dr. Williams:Actually, I first started studying him intensively, but I encountered him in undergrad as an undergrad much longer ago than that.
Derek:Yeah. So one of the things that I I've really liked about your book, the perspective that you're able to kind of bring to it, is that you really focus on a part of Bonhoeffer's life that I I feel you don't get from too many other sources. There are a lot of other sources that kind of they they touch on his time in in The States and particularly in Harlem, but they don't really frame that as a a pivotal time so much. It's just kind of part of what Bonhoeffer you know, part of his story. And the I don't know.
Derek:Have you seen the new movie by any chance? Okay. Yeah. I thought they actually they they put a pretty significant amount of time into that, which which I thought was great. But, essentially, your line of argumentation seems to be that Bonhoeffer's experience in 1930 Harlem, it wasn't just kind of the next step for him, but it was something that was really transformative.
Derek:And I think before we get into the argumentation of your book, I think what would really be helpful is in order to see that somebody's transformed, you kind of have to know where they were, where they came from. Would you be able to give us just a a brief background of who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was when he arrived in Harlem in New York City at Union Theological. What was he like before the transformation?
Dr. Williams:Sure. That's a great question. Let me begin by saying something to the effect of why that kind of engagement with Bonhoeffer is missed often in the academy. In theological studies, even in our society between Christian communities, things get compartmentalized very easily, very commonly. In fact, they're they're put in their spaces like a TV dinner in the academy.
Dr. Williams:The peas don't touch the carrots unless they're mixed together intentionally, but they certainly don't touch the steak with its gravy in the in the tray that it's in. And that's the same way things are in the academy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is theological thought, German theological thought, and he says he resides within the classics. But what I have done is taken a look at black theology, which is a language of black church. And these spaces, that kind of engagement tends to be with on on the recommended reading lists in your theology class if it shows up there at all.
Dr. Williams:But life is not so easily compartmentalized. His life demonstrates that. He's gonna have engagements with different communities, which he did. And this engagement, this crossover between German theology Theological Academy and a black church theological academy, if you may call it theological academy at that time, it wasn't in the academy, but it's black church theological outlook. The social gospel is really what it was.
Dr. Williams:Black the the black social gospel is where he was moving in and out of, and it had an impact on him. So before he came to The United States to answer your question, you know, he's one of eight kids in a very, very wealthy family. A father that's a professor, a psychology professor at the University of Berlin. He's in charge of the Charita Hospital, which is the psychiatric wing of the hospital. So that's that's connected to the university.
Dr. Williams:I believe that's but he's the he's the head of the Charita Hospital there in Berlin, Psychology wing of it. And they've got lots of money. They've got, you know, people who manage the meals and cleaning and so forth. And mom did some of the homeschooling. He was homeschooled, but he and his twin sister Sabine and their youngest sister Susana were homeschooled for for a bit, but ended up going to school as well outside of the home, whereas the earlier kids were all completely homeschooled.
Dr. Williams:If I've got that right, that's he's the youngest of four boys, and his twin sister is the third of four girls. Born April '6 into a big family, a very tight knit family. Now this is important because he is in that makeup, the only one who studies theology. They're all very, very bright people, but they don't they weren't raised going to church, and they weren't, church going family, period. Theirs is a Christianity that was commonly practiced by the upper middle class in Germany, And that Christianity, some scholars describe as culture Protestantism, where one does not, you know, regularly attend church, but you certainly get your, you know, children baptized there, go through catechism, and do, weddings and funerals and so forth.
Dr. Williams:His old his older brother, Walter, which was who was the second eldest brother, Carl Friedrich, Walter, then Klaus, then Dietrich. Walter is killed during World War one. From 1914 to 1918, the country was embroiled in a war, the World War one, of course. And Carl Friedrich and Walter went off to fight for Germany. Carl Friedrich came back wounded.
Dr. Williams:Walter was killed, an infection that set in as some shrapnel from a bomb that, killed a couple people in his unit. That death of Walter devastated the family. As you might imagine, to have a sibling die, in a in a tight knit family was devastating. It changed everybody, really. And it's that moment that Dietrich decided he wanted to study theology, the language of the church, thinking about the afterlife and so forth.
Dr. Williams:That's what changed him at age 13 to become a theologian. Change and he was a very brilliant kid who stayed on that focus for the rest of his life. And he is trained as a theologian in the period between World War one and World War two, deciding that he wants to be a theologian at age really, 13, but a year after World War, one ends, gets his it's gets, goes to Tubingen for a portion of undergrad, finishes that degree, undergrad and PhD at what is now, Humboldt University. Free, Friedrich Wilhelm became Humboldt University. And in that period of time, Germany is suffering from quite a number of things related to the war.
Dr. Williams:Rampant inflation, there's hunger. He describes eating bread made from sawdust and flour. This is a wealthy family. Imagine what the what the middle class and the poor were feeling. People wearing clothes made of paper and cloth.
Dr. Williams:In addition to the what will be the Great Depression that hits in 1930, allies had placed an embargo on the country after 1990 I mean, during the war. They placed an embargo there that didn't allow some goods to come into the country, so they were really struggling. And it's in this period that he is developing his theology, learning, becoming a theologian in the after war war World War one period, thinking about the fall of their country, thinking about war losses and the death that has death that has made its way into nearly everyone's house, missing the, you know, earlier periods of a great country and of a close knit family. He heads to, Barcelona, Spain after he completes his dissertation. He's a vicarate, you might say, somewhat of an associate pastor for an expatriate congregation in Barcelona, Spain, And you can hear some of this longing in him there where he preaches about 20 sermons or so and does three academic lectures, one of them called basic questions of a Christian ethic.
Dr. Williams:You hear this longing in him talking about being you know, his allegiance to his people, to his folk, which is a very common German theme at that time, folkishness. It's an ethnic pride sort of in the revitalization of his people and fighting for his people. Love for his people can sanctify murder, can sanctify war, these grandiose terms. And in that in that in that longing for prewar greatness, there's also some melancholy, some malaise. He would like to have a theology that matters for daily life, the church to have a response to the suffering that people are having, people are going through, the hunger, the hopelessness.
Dr. Williams:Does the church speak in any way to these things? Academic theology doesn't have the answers for him as he's currently contrived it, as he's currently experienced it. He finishes his what's, what's really it's called a habilitation in Germany that qualifies one for teaching at the university. We describe it as something of a second dissertation. We don't have that requirement in The States.
Dr. Williams:Germany is requirement. Finishes his habilitation at age 24. Dissertation, completed age 21. The habilitation at age 24. Inaugural lecture.
Dr. Williams:The title is called, he gets, the title private docent, which means he's finished his district his the habilitation. But he's too young to be ordained in the church. He'd be 25 for that. But he qualifies to be a professor with his rehabilitation done. I mean, he's dissatisfied with how he's understanding Christianity at the moment, specifically how the church speaks to daily troubles and problems.
Dr. Williams:The man in charge of his dissertation process, Max Diesel, wants him to go and look around the world a bit, describes him as ruddy, young, wants him to work on his English. They decide that he decides The United States is where he'd go. He considered England. United States is where he'd go. And Bonhoeffer Bonhoeffer, New York is where he chooses.
Dr. Williams:Not Harvard, not Princeton, Yale, any of any of these kinds of schools. His brother had done some work at Harvard, and they offered him a position because eldest brother offered him a faculty position at Harvard. He chose not to chose not to do that. But that was all on table form, of course. Settles on union in New York.
Dr. Williams:Union is a bigger place for learning. New York is a bigger place for learning than the than the seminary. And that's where he goes to New York looking for, as he describes it, a cloud of witnesses for the struggle and the complexity that he's experiencing in Germany. That's when he arrives in the fall of nineteen thirty as what's called a Sloan Fellow. They had developed a fellowship for three European students there where they would usually come and get a bachelor of divinity, which is our equivalent of a master's of divinity today after one year of study and head back to their home country.
Dr. Williams:Well, the German there's a German one, a Swiss one, and a French one in Bonhoeffer's year. The German one already had a dissertation and habilitation shift done. He didn't need more study, but he comes there to investigate looking for something. That's the condition we find him in at age 24 in the fall of nineteen thirty at Union Seminary.
Derek:Yeah. Thank you. Mhmm. It it was really interesting to me that that Bonhoeffer came from I don't know if you'd consider it aristocracy, but but a well off family. And, you know, that that he he talked so much about, you know, this this the Volk that he was he was talking about.
Derek:Because when I got towards the end of your book, one of the quotes that I I think kind of frames everything for me was a quote that I hadn't seen from from all the other stuff that I had I had read from Bonhoeffer, but it it kind of struck me as representative. And in it, Bonhoeffer said he basically talks about how there was the the proletariat Jesus, and he thought that the proletariat Jesus wouldn't wouldn't exist because the the bourgeois Jesus had kind of kicked him out of the churches and taken over the churches as seats of power. And Bonhoeffer says, quote, when the proletariat says that Jesus is a good human being, it means more than the bourgeoisie means when it says that Jesus is god. Jesus is present in the factory halls as a worker among workers. He stands beside members of the proletariat as a fighter in their ranks against the capitalist enemy, end quote.
Derek:And so I think that's that's really powerful to me because it it encapsulates what I think you're arguing that Bonhoeffer learned in Harlem, that there is a Jesus who can't be found in academia but can only be found on the streets. And, like, that right there just encapsulates what I envision as as Bonhoeffer's transformation. So I would love for you to explain when when you've got Bonhoeffer, this this young seeker, this this green theologian, not not like, he's very bright, but he's he's not worldly wise yet per se. How does he get from that questioning kid in 1930 to saying this only three years later in his Christology lectures.
Dr. Williams:Yeah. I love that quote. I was so moved when I came across that while I was studying years ago. So, first, yeah, he is aristocracy. His mother is is aristocracy.
Dr. Williams:Paula von Hayes comes from German aristocracy. But his father is what's called his father is among the Bildungsburger tomb, which is the upper middle class educated upper middle class. They see themselves as responsible for the maintenance of German culture and society by way of education and the arts, specifically, things of that of that matter. They're not among the working class. They're upper middle class, wealthy upper middle class.
Dr. Williams:But mom is aristocracy, so Bonhoeffer is among aristocracy. And it's the he understood, as he said, that black Christianity in The United States is the only real what he's described as proletariat Christianity, working people. And the the meaning of that quote, as I understand him, is not that the bourgeois are equated with much the intellectual or the academy, but the bourgeois collected connected with the cultural protestantism, the upper elite of society who are fine with saying who are fine with abstract concepts, abstract notions of God that don't touch the ground in everyday living. But among the, one of the things that he was he was he was looking for in his cloud of witnesses were people whose whole bodies were under the gospel, the claims and the demands of the gospel, not these people who can compartmentalize Christ, part of culture, but not in the day to day of my engagements with my neighbor and the mundane things of life. Later, he's I mean, in in his in the Christology lectures that are go by the title Christ the center, he's speaking of Christ at the center of our existence.
Dr. Williams:Later in the and when he's in prison, he's talking about religion less Christianity in a world come of age, Christ who doesn't who's not pushed to the margins of society, but that's at the center of our daily existence. How do you and how do you recognize Christ in the daily encounter with your neighbor and with all of your ongoing deep, you know, existence where your whole being and all of your life are under the demands of the gospel. That's not abstract. To say that Christ that that Jesus is a good man is to recognize that person in the day to day of my existence. It's a proximity argument.
Derek:So in Harlem, you would say that that Bonhoeffer perhaps experienced the proximity of Jesus.
Dr. Williams:Absolutely.
Derek:And and could you put to like, put that in a tangible, like, maybe an example, or how did he experience that differently?
Dr. Williams:In that chapter, I mean, I could I I I'll I'll do it in this way. In the chapter where I'm speaking that quote, I quote a, a scholar whom I have a great deal of respect for, a black, woman, Jackie Grant, who talks about how black women liberate Jesus from the boxes that white theologians have placed him in to say things like god is masculine only. The gender box misses how, black how women and black women specifically recognize him in their lives, in their day to day existence. To say that that Jesus is identified or can be identified by, you know, wealthy folks misses the recognition of Jesus amongst poor. And Jesus as white does not recognize the association that black people have had with him throughout history.
Dr. Williams:So how are how do people who find themselves under the burden of legalized harm, of financial exploitation, of racial, you know, marginalization. How do they understand the presence of god with them and for them in your average white middle class evangelical congregation in The United States that may be much more attuned to speaking about life after death and personal piety rather than the day to day legal political structures that place restrictions on your life? This is the question that Bonhoeffer one of the questions he's getting It makes it very easy to compartmentalize one's faith for, like, moral issues or life after death and not recognize the need that people have for praying for freedom to walk to a grocery store without being harmed, to know where their next meal is coming from, to get up in the day and not be and and and think about the possibilities that something could be coming their way that would have legal sanction but physical harm. What would it mean if in Germany, when they had to eat bread mixed with sawdust and flour, they knew how to rely on God for their daily bread and not see that as a social issue, not a gospel issue, which is very common for a Lutheran.
Dr. Williams:When he, this is a con this is another very concrete example that he faced. While he was in The United States, the case of the Scottsboro Nine was gaining international acclaim. These are nine black young men on a train in Alabama. Only, I think, three or four of them actually knew each other before this happened. But on the train, there was an altercation with, they're they're in a boxcar.
Dr. Williams:They're on there's an altercation with a couple of white men, young men, between some of the black black teens, really, on the train. And those white young men got off at a stop, and they made some accusations because of that altercation. They made some local accusations with law enforcement about these black boys on the train having their way with with some white girls. That's the accusation historically in The United States that's sent white mobs after black people lynching black men in droves, and by by the thousands, actually, in The United States. So, at another stop, there were people there waiting for them.
Dr. Williams:To make a long story short, these young men who didn't know each other beforehand were sentenced to death, rushed through trial and sentenced to death for raping a white woman. Everybody around saw how foolish and unjust that was. Dietrich hears about that in that year, writes back home because the churches are praying about it. The NAACP is very involved in it, especially the churches that he's at, the church that he's at, Abyssinian Baptist, writes home for them to join in the international fuhrer over what's happened here. Gets a letter back.
Dr. Williams:That's a social issue. It's not a gospel issue. And the church is to be involved in social I mean, in gospel matters only, not legal and social matters. It does not place the entire being of one's existence under the gospel. So unfortunate for those young men, if they wanna pray the you know, if they wanna if they want somebody to pray for their soul or something like that, then, yeah.
Dr. Williams:But their legal existence, their life, their possibility for flourishing now, that's not a church concern. The way that society is structured for the well-being of some and the harm of others on the day to day on day to day basis, These are the things that he was concerned about. And later, when he got back from New York, he's asking questions like, does the church have the ability to say something that Christians must do in their daily lives? Are there commandments? Does the Sermon on the Mount speak to the daily existence of people?
Derek:Yeah. I think that word compartmentalization that you used, that actually when you said it, that that ties in with with two of the other questions that I have for you. You know, I think it's just a it's a really big theme and christendom as a whole. I I think it's a human a human tendency. But one of the places that you bring it up quite a bit is when you talk about you talk about, what is it, the theology of the cross and the theology of glory, And there's that compartmentalization there where you talk about it.
Derek:I forget the two words you you use. I don't know if it's eschatological or apocalyptic, but where you have the the view of of, like, triumph at the end versus the view of the the temporal, the here and now. So one of the things that that stands out to me, going back to the the theology of the cross and theology of glory, is that one of the things it seems Bonhoeffer learned in Harlem was suffering, the the theology of cross. And what's what's really fascinating to me is that, you know, a lot of populists like Hitler or modern day populists, they they tend to meet the masses where they are, like, in the beer halls. Right?
Derek:Hitler was was very famous for meeting the the hoi polloi, the everyday people. He would go to the beer halls, and in fact, you know, he they they had the beer hall putched. They even named it named it after a beer hall because that's where Hitler was going. Yeah. So in a way, like, Hitler and other populace, they they try to deal with suffering people.
Derek:They deal with the oppressed. But a lot of times, what they do is they end up trying to find a scapegoat. They try to take this this suffering, and they find other victims to place that on. And and that's very Gerardian, you know, memetic. And and you had a quote from discipleship, which I think touches on the idea of suffering where Bonhoeffer says, quote, suffering must be born in order for it to pass.
Derek:And I think what what Hitler and populace did was they passed the suffering on to others so they don't have to bear it. But what Bonhoeffer had learned, presumably in Harlem, is that suffering under the theology of the cross meant that the Christ, but also by extension us, his body, the church, we were to bear up under suffering. And rather than pass our suffering on and victimizing other people, that we would suffer with and for the oppressed. So I I would love for you to talk about the rich theology of suffering. I know James Cohen and other people have have talked about this as well, seeing Christ, you know, in the lynching tree and everything.
