Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Theology of Violence

          It’s funny how one can get so sucked in and triggered by the deliberate cognitive dissonance employed by the hand of the skillful practitioner of the Socratic method of pedagogy.  I recall while teaching at various universities that I would deliberately take the most inflammatory statements in the hopes of getting a rise from a student or two, to shake the foundations of their belief systems, to bring them into undiscovered territory where they are forced to articulate the philosophical underpinnings of some of their most deeply held beliefs.  And thus the universe kindly returned the lesson this week as I was hoisted upon my own proverbial petard.

         I was horrified in my Metaphysical Theology class when our esteemed professor, a man of great learning and intellect, trotted out the theology of one Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian in WWII Germany who actively subverted the Third Reich and was even part of the failed assassinations plots against Hitler.  My professor is a Vietnam veteran who flew helicopters and served our nation as a Chaplain for decades.  From the padded seat of my bourgeois office I can only imagine the things he may have seen- like Bonhoeffer- and the impact those observations made on these men.  For Bonhoeffer at least, violence toward Hitler- and ultimately his own death at the orders of Hitler- became the “cost of discipleship” in a country where Christians tacitly acquiesced to the horrors of the Holocaust.

          I found myself repulsed by the professor’s idea that Bonhoeffer’ s ideology could be equated with the non-violence of Gandhi.  I found it took all my legal training to be able to hold those paradoxical views in mind at the same time.  I felt intuitively that one residing in Christ consciousness would not kill another divine being.  Can we imagine Jesus or Buddha advocating Hitler’s death?  In what circumstances is “holy murder” acceptable?  In class I proffered the holy violence examples of Anders Breivik, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the KKK as historically rejected philosophies of violence as a means to an end.  To this I would add the murders of abortion doctors, Hammurabi’s Code, Timothy McVeigh and extremist fundamentalist Muslim terror groups- all who advocate violence as a viable means to their respective ends.  I do not subscribe to these positions.

          Professor Shepherd asks “Should Christians concern themselves with making this world a better place or concentrate on spiritual pursuits?” as if the two practices are separate.  My answer is- both.  But, the world is not made a better place by sinking to the level of murder.  Where does one draw the line?  Is the legal status of abortion in America a "genocide" such as Hitler perpetrated that authorizes the use of deadly force?  The slippery slopes abound.  To paraphrase a cliched license plate: Who would the Christ kill?

Verbi Dei?!?

You may be wondering about the Latin texts in this blog.  "Verbi Dei" means "The Word of God."  By writing this I am not creating some sort of apotheosis and equating myself with God; however, I recognize the Divinity within myself and strive every day to give it voice.  The blog is entitled "Quaere Verum" which roughly means "To seek truth" or "Seek truth."

Theological Snapshot (Always in Progress)

I used to notice a certain kind of “feeling” after meditation when I would sit on my back porch above the garden late at night.  I could hear the sounds of the deer down by the creek in the distance, and on a clear summer night smell the pine and forest.  Today it’s more difficult for me to “enjoy” such a first person phenomenological experience as I bemusedly and ironically note my positionality while “it” all seems so harmonious and unified.  I still wonder what “it” is, the multifaceted flow of sensory experience, feelings and powers greater than myself that converge in the field of unlimited potential of those suspended moments of genuflection reductively labeled “meeting God.”

For me, I take a moment to relish in the unusual opportunity to use the first person pronoun, I AM, I I I.  OK.  Philosophically I rebel against Kantian dualism, the Cartesian dialectic, premodern simplicity, modern structuralism and even the postmodern sterility of intersubjective context.  I situate myself somewhere that includes all these epistemologies yet simultaneously rejects their absolutist arrogance.  As I gingerly step onto the stage of the Unity Licensure and Ordination process, I find myself wrestling with the ontological referents of Hasselbeckian metaphysics that reduces reality to a dichotomous universe bifurcated into Absolute/Relative realms where the God-Law Ideated me as a corporal moral agent who willingly chooses that which hits or misses the “mark,” the Highest Good- revealed merely by sitting in the Silence.  Kind of like being touched by that Sybok guy from Star Trek V and having an instant epiphany.  Neato.

My embedded theology has moved away from this kind of simplistic faith, that of the Catholic altar boy who ultimately graduated as the Valedictorian from the Jesuit-run Seminary for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles through years of academic training as a folklorist/cultural anthropologist and finally through legal training as an attorney and metaphysical training through various schools and ultimately at Unity.  All these twists and turns have helped me evolve through faith and doubt.  Simple first person phenomenology is blind to its limits and fails to take into account postmodern approaches that illuminate intersubjective contexts and cultural embeddedness of what speech-act theorist Jurgen Habermas calls the “philosophy of consciousness”- stretching all the way back to Foucault.

I know a spirituality that is the transcendence of forms in favor of a trans-essentialist, multi-contextual approach that includes whatever truth is to be had in any aspect- first person, second person, third, etc., as well as whatever perspectives about those positions can teach me.  I don’t do the question of evil, for me theodicy doesn’t exist- I assume a deep ontological connection between all experiences and anything to contrary is simple necrophilia.  I know a theology that is cognitive and experiential, of commitment and relaxation, requiring both knowledge and action.  I lightly hold an Augustinian and Unity view that assumes love is the backdrop of the play of life.  I know that any enlightenment state can be realized at any stage of development, and look for more of the same.