Bonhoeffer and von Dohnanyi in Kerr's "A Man Without Breath"

As someone who has taught and written about Christians in Nazi Germany, I have grown to love the Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr. I recommend them to my students as a way getting a good sense for what it was like to have lived, and moved, and had your being in that terrible, perplexing world. Kerr, who died last year, wrote marvelously well, and I am saddened that there won’t be any further Gunther stories. I especially like A Man Without Breath (Penguin, 2014), since it matches up nicely with my lectures on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi.

But Kerr’s depiction of von Dohnanyi in this novel is only partially accurate, since the real von Dohnanyi would never have said (esp. in Mar ’43), “But the fact remains that the German Army does not murder prisoners of war” (p. 47). During von Dohnanyi’s employment as a lawyer in the Ministry of Justice (already starting in ’33), he began to prepare a secret set of files on Nazi atrocities. These files were greatly expanded after Sep ’39. While most of those files concerned the criminal actions of Party leaders, some of the reports did in fact address the murders of prisoners of war by members of the German military and special police battalions. Von Dohnanyi had hard evidence that the German Army had in fact committed atrocities, e.g., he was in possession of films of murders and executions carried out in Poland after 1939. These so-called “Zossen Files,” which were discovered by the Gestapo on 22 Sep ’44 in the Abwehr bunker at Zossen, were the key pieces of evidence that the Nazi officials used to incriminate von Dohnanyi and several others in his circle of conspirators, including Bonhoeffer. Moreover, as a conservative Lutheran Christian, von Dohnanyi would never have made such an idealistic statement about human behavior. (A small point re: p. 50: When von Dohnanyi traveled to Smolensk [in late Feb ’43, not on Mar 10 ‘43], he took the night train from Berlin to Rastenburg, and then from there he took a plane the rest of the way. Kerr has von Dohnanyi fly all the way, which, despite the historical inaccuracy, does make for a more interesting, if also fully inventive tale.)

Hans von Dohnanyi

Contrary to what is stated on p. 273, von Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer were not imprisoned by the Gestapo at Prinz Albrechtstrasse on 5 Apr ‘43. While von Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer had been arrested by the Gestapo, they were under the jurisdiction of the German military. Thus, von Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer were imprisoned at the old Tegel Prison, which was one of the military’s interrogation prisons, and those interrogations were always conducted by military officials from the Reich War Court (with Gestapo officials merely observing). Bonhoeffer remained a prisoner at Tegel until the discovery of the Zossen Files ended his period of military confinement. Only after 8 Oct ’44 was he then imprisoned by the Gestapo at Prinz Albrechtstrasse (and afterwards sent to Buchenwald and then to Flossenbuerg, where he was executed).

Kerr states as fact that “Hans von Dohnanyi was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944; on Hitler’s orders he was executed on or after April 6, 1945, at the same time and place as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Sack” (“Author’s Note,” p. 464). This statement is mostly incorrect. While von Dohnanyi was a prisoner at Sachsenhausen, he was likely executed on April 9, 1945, the same day as Bonhoeffer. However, Bonhoeffer was never imprisoned at Sachsenhausen, nor was he executed there. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at Tegel, at Prinz Albrechtstrasse, and then at Buchenwald. During the last week of his life, he was sent to the Flossenbuerg concentration camp, where he was executed on April 9, 1945.

These minor historical inaccuracies do not detract from the craftsmanship and dramatic force of Kerr’s excellent novels, but in the interest of accuracy, which I know Kerr sought always to maintain, I share these few corrections here.

A Chapel Homily on Anfechtung and Faith

The winter 2019 issue of Valpo magazine arrived a few days ago. This is the quarterly magazine of my university's alumni association. The cover article is about the 2017 alumni tour that I led to Germany in observance of the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. The article also focuses on the participation of Valpo's chorale in the special services that took place in Wittenberg and its environs at the same time. The editor was kind enough to include even a few quotes from yours truly.

To read a truncated version of the article online and to see some of the photos, you can go to here.

(My colleague, Gretchen Buggeln, and I are now gearing up for the European tour that we are leading in July 2020. While this tour is also being sponsored by the university's alumni association, it is open to anyone who considers himself or herself "a friend of Valpo." For info on that tour, you can go here. Space will be limited to 30 participants.)

