 The Rt Rev Jack L Iker, SSC, Bishop The Rev Mark A Stockstill, SSC, Vicar Office 325.356.2997 Vicarage 325.356.2198 Cell 325.330.2411 mstockstill@fwepiscopal.org |
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Bonhoeffer
was born in 1906, son of a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the
University of Berlin. He was an outstanding student, and at the age of 25
became a lecturer in systematic theology at the same University. When Hitler
came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a leading spokesman for the
Confessing Church, the center of Protestant resistance to the Nazis. He
organized and for a time led the underground seminary of the Confessing
Church. His book Life Together describes the life of the Christian community
in that seminary, and his book The Cost of Descipleship attacks what he
calls "cheap grace," meaning grace used as an excuse for moral laxity.
Bonhoeffer had been taught not to "resist the powers that be," but he came
to believe that to do so was sometimes the right choice. In 1939 his
brother-in-law introduced him to a group planning the overthrow of Hitler,
and he made significant contributions to their work. (He was at this time an
employee of the Military Intelligence Department.) He was arrested in April
1943 and imprisoned in Berlin. After the failure of the attempt on Hitler's
life in April 1944, he was sent first to Buchenwald and then to Schoenberg
Prison. His life was spared, because he had a relative who stood high in the
government; but then this relative was himself implicated in anti-Nazi
plots. On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of
worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came in, saying, "Prisoner
Bonhoeffer, make ready and come with us," the standard summons to a
condemned prisoner. As he left, he said to another prisoner, "This is the
end -- but for me, the beginning -- of life." He was hanged the next day,
less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.