Derek:What what did Bonhoeffer presumably learn? What can the black community teach us? What did Harlem teach him in regard to suffering and theology of the cross and and throwing off that compartmentalization?
Dr. Williams:Yeah. So one thing first, suffering is not something to be celebrated. Bonhoeffer has this engagement with suffering that is one, it's something that he does he does encounter, and I think he learns from in Harlem. I think that's true, from the black church. But, you know, we see things through the lenses provided for us by our formation, and it's no different with him.
Dr. Williams:For one perspective on suffering within black theologic you know, black theological perspective on suffering is is different than the way I would describe this, very different than what I've experienced with white churches, specifically, we even like, evangelicalism, where suffering may be an indication of lack of faith. Suffering is indication that something is not right for you. And, you know, the goal of the gospel in one's life is happiness, peace, joy, and well-being. Not a lot of place not a lot of room for brokenness. The connection with Christ is made in a faith filled life where Christ makes things much, much, much better.
Dr. Williams:Suffering is an indication of something wrong. Whereas, at least one perspective within black theological thought is that suffering is not an indication of something wrong for you or for or with you. Suffering is an indication of the powers that be doing of fallen powers and principalities moving in upon one space. And that is what we see from this theological perspective with Christ. Christ is with those people for whom the principalities and powers have moved upon in a wrong in a in a harmful way.
Dr. Williams:Christ is with them in the workers' fall. Christ is with them in the, on the new in the noose and on the cross. The people who themselves are pushed out to the margins of society by oppressive powers and structures are there with Jesus. The song that I put in chapter one, were you there when they crucified my lord? This is a this is a perspective on suffering.
Dr. Williams:I was there. We were all there. Now what role did you play in that moment? Did you have hammer and nails? Were you on the side of principalities and powers?
Dr. Williams:We recognize our connection with Christ there on the cross who identifies with us. It's not something to be celebrated. It's something to be acknowledged that we are recipients like, Simon of Cyrene who picked up that cross. And when that black body touched that cross, black people picked up the suffering of Christ as well. He identifies with us and is as such, Sunday is coming.
Dr. Williams:It's an interesting question that brings up, you know, other corresponding questions of theodicy. You asked that question as well, in earlier. But theodicy, it's interesting for, there are some who say that black people aren't asking the questions of why lord. Anthony Penn, a scholar friend at Rice University in Texas, has a whole book said that, titled why lord, where he says that black people are in fact asking these kinds of questions. But there is not a thoroughgoing so far as I can see, thoroughgoing theology of, you know, the problem of evil in a thoroughgoing engagement with the problem of evil is just a recognition that if god was with Christ on the cross, then god is with black people in suffering, that there is that connection that's made there and that we know that evil does not have the last word.
Dr. Williams:One can hear something similar with Dietrich. I don't hear him asking the question, why does god allow bad things to happen to good people? The question for Bonhoeffer is who is Christ for us today? What is god's will? Standard question.
Dr. Williams:He's not asking the question of theodicy so much. He's asking the the question of obedience to god's present and ongoing existence or or will for our lives.
Derek:Yeah. I think, I think what you said, the part where you you mentioned that suffering isn't to be celebrated, I think that's really important. And especially, you know, as somebody who comes from a position of of nonviolence, you recognize that there's going to be a lot of suffering, and you're going to be on the side that does a lot of suffering. And that is not to be celebrated, but it's to be expected. And I I think maybe and correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe what is celebrated in suffering is not the suffering, but the endurance of those who suffer, those who who bear up and and move forward.
Derek:Would you say that that's accurate? Or
Dr. Williams:Maybe that it's a to be that the in suffering, there is an acknowledgment that god is with us and hope is not lost, that the people who contribute to your suffering or per who are who are part of that, though they may see themselves as having some authority, maybe even understood as god given, they are wrong. That is the hope. God is with us. You know, there's a little known a little I I don't hear much about it. The widow who gives all of her, you know, the widow's mite who gives all in the in the collection plate or it's the, at this at the temple.
Dr. Williams:She's poor, impoverished. Who knows where she's going to get her next meal? She'd given all that she has. And while others may recognize the wealthy for how much they have, it's a celebration when they give. They are not suffering when they give.
