The Spirit of Resistance
Posted: March 14, 2009
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, and the founder of the Confessing Church during the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Bonhoeffer, along with other pastors and congregants of the Confessing Church, participated in the German Resistance movement against Nazism. In 1933, the Gleichschaltung forced all protestant churches in Germany to merge into the newly created Protestant Reich Church, which was a tool to promote and support Nazi ideology. The Confessing Church pastors and congregations, through a series of secret meetings, decided that the German Church was not an “organ of the state” for the purpose of strengthening Nazi ideoloies and their war agendas, but rather had the sole purpose of promoting Christ and the Great Commission. Those protestants who opposed the Protestant Reich Church were forced to go underground to worship together and to share the gospel. The Confessing Church engaged in many forms of resistance including hiding many Jews from the Nazi regime.
Bonhoeffer was arrested in March 1943 and imprisoned for his work with the Confessing Church and his participation in the German Resistance movement. While in prison he wrote:
“Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despise us and persecute us. They certainly will.
But not even that can hurt us or overcome us, so long as we pray for them. For if we pray for them, we are taking their distress and poverty, guilt and perdition upon ourselves, and pleading God for them.
Every insult they utter only serves to bind us more closely to God and them. Their persecution of us only serves to bring them nearer to reconciliation with God and to further the triumphs of love.
It is only when one sees the anger and wrath of God hanging like grim realities over the head of one’s enemies that one can know something of what it means to love them and forgive them.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Hanged in Nazi Germany 1945
Bonhoeffer made a great impression on the lives of thousands of people during these years surrounding the rise of Nazism. Today Bonhoeffer is still affecting the lives of people through his writings. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man filled with the Holy Spirit who made a great impact on his world – he was one of God’s “special ops” for the Kingdom. I hope you will join us this Sunday in the Encounter service as we continue our series Mission Impossible.
Jody
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