Theological Journal – June 3 Why Turn to Bonhoeffer: Jeffrey Pugh

Monday Bonhoeffer scholar Jeff Pugh offered five reasons to turn to Bonhoeffer in this crisis-ridden time in a webinar. Drawing from Bonhoeffer’s reflection in Letters and Papers “After Ten Years” Pugh derives the following benefits Bonhoeffer brings to a such a time:

1.       A needed vision of what we should be standing in this historical moment

The view “from below,” the perspective of the suffering is where God is found, where God’s people must stand if they are to see and hear clearly what God is doing where he is present.

This entails vigorous, uncompromising truth-telling: suffering happens, we need to repent of white supremacy, how the view from top looks, that is, how is power marshalled and deployed against people, a stripping away illusions.

2.       failing to see others in their suffering leads to contempt for others; but God does not hold us in contempt, however deserving of it we may be, but loves us instead. We must offer love to all we deal with however “deplorable” or “snowflakey” we may experience them.

3.       humans have track record of being monumentally stupid.

While evil tends to subvert and consume itself, against stupidity we are defenseless. Therefore, discerning stupidity, subverting the lie, and naming the masters of the lie are critical.

Leaders depend more on our stupidity than wisdom

4.       ethical confusion is evil’s strategy.

how do we resist the encroachments of “necessity,” discern and name it, pay attention to material reality in front of us (who benefits and why) that tempts us to think the unthinkable and do what we would otherwise never do.

5.       DB stood in wreckage of a great culture.

We need a “true and open word” about who, what, and where we are as a people. 

Can we return to simplicity and honesty?