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Post 2025 Inaugural Update:
Today, February 22, I spoke with my father by phone. While I never bring up politics with him (because we tend to conflict), he, unusually, asked me what I thought of the current political “turmoil.�� I told him I thought “turmoil�� was putting it mildly. I said that if they really do withdraw America from NATO as they are hinting, that it would be the worst foreign relations disaster in the history of the United States. To which he responded, “I feel like I have lived too long. I cannot understand or follow politics any more.�� He is 92. After the call I felt he was probably echoing the sentiments of older German voters as they watched Germany go to war again in the late 1930s. In particular, I wondered if that was how Hindenburg might have felt near the end. It certainly was how Ernst Junger (“Storm of Steel��) felt by 1942.


Update: Well, we have nearly finally arrived at the moment the backers of this book hoped for when it was published, the ultimate takeover of the government by fascists who their rich backers think they can control, and who conservative Catholics think represent their interests. (They made that mistake once before.)

Vote for America. Vote for the rule of law.

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The text was acceptable, readable like a knife through warm butter. But the front cover endorsements and the back pages ‘Study Guide�� firmly place this work in the polemic sphere. In particular, the writers of the Study Guide encourage readers to see the parallels between modern America and Hitler's Germany. I wonder what the good pastor would think of all this. I am sure the Study Guide authors are certain they know.

The good pastor, though, may have disagreed with them. It is true that in ‘The Cost of Discipleship�� [Touchstone Edition, 1995], he does not seem to like the “conformity to the world�� of Reformation theology. He notes that Jesus says: “Let your light so shine before men.�� He says that “any attack on the order of the Church from without [i.e., the Nazi party] means an attack on the Body of Christ itself.�� And he called on Christians to “remain in the world to engage in frontal assault on it,�� and for each Christian to “live the life of his secular calling in order to show himself as a stranger in this world all the more.�� This was intended to follow the example of Luther, whose actions, he noted, were “a radical criticism and protest against the secularization of Christianity.”I mention Bonhoeffer’s advocacy of resistance because it is a fair point to be considered below.

I read the central argument of this book is as follows: If sole (political) authority comes from the people, then because Hitler was popularly elected, the German people did not appear to be remiss in following his policies. Thus, in order to resist the tyranny of the Nazis, a higher source of authority than ‘the people�� was necessary. Bonhoeffer had that in his faith. Many of his co-Lutherans lacked such authority, the argument goes, because it had been torn down by liberal theology. The institution of the Church was lacking in strength, and the cause was the rot of liberal thought.

With that in mind, let us review some history, as set forth in detail in William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.��

What is the source of authority in a republican form of government? One possible source in a republican monarchy is the monarch. The Nazis argued for restoration of the good old days of the monarchy, and Field Marshall Hindenburg and the army sympathized. The other source of political authority is the people. At their peak of popularity in the last arguably free election, July 1932 (when the Nazi S.A., a voter suppression unit of organized thugs, already numbered more than 100,000), the Nazi party polled only 37% of the voters. It was then through a series of backroom deals and imaginative use of political leverage that Hitler weaseled his way into power.

Hitler’s government was not popularly elected. It was the weakness of Field Marshall Hindenburg, the fecklessness of his advisors, and the power of Nazi propaganda, that eased the way for the awful tyranny. William Shirer points out repeatedly that Hitler made no secret of his agenda, regardless of his suavity and cunning in lying to whomever he needed to con. After choosing Hitler to be Chancellor, Hindenburg stayed on for nearly two years (20 months) while the Nazis tore the German republic apart. All it takes for evil to triumph is for aging men to believe they are choosing the lesser evil in appointing creeps to positions of power. To be fair, the Nazis were careful not to overstep the bounds set by the old man, but the Nazi settling of scores that was the bloodbath of June 1934 (in which, among others, the leader of Catholic Action was arrested and sent a concentration camp) received Hindenburg’s thanks for their “prompt action.��

Catholics and Lutherans, as individuals and institutions, supported, resisted and toed the line drawn by the Nazis. Initially, the Catholic political party voted WITH the Nazi party in an effort to leverage their own political power. After Hitler was awarded the Chancellorship, some Protestant pastors welcomed Nazi rule as a change from the dark times of the Weimar Republic. (Be careful what you wish for). The Pope thought he had made a deal with the Nazis for the independence of the Catholic Church. But as time went on, more people realized their mistake, and resisted. Hundreds of ministers, priests and nuns were imprisoned or executed. Church property was confiscated.