Dr. Williams:She suffered, and Christ acknowledged or saw her, whereas everyone else was seeing the others. Christ saw her. Jesus saw her in that moment and elevated her. That is the expectation of connecting with Christ in your situation. God is with you.
Dr. Williams:God sees you. You are not lost on god.
Derek:Yeah.
Dr. Williams:Not that he celebrated her so much, but he certainly did acknowledge her, recognized her, and, on the cross later was in solidarity with her.
Derek:Yeah. One of the other, questions that I had for you in regard to, compartmentalization is as I was reading through, it it was fascinating but sad to me to hear that many of those who stood up who stood against the Nazis I had assumed that Bonhoeffer, you know, had this this group of people small group, but a group that that stood up against the Nazis with him. And I think I'm reading you and and some others at this point. I'm starting to realize that this group that resisted the Nazis was fairly diverse. You had a a lot of different diverse theology.
Derek:The the commonality was that they resisted the Nazis. And reading your book, one of the things that you wrote was, quote, the majority of Bonhoeffer's fellow resisting pastors were at odds with the Fuhrer principle in the church, but not against Hitler's government, end quote. And so the way that I I read that is essentially that these resistors a lot of the resistors along with Bonhoeffer, they didn't want the Nazis to encroach on their power structure inside the church. They didn't want to be imposed upon by the government in their domain, but they didn't so much mind what the government was doing in order to make Germany great again. Or, like, somebody like Niemoller, maybe he wasn't wild about it, but he went along with it for for a bit.
Derek:And so the it's like they they wanted power in both realms. They wanted to keep the power in their church, and they were okay with Germany getting more power because that that helped them as well. And so Bonhoeffer even questioned you mentioned that he questioned whether he was on the right path because he said there are so many other people that he respected that were great great people that just disagreed with him, and Bonhoeffer couldn't sign on with them when when they didn't address the Jewish question. And so he felt even at odds with them at times. And that that at least seems to me, you know, not being in inside the black church myself, but as as someone looking in, it seems to me, if I can try to put myself in their shoes, that after so many years, decades, centuries of of hardship at of being at odds with the the majority culture, with the broader culture, after continuing to experience hardship, It it seems like, you know, Bonhoeffer was was feeling dejected after a couple years.
Derek:After generations of this, I how how do you endure? And that that's something that that I just can't wrap my mind around. So do you think there's with Bonhoeffer going inside of of Harlan, do you think that the picture of endurance that they had, the picture of not resigned I can't think of the word, but, like, determination to move forward, Did he learn anything about that in order for his resolve to continue on the path when he felt like nobody else was on the path with him?
Dr. Williams:You know, there's a lot of moving parts in in what you were just saying. Let me see here. Born over his resolve. Let's hold that intention for a moment and go back for a second to what was happening with the in the confessing church movement, in the church struggle. For the Lutheran, the church is the right hand of God.
Dr. Williams:The government is the left hand of God. There's space for both of them. They don't they don't mix. The Fuhrer principle was an attempt to mix those spaces and make Hitler the head of the church. There wasn't so much on one hand, one might say that it wasn't so much that they wanted to hold their own power as as much as they're being good Lutherans and the two kingdoms must stay separate.
Dr. Williams:The two realms must the two realms must stay separate. That is a theological claim, a Lutheran theological claim. And the good Lutheran Nazi supporters wanted those spaces held separately. You know, the steak with its juice doesn't touch the peas and carrots in the tray in the in the TV tray. They keep their separate spaces.
Dr. Williams:But they were supportive otherwise. Dietrich was not supportive of the Nazis, and he was more concerned than just the church state separation. He was also concerned about the way that the Jews were being treated by this government. So beyond making the making the spaces separate, he also wanted to address the Aryan clause, the targeting of Jewish people. So that made him more radical than most.
Dr. Williams:He was much more politically active. I should say that when he returned from Harlem that summer of thirty one, he immediately writes a catechism with the Jewish friend, Franz Hildebrand. In that catechism, he says things like the the Christian only prays for peace, where before he would say murder can be sanctified, war can be sanctified. Now he says the only peace. He also says that although the Christian might like to avoid politics, and I'm paraphrasing, the time will come it come when for the sake of loving your neighbor, you gotta stand up.
