!

Daniel Walter

A Church for Others: A Vision Inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

! Dietrich Bonhoeffer perceived that the modern church’s fight for self-preservation

rendered it “incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to...the

world.”1 By fighting for recognition and justification before the world, the church had

contributed to its own decay. Christ, he recognized, did not fight to preserve his own life

but gave it up for the sake of the world. Bonhoeffer called Christ “the man for others.”2

Since the church is the body of Christ, he concluded that “the church is the church only

when it exists for others.”3 This definition from Bonhoeffer’s last writings about the

church can provide the basis for a twenty-first century ecclesiology. This paper will

outline how the church becomes “a church for others” through participating in the

incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. These stages provide a framework for

a vision of the church: the incarnation prescribes the location of the church; the life of

faith, its actions; the death, its orientation to suffering and forgiveness; and the

resurrection, its mission in the world. The church must fully identify with the sinful world,

live for others, and bear the suffering and guilt of others as its own. A Christ-centered

ecclesiology will reveal that the church exists for mission rather than mission being one

of the functions of church.

! In Christ, the Word of God took human form. The One “through whom all things

are made” became limited in time and space. Though God gave the Son to the whole

world, his life on earth had a small impact on an insignificant corner of it. His body,

1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (LPP), (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 300.
2LPP, 382. Eberhard Bethge, “Bonhