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

by Mark Nation

Let me suggest a contemporary parallel. A colleague of mine at Eastern Mennonite University, a lifelong pacifist, used to live and work in Zimbabwe and other African countries. He tells me that he would not be at all surprised if some friends of his imagined that he would have affirmed the killing of President Robert Mugabe. For on certain occasions, in conversations with trusted friends and allies in the battle against oppression and injustice, he would vent, expressing his empathy with those who wanted to stop Mugabe by any means necessary. Who would not resonate with those who strongly opposed what were obvious forms of power abuse and oppression? That didn’t mean it was true that he affirmed the killing of other human beings, even Mugabe. But listeners, with other frameworks for approaching issues such as killing, might easily have heard him in ways that weren’t true to his own convictions.