Seeing the article reminded me that during the candidacy process for becoming a rostered minister of word and sacrament in the ELCA, I was asked "to select and submit a sermon you preaching during this past year that highlights your role as a missional leader who participates in the formation of disciples." I chose to submit a homily I preached in the Chapel of the Resurrection just one week after returning from the Germany tour. The chapel theme for that semester was "Ever Reforming: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty." The chapel leaders asked me to preach a six-min homily on this theme. The assigned Scripture text was Gen. 32.22-32. Those chapel leaders also asked me to weave Martin Luther into the homily, in light of the 500th anniversary.

So here's what I preached that morning (Nov 7, 2017):

            The theme for chapel this semester has been “Ever Reforming: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty.” This theme arose from the fact that this past October marked the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, an event linked with the posting of Martin Luther’s famous theses.

            We often think of Luther as a great man of faith, but he also was a great man of doubt. He was often uncertain about the world and about his own relation to God. Luther used a word to describe these periods of doubt and uncertainty: Anfechtung. Can you say this word with me? Anfechtung! This is your word for the day. It is a word that connects with the story of Jacob wrestling with that strange figure by the river Jabbok. Luther knew that story well. Indeed, he often felt like Jacob, wrestling with God. The word “Anfechtung” describes what others have called “the dark night of the soul.” It is a word that refers to the experience of serious doubt about God, when one is suffering deep spiritual tribulation, spiritual crisis. Anfechtung, as Luther described it, can even feel like one is being attacked by spiritual forces over which one has no control. In a time of Anfechtung, according to Luther, God and the Devil seem to be one and the same. When one is experiencing Anfechtung, one is out in the wilderness, literally be-wildered, wrestling with God and the Devil. Even after becoming a monk and still later as a professor of theology, Luther suffered Anfechtungen. These periods of doubt and anxiety often were occasioned by illness or the deaths of others. Luther often repeated the famous aphorism, “In the midst of life we are surrounded by death.” Undoubtedly, he was then thinking of the random nature of the plague, which would strike a town or village, when some would succumb and others would not. Luther knew he was a mortal sinner, and this too led to Anfechtungen. As he learned from experience, the only way to find relief from Anfechtungen is through faith in the promise of Christ. That promise takes us away from ourselves and relocates our lives in Christ, in his eternal love and in the context of his abiding presence. Luther learned that there is nothing so deep and troubling that God in Christ is not deeper still. In the midst of death, we are surrounded by Christ.

            As Luther learned firsthand, experience re-forms our faith. When my nephew was two, he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, cancer of the nerves. It is a childhood cancer that overtakes almost all who get it. Many thousands of us prayed for Andrew’s healing. For a while it appeared that he was going to escape the clutches of that cancer. But one day it began to grow again, and this time it was unstoppable. Four-year-old Andrew died in his mother's arms as he reached out his own small arms and mumbled, “Jesus, Jesus...”

            As some of you know, at the very same time that Andrew was dying, my own 4-yr-old son hit his head on a swivel chair, which resulted in a torn artery under his cranium. At the time, he and my wife were visiting her family in Chicago and I was back at our home in Portland, Ore. So I received the worst phone call of my life to date, when an ER doctor told me that my son was being flown to another hospital for emergency brain surgery. When I hung up the phone, I was no longer in Portland but out in the wilderness. I spent most of that night flying to the Midwest. Well, that’s not quite accurate. I spent most of that night in a mental fog, Anfechtung of the worst kind. And in the more lucid moments, I was praying and pleading. I was Jacob at the Jabbok, wrestling with God and the Devil, caught somewhere between faith and doubt.

            I should probably mention that my son’s name is Jacob. I can use the present tense “is” because Jacob’s surgery resulted in a miracle. So much blood had pooled on his little brain that he should have died or at least been severely disabled. The neurosurgeon, too, was a bit bewildered. When I arrived at the hospital the next morning, there Jacob was, sitting in the bed with what looked like a white turban on his head. “Nice that you could make it, Dad.” When he prayed the Lord’s Prayer later that day by himself, when he got to the Fourth Petition, he said, “Give us this day our daily breath.” I can no longer pray that petition without remembering that one-liner.

