Bonhoeffer: Making Difficult Choices

Hard decisions surround us. No person has a full understanding of every possible consequence of their actions. Pastor and Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually offers some deep and lasting perspective on how to approach difficult decisions in our life. Consider the thoughts of Bonhoeffer.

Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Bruce Gulland.

And I’m Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

We are going to ask a shocking question right now. Would you ever kill someone? Wait, do not say “no” immediately. Think about it. What if someone was threatening your family? What if your country were being attacked? What if you could save millions of lives by taking only one? Would you kill then?

Ethics is the debate over how people should act. Sometimes this debate takes place in school – as a theory. Other times these debates take place in the middle of a person’s life. People need to decide what is best and what to do. Today’s Spotlight is on a real ethics question that one man faced. We tell the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and how he tried to help kill another man.

In 1931, Dietrich Bonhoeffer completed his studies to become a church leader in Germany. He taught and wrote books. But Germany was changing all around him. The Nazi political party was rising to power and Adolf Hitler was taking control of the country. To get more control, Hitler only permitted the state-approved church. Other churches were closed. Hitler began to tell people that their first loyalty belonged to the nation of Germany, not to God.

Bonhoeffer disagreed with this. He believed this was not good Christian teaching. He became part of a group of 2000 church leaders who formed the Pastors Emergency League. They opposed the state-approved Nazi church. When pressure from the government increased, this group changed. They became the illegal Confessing Church. The Confessing Church believed that Christians should follow God first, not the nation or Hitler. Bonhoeffer served as the head of the Confessing Church’s school.

Bonhoeffer was a pacifist. He believed that violence is never the solution to any problem. A pacifist works to make change, but through protest and talking together. But Bonhoeffer began to hear stories of Jewish people being killed and his ideas changed. He decided that pacifism was a good theory, but to not act was to act. If he did not act, he was letting Hitler win. If he did nothing to fight the evil he saw, he was supporting the evil.

So Bonhoeffer joined a group working to fight Nazism. He was still permitted to travel outside the country. He took secret information to Great Britain. He tried to gather support for the Confessing Church and tell the world that not every German supported Hitler.

Bonhoeffer did have the chance to escape from Germany completely. He could have stayed in a safe place. He was permitted to travel to New York City. But after only a few weeks, he decided to return to Germany. He knew that if he was going to help fix the country he loved, he would have to stay during the struggle for the heart of Germany.

So he went home. He could not support Hitler’s government. But he could not do nothing. He believed that killing was wrong, but he also believed it was wrong not to help people in trouble. During this time, he spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the correct thing to do as a Christian. After a time, he decided to join a group planning to kill Adolf Hitler. But the attempt failed. Bonhoeffer was one of the people who was caught. The German government arrested him and put him in prison.

In prison, Bonhoeffer wrote many letters and documents. Some of these explained how he decided to join the group trying to kill Hitler. He said that there are two things that should guide Christians through life. The first is the needs of the people around you. In this case, these were the millions of people Hitler was killing.

The second thing that should guide Christians is the model of Jesus Christ. Jesus has a group of teachings called “The Beatitudes”. These teachings concentrate on the poor, those who are sad, and those who suffer. Bonhoeffer believed that Christians should remember these two things when trying to make a difficult choice.

Bonhoeffer attempted to follow Jesus. He saw suffering people and acted. He stood up for poor and hurting people. Because he lived this belief, the government sentenced him to death. The prison doctor watched as Bonhoeffer was killed. He described what he saw:

“The prisoners were taken from their cells. The judgments were read out to them. Through the open door in one room, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer. He was on the floor praying to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed. He believed and was so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a prayer. Then he climbed the steps to the gallows. He was brave and calm. He died in a few seconds. In the almost 50 years that I have worked as a doctor, I have never seen a man die so completely accepting of the will of God.”

There are many Christians who would have encouraged Bonhoeffer to find a non–violent form of protest. But many would say that his actions are different from other acts of violence. That is because he was moved by Jesus Christ’s command to help the poor and the suffering and those who cannot help themselves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not trying to tell people that all acts of violence are good as long as you feel God is behind you. Instead, he was one man in one situation trying to decide what was best. He was not sure he was doing the right thing. He had doubt and worry that he was wrong. But he was willing to accept the results of his actions, both for his body and for his soul.

We began this program by asking if you would ever kill someone. Now, put yourself in Bonhoeffer’s position. If you had the chance to kill a single person and save the lives of millions of people, would you do it? If you say “no” then what would you do? Nothing? These are not easy questions. Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website. Or email us at contact@spotlightenglish.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

The writer of this program was Adam Navis. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.spotlightenglish.com. This program is called, ‘Bonhoeffer: Making Difficult Choices’.

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Question:

Have you ever had to make a difficult ethical choice? What guided you in your decision? Did you feel satisfied in your decision?