The final twentieth-century figure John Stackhouse examines in Making the Best of It is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is in many ways the most compelling and complex. Bonhoeffer challenges all of us with his radical commitment to Christ, which led to his execution by the Nazi regime. As I comment in Culture Making, surely the Nazi regime warranted the gesture of condemnation. Yet Stackhouse reminds us that Bonhoeffer's radical commitment was nothing if not realistic about the opportunities and limits of his cultural moment.

re: condemnation, dietrich bonhoeffer, john stackhouse, power, revolution

Andy:

[Bonhoeffer] joined the Abwehr (military intelligence) originally in order to assist surreptitiously in the rescue of Jews and also to engage in political and diplomatic work on behalf of his country. . . . Bonhoeffer played this dangerous game fully. In 1940, upon the fall of France, Eberhard Bethge recalls an announcement being made in a café in a small German town. Everyone lept to their feet, began singing, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” and raised their arms in the Nazi salute. To Bethge’s perplexity, Bonhoeffer raised his arm as well, and then whispered to his friend, “Raise your arm! Are you crazy?” Afterward he said, “We shall have to run risks for very different things now, but not for that salute!” This kind of pragmatism, for Bonhoeffer, is what it meant to serve Christ in the real world.