            My faith was certainly re-formed through that whole experience. Experience has taught me that there is a lot of bewilderment in faith and theology. Why did Andrew die and Jacob did not? Was God deaf to the prayers for Andrew but responsive to the prayers and pleadings for Jacob? I believe God hears our prayers and responds to them in God's own ways. God invites us to pray and promises to hear us. I also know that what I pray for is not necessarily what God wills to happen. As one of America's greatest theologians has correctly put the matter, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Why the prayers for Andrew did not issue forth in a miracle like that which apparently happened to Jacob is beyond the ken of mere mortals. If there is a moral to the story of Job, it is this one. I am also much more aware today than I was fifteen years ago about the fragility and uncertainty of life. So much remains an inscrutable mystery. God has God’s reasons that human reason knows not.

            Thank God, Christ joins us in our bewilderment. His light is sufficient for all Anfechtungen. In his light we see light. In Luce tua videmus lucem. [This is Valpo’s motto.] When we can count on nothing else in this world, there is one who remains constant: our Lord with his abiding love and mercy.

            Patriarch Jacob wrestled with God until he forced a blessing from God. This encounter by the waters of the Jabbok would forever mark him. For the rest of his life he would be called “Israel,” he who wrestled with God--and prevailed.

            Is that not finally what faith is, at least in part, namely, wrestling with God until we force a blessing from God? What tempered my Anfechtung that lonely night I traveled to Chicago was the baptism of my son. That watery encounter with God forever marked my Jacob, far more deeply and permanently than the question-mark-shaped scar on his head today has done. I can no longer read the story of Patriarch Jacob’s watery encounter with God at the Jabbok without at the same time thinking of my own Jacob’s baptismal encounter with God—and our own subsequent wrestling with God and of God’s own wrestling with us—in which we prevail by trusting that ultimately God is for us and not against us. That’s faith in the midst of doubt and uncertainty.

            You, too, are marked with the cross of Christ forever. That baptismal marking is an act that repeatedly wrestles a blessing from God. It provides a certain grounding for those who suffer Anfechtung in this uncertain world. It is a blessing that even death and hell cannot destroy. For now, for you, that watery blessing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is enough. Amen.

Rostered and Called VII

And here's another excerpt from "the entrance essay" that I was asked to write as a part of the candidacy process of becoming an ELCA minister of word and sacrament:

3. Missional Leadership

Based on your responses to the previous two questions, especially your theological constructs above, how has your understanding of yourself as a missional leader been shaped by your personal faith in the Triune God and your key theological building blocks?

            I am who I am because of my baptism. Nothing I’ve experienced in my life has been more important to me, my identity, and my vocation than that sacramental event in September 1962. Every morning and night, I make the sign of the cross in remembrance of it. I make this same sign of the cross each Sunday in the divine service and in the weekly chapel services I attend at Valpo.

            In a very basic way, my calling to the pastoral and educational ministry was not my choice; it was something thrust upon me by someone I greatly loved and admired. My grandfather’s piety and vocation rubbed off on me and I felt called to become like him. While at times that summons was a burden, mostly it was not. I do not recall ever thinking about pursuing another vocation, at least not for very long or to any significant depth.

            Luther’s explanations to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed inform my personal faith. I believe that God has created me and has given to me my senses and reasoning and other attributes that are useful in an academic setting for the sake of extending God’s own mission in and through Valparaiso University. I believe that Jesus Christ is my redeemer and savior—and the savior of the whole world. I believe that God so loves the world that God has sent Christ into the world to love it and bring it to its fulfillment. I believe that I cannot believe in Christ without the Spirit first calling me to faith and sustaining me in that faith through proclamation of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Baptized into the name of God and nourished by Christ’s holy meal, I am called out from the world and sent back into it in my various callings: disciple, husband, father, teacher, pastor, citizen.

            Luther’s explanations of the Creed also serve as starting points for the university-level theology courses that I teach. In these courses, I seek to help my students gain deeper understanding of God the creator, the person and work of Christ, and the actions of the Holying Spirit. In many ways, my teaching serves as an exposition of God’s mission to and for my students. I am particularly interested in helping people to understand God more truly and to use the gifts that God has given me to help others to grow in their own faith and to discover how God might be calling them to service in the world (“equipping the saints for their work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” [Eph. 4.12]). As a professor of Christian theology at Valpo, I seek to love the Lord with all my heart and mind and to love my students and colleagues as myself. I strive to teach my students in faithful obedience to Christ. In this way, I seek to fulfill the Scriptural exhortation that was spoken to me personally in the pastoral blessing at my confirmation: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