Dr. Williams:You gotta get get politically active. Think about the Scottsboro case. He says it right when he comes back. And two years later, he's writing in the church and the Jewish question about direct political action on behalf of people who are being targeted by the government. That is much more than the Lutheran separation of church and state.
Dr. Williams:He's he's asking or claiming that the church must get political because the state is crushing people. So that's that is that's what's going on there with the distinction between him and his colleagues. He's like, I don't understand. These folks are much brighter than me, but they they're totally inactive or unconcerned when it comes to the government's engagement with targeted people. What am I missing?
Dr. Williams:He's like so and then the the resolve that you were describing, I think it's it's also helpful to recognize. He's he decided that he's really, by age 13, he decided he's gonna be a theologian. He's got some pretty he could stay focused on a topic. You know, undeterred, his family didn't think theology was something that would be worth the talents of a such a brilliant kid. But, you know, he could be pretty pretty focused, and he was pretty focused on this.
Dr. Williams:That's one thing that's new one might say is just you know a personality issue, but he's also not the only one in his family who is so focused like this One could easily I could easily have written that book focusing on the relationship between he and Klaus, his older brother, one who's immediately older than him. Klaus hated the Nazis too. Klaus was dead set against the Nazis. Klaus thought, thought that he wasn't going to survive the Nazis for his outspokenness against them in opposition to them. And in fact, Klaus was also killed by the Nazis.
Dr. Williams:The Dietrich died on April 9. Klaus was killed, shot in the back of the head by the Nazis in custody in April on April 23 along with, their brother-in-law, Hans von Danijani. So he had I mean, his family was dead set against the Nazis as well. That's important to recognize. Wow.
Derek:That's that's amazing. I didn't realize that that those two were were executed as well. And, you know, you said his family was not was not religious. So what was where did they find their grounding? Like, what's what motivated them?
Derek:What community? You know, if Bonhoeffer had Harlem as as part of what kind of motivated and inspired him, do you know where they got their inspiration?
Dr. Williams:You know, from my estimation, a vision of Germany that did not include the Nazis. These were, interestingly, when the Nazis rose to power, initially, their support was not from uneducated Germans. That came later, but their support was from educated the Bildungsburger Two. But, when you look at the resistors, especially the group around the that Von Hof was involved in, every one of those folks over hundreds of over a hundred were Bildungsburg or two, people who felt it their duty to preserve and care for German culture and society. And the Nazis were decimating that so far as Klaus could tell.
Dr. Williams:He wrote a letter to Dietrich while Dietrich was in New York still that if this movement continues to pick up a momentum, it'll be all over for this nation of intellectuals and poets. He was they and Bonhoeffer, in his own risk regard as a theologian, was seeking to preserve and restore German society as well. German culture and civilization, retrieving it from the teeth of the Nazis.
Derek:So maybe this would be a good tie in. I don't know if you are my last question for you, I don't know if you're you're able and willing to comment on this. But I saw that you're working on a a new book called the Bonhoeffer conundrum. Yeah. You know, because because what you just mentioned there at the end with, you know, sure, religion and theology and and Harlem were a big aspect of Bonhoeffer, but there were also these cultural aspects.
Derek:And you even mentioned in in the little blurb for it, you know, it talks about how what did it say? It said something to the extent of how Bonhoeffer was maintained some of the regime's ideologies, or he he wrestled with those. Would you be willing to to just talk briefly about about that, about what you're you're focusing on for your your book?
Dr. Williams:Sure. So on one hand, you've got this stalwart witness to the gospel and the opposition in opposition to political evil. And as he describes in his his his theological project, Christ as the vicarious representation for us before each other and before God. We encounter God in when we encounter our neighbor. It was all of that.
Dr. Williams:It is very important as we acknowledge encountering god that that means that we don't that when we harm our neighbor in any way or in any any way form or fashion, you are as it were, know, participating in the crucifixion with a hammer and nails. And now that's just me embellishing that to some degree, but it it has that it has that resonance to it. This is just encapsulated here. I'm just doing this in a nutshell here. But this Christ concrete in the world that we are to interact with for Bonhoeffer is also the unified West.
