Inhabitatio Dei

Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, soon to be the subject of the upcoming blog conference is loaded with poignant theological-ethical analysis of a great many propensities towards error and idolatry in Christian thinking.  In the midst of the vissitudes of pop-protestantism in the West, with its various emergent, televangelist, and seeker-sensitive streams, I find Bonhoeffer’s critiques pretty stirring indeed:

“The form of the crucified disarms all thinking aimed at success, for it is a denial of judgment.  Neither the triumph of the successful, nor the bitter hatred of the successful by those who fail, can finally cope with the world.  Jesus is certainly no advocate for the successful in history, but neither does he lead the revolt of the failures against the successful.  His concern is neither success nor failure but willing acceptance of the judgment of God.  Only in judgment is there reconciliation with God and among human beings.  Christ sets the human person judged by God, the successful and the unsuccessful, over against all thinking that revolves around success or failure.  God judges people because, out of sheer love, God wants them to be able to stand before God.  It is a judgment of grace that God in Christ brings on human beings.  Over against the successful, God sanctifies pain, lowliness, failure, poverty, loneliness, and despair in the cross of Christ.  Not that all this has value in itself; it is made holy by the love of God, who takes it all and bears it as judgment.  The Yes of God to the cross is judgment on the successful.  But the unsuccessful must realize that it is not their lack of success, not their place as pariahs as such, that lets them stand before God, but only their acceptance of the judgment of divine love.  It is the mystery of God’s reign over  the world that this very cross, the sign of Christ’s failure in the world, can in turn lead to historical success; this cannot be made into a rule, though in the suffering of God’s church-community it repeats itself here and there.” (pp. 90-91)

One of the beauties of Bonhoeffer’s ethics is the way in which he resists turning God in Christ into a familiar, even as he calls Christians to participate in Christ’s sufferings, and find their identity in Christ.  In Bonhoeffer’s thought we can never assume an easy confluence of our action and God’s will.  Rather we must constantly subject ourselves to the judgment of God’s Word in Christ and the Spirit.  Only in so doing do we come to participate in the reality of God.  Bonhoeffer’s ethics are never comfortable or satiating for the Christian seeking self-validation.  Rather they are always a call for us to see how the Lord who lives outside of us, enthroned in the life of the Triune God continues to disrupt us, calling us our of our incurvatus in se selves into the life of following after him.  Herein lies the fundamentally apocalyptic nature of Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics.  And this is what, in my view, makes him so very interesting and vital for theology and ecclesial life today.