But it was not only elements of the Church that resisted Hitler. Communists resisted Hitler, and the Nazis hunted them down in the streets. The Social Democrats resisted Hitler, even in the first Reichstag assembly after the heavily fixed landslide of the March 1933 elections. There, despite a dozen Social Democrat representatives having been ‘detained�� by the police, Otto Wells rose and spoke truth to power: “We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you the power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible.�� Bonhoeffer and the embattled Lutherans were by no means alone. Even those lousy socialist supporters of welfare had faith in a higher authority (of ideas) and guts to boot. And even atheists helped Jewish individuals escape.

In the study guide (as well as in the body of the book itself) the details of how Hitler came to power are left to history. (To be fair, it’s darn complicated.) But sinister parallels to the present state of the U.S. are implied. Several of the questions in the study guide ask the reader to think about how the U.S. government is persecuting Christians (including negative references to supposed book bans, disallowance of prayer in public schools and, oddly, allowance of conscientious objectors), presumably (because the guide is bound to the main text with glue), LIKE THE NAZIS DID. Although the study guide does not name the U.S., but simply refers to the reader’s “country�� or “government,�� no one is fooled.

What the book’s sponsors want to forget (or perhaps, more disturbingly, never even thought about) is that the most important difference between the Nazi government and modern western societies, including America, is a respect for PLURALISM. It is precisely this pluralism that the U.S. government often struggles to preserve through the shouting of various interest groups who claim they are being attacked. As Bettina Stangneth, German philosopher and historian, in her recently translated book, “Eichmann Before Jerusalem,�� explains, “Evil doesn’t arrive from ignorance, it arrives from thinking men and women becoming unwilling to accept thinking as worthwhile. The real danger of the Nazi ideology was in its war against reason, a mistrust of thinking itself.��

In this age of talking past each other in increasingly loud volumes, and disputation as to what is fact, it is the humble opinion of this reader that it is not the subject of Pastor Bonhoeffer, good man though he was, that needed yet another book. It is the subject of what happened in Germany up to the death of Field Marshall Hindenburg in August 1934. What ideas, what fears, led 37% of the voters to support the Nazi platform in July 1932? And how could Hindenburg, after January 1933, the only man standing between Hitler and the destruction of Germany, simply look on while this group of paranoid myth spinners, fact twisters, power mongers, criminals and bullies took over and tore down the institutions of a seemingly rational country? Did the good people not see what was in store for Germany and rush to knock down the Field Marshall’s door with pleading and entreaties? This, to me, is the central issue, and vital to our day.

If you think I am exaggerating, I direct you to Exhibit A, a recent YouGov survey (conducted August/Sept 2015) which showed that 29% of Americans could imagine supporting a military coup “to take control from a civilian government that is beginning to violate the constitution.�� The breakdown by political party was 43% Republican; 20% Democrat; 29% Other.

Judging from the endorsements, this book, intended to incite passions against the U.S. government, was pitched at evangelical Christians, the majority of whom seem to lean Republican these days. But what would the good pastor, Pastor Bonhoeffer, think of this book?

Pastor Bonhoeffer, in ‘The Cost of Discipleship�� explains that the light that Jesus encourages us to “let shine before men,�� is the light of the suffering of Christ on the cross, and “it is in this light that the good works of the disciples are meant to be seen,�� which good works are “poverty, peregrination, meekness, peaceableness, and finally persecution and rejection.�� The Pastor points out that “[e]very attempt to impose the gospel by force, to run after people and proselytize them, to use our own resources to arrange the salvation of other people, is both futile and dangerous. It is futile, because the swine do not recognize the pearls that are cast before them, and dangerous, because it profanes the world of forgiveness. �� Worse still, we shall only meet with the blind rage of hardened and darkened hearts, and that will be useless and harmful.�� He notes that “we must hide our righteousness from ourselves,�� and explains that “discipleship means estrangement from the world.�� �� “The disciples of Jesus must not fondly imagine that they can simply run away from the world �� False prophets�� he warns, “will rise up among them, and amid the ensuing confusion they will feel more isolated than ever. �� Maybe he [the false prophet] hopes his intellectual ability or his success as a prophet will bring him power and influence, money and fame. His ambitions are set on the world, not on Jesus Christ.�� [Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship]

So, I have to ask, when a proselytizing Christian resurrects a Christian pastor who fought against the forces of an evil fascist regime for the purpose of spurring political action against a democratic and pluralistic government, which results in many of the target audience saying they would favor a military coup against such a government, what kind of prophet is he?