Dr. Williams:For him, Christ is manifest as Europe and The United States, the very colonial structures that give us a racial narrative and a parentage kind of first, third world engagement with the rest of the world. This is a very German, move it move it from the German centric ideology of the Nazis, and it be and it is a clear Western colonial holdover with Christ as, the representative of imperial presence, culture, and civilization.
Derek:So would would you maybe say that that's maybe synonymous with, like, a paternalism of sorts?
Dr. Williams:No. Yeah. That's the that's the imperial paternalism.
Derek:Okay.
Dr. Williams:It's the same ideology that gives us the I mean, that comes from the Berlin conference that gives us the scramble for Africa and the spread of civilization that is responsible that the European powers are responsible for doing. That to recognize the presence, the physical manifestation on Earth as Christ is to turn Europe into a people making process, Europe and The United States as the civilizing pride practice. Now one might say he's just a man of his time when he's doing that. But, you know, he's been to Harlem. He studied there.
Dr. Williams:They would not be saying that. They were not saying that. In fact, yeah, they were arguing in opposition to the power and practices of colonialism that makes Africa, subjects of Europeans.
Derek:Yeah. I know coming coming from my community where I mean, even back in up until 2014 or 2015 where I struggled with, you know, with the the violence of Michael Brown and, you know, Philando Castile and and everything, it was really hard for me up until, you know, the 20 to to see things differently outside of my my white community. Because in my heart, I wouldn't treat somebody that was different than me poorly. I didn't see or want to see the systemic violence that exists, which is indirect violence, the masked violence. And so I would imagine it's hard to it's hard to think of Bonhoeffer as, you know, a bad colonialist type of guy because he wants to save people.
Derek:He doesn't want the treads of empire to run over the Jews that are in front of
Dr. Williams:him,
Derek:but he doesn't he doesn't see the violence that is inherent in empire on on the fringes where it's harder to see, I guess.
Dr. Williams:Yeah. Because it's easy to have racism be described as malevolence or hatred towards people who were less than you. But when when you recognize that the claims of hierarchy include be nice to the people who are less than you, that the Nazis are eradicating and mean and awful, but those of us who are responsible for the maintenance of culture and civilization and parentage of the lesser civilizations and lesser people should be kind, not me, is also white supremacy. So you've got a complicated Christian engagement with fascism in Dietrich, where there's a lot to learn from him, but there's also a whole lot to, confront him on.
Derek:Yeah. I think that's I think that's a great place to end because I did a whole season on propaganda, and one of the things that I learned is that when you have a simple narrative, it's usually propaganda because there's there's complexity in everything. And when there's when there's a single narrative, it's a controlled narrative. And to understand that that Dietrich Bonhoeffer made some some great choices, did some commendable things, but he was, you know, he was a human who who dealt with sin as well. I think that's, that's important.
Dr. Williams:Yep. Very important.
Derek:Well, I appreciate your time. Is there any anything you wanna plug or anything else you wanna add that that you think was missed?
Dr. Williams:Well, I just wanna I wanna add that I have a documentary that I coproduced, with a a a very dear German friend. It's called the cloud of witnesses, and it's a very helpful supplement to you know, people are willing to watch the movie, which they should. But to to hear from, German and US Scholars, which I have some very, very good ones in the documentary, who are speaking in-depth about and in detail about it's about about an hour long about Bonhoeffer, his experience in Harlem, and how it it did how it affected him. It's the it's more than just me, although it's based on the research that I did, but these are scholars who are speaking their own voice, including, Frank Fisher's grandson, who's professor at Columbia University, the late Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church, Ferdinand Schlingenzeper, cofounder of the International Digital Bonhoeffer Society, professor Juta Kozlowski, who is a German German scholar who does a lot of work on Bonhoeffer's family. Brilliant work.
Dr. Williams:Alan Busak from South Africa. We got South African scholars, John DeGucci and so forth, US Scholars and German scholars. The the document is called the cloud of witnesses.
Derek:And where can you access it?
Dr. Williams:Well, I'll send you a link. I'll send you a link. You right now, we're setting up the the permanent streaming platform, but to get it at the moment, is to contact my coproducer in Germany. He's the he his he's the son of the cofounder of the Bonhoeffer Society. I'll send you
Derek:That'd be great. Well, thank you again. I I appreciate your, your valuable time, and it it meant a lot, and it helped a lot.
Dr. Williams:Thank you for having me.
Derek:That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.
