Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

by Mark Nation

What does this have to do with my rereading of Bonhoeffer on “the structure of the responsible life”? On the one hand, Bonhoeffer is very clear. “Where Christ, true God and true human being, has become the unifying center of my existence, conscience in the formal sense still remains the call, coming from my true self, into unity with my self” (278). And whatever he may mean by embracing responsibility—joined to a free conscience—he makes it clear that “acceptance of responsibility must not destroy this unity” (281). A central way for Bonhoeffer to name this is to say that “the origin and goal of my conscience is not a law but the living God and the living human being as I encounter them in Jesus Christ” (278). However, in the midst of these reflections, he mentions that Jesus “ate with sinners and outcasts.” “As one who loved without sin, he became guilty, seeking to stand within the community of human guilt” (279). As I reread this, I realized something. Bonhoeffer, in the midst of seeking to live out of “the unifying center of his existence”—namely, Jesus Christ—had truly been freed, like Jesus, to be at peace with being misunderstood by others.