            One aspect of this teaching involves writing. I have recently written a book on fundamental theology, I am editing and translating several large volumes of writings by a principal modern Lutheran theologian, and I am beginning to develop a new book that will summarize key Christian teachings for undergraduates. As I indicated in my remarks above, I am always trying to show my students—those who are Christian as well as those who are other-religious and non-religious—what a “critical” faith in Jesus Christ might entail, an informed faith that does not shrink from the hard questions relating to Christ and the apostolic witness to him. For those who are other-religious (e.g. Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist) and non-religious (“the nones” and “the dones”), I seek to share reliable historical and theological information about Jesus, to explicate what it might mean to believe in Jesus, and to invite respectful dialogue. In this way, I seek to fulfill Christ’s admonition “to go and make disciples of all nations,” particularly through my teaching and personal witness.

            As I remarked in my Entrance Essay, the epigraph to the published edition of the Jefferson Lecture by the most famous scholar to have taught at Valparaiso University, Jaroslav Pelikan, is a quote from Goethe’s Faust: “Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen” (“What you have inherited from your fathers, acquire it in order to make it your own.”) Following Pelikan’s own example, I have tried to make this aphorism the motto of my work as a teacher and scholar of the church. Like him, I have undertaken this work primarily as an historian of ideas, although my final designs have never ceased to be theological. On the one hand, I have sought to understand and teach “the Christian tradition” as a person of faith, indeed as one who publicly identifies himself as a Lutheran Christian by conviction. Following the example of the author of the Augsburg Confession, I have striven to be irenic and ecumenical in my approach to Christianity and the other religions, to maintain in myself and to convey for others a basic respect and appreciation for the wider catholic “Great Tradition,” its texts, basic institutions, and influential characters. In view of the fact that most everybody is an expert on the present, I will continue to try “to file a minority report on behalf of the past.” On the other hand, I have also sought to convey the benefits of engaging the Christian tradition and other religious traditions critically through the same interpretive strategies that are brought to other human phenomena. In this respect, I do not hesitate to indicate where and why the Christian tradition, its texts, and institutions have been and are being criticized by scholars, including by me. I thus agree with Richard Hughes’ description of a Lutheran approach to “tradition” in which one must always be re-assessing and rethinking one's understandings. I believe this “critical” approach to “tradition” is essential in my work of teaching students to lead and serve in church and society. Once again, Luther’s theology of the cross, informed by more recent engagements with it, continues to shape and inform my calling as a professor of Christian theology.

            I became a teacher because I caught “the joy” of learning/teaching from my grandfather and from other significant pastor-scholars, some of which I have already mentioned. I want to be like they are (or were). Their passion for knowledge and truth is wed to their passion for God, which leads them to care for others and to entice these others to seek the same passions. I have learned that such passion is important for these pursuits, that one need not be afraid to share this passion, and that one ought not downplay the knowledge and experience one has received to date as a scholar/teacher of the church. I have also learned not to pretend that one is really ever “objective” and “neutral” in the Geisteswissenschaften (including theology), even if I also know that one should constantly strive to avoid bias and prejudice. Since students in my classes examine and reexamine the nature of religious experience, the meaning(s) of sacred texts, the (in)significance of ecclesial institutions and practices, and the future of a given faith, they analyze matters that come close to the “core” of one’s personal identity and worldview. Consequently, the space in which students address these matters must be one that is as non-threatening as possible, one that encourages civil discourse and respectful, humble postures. I have found that establishing such hospitable space is greatly improved by truly knowing my students, even liking them, and by trying to get them to know and like each other. Since I have always learned best when teachers cared for me as a learner, I have tried to follow their example. In these ways, I am humbly trying to fulfill Christ’s calling to me as one of his missional leaders at Valparaiso University.

            I hope my students recognize that I, too, am a student who is seeking understanding. I am grateful for the opportunities to learn from students and colleagues about how to become a better teacher/scholar for the sake of the church’s mission. While I try to stay current in my field of study (Christian systematic theology), I also find immense value in reflecting on pedagogy. This entails experimenting with different approaches to methodology and teaching strategy. (Most recently I have benefited from Stephen Brookfield’s Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, which impressed upon me the importance of “seeing oneself through the eyes of one’s students,” of keeping a pedagogical autobiography, of holding critical conversations with peers about what works and what does not.) I am constantly trying to learn new ways to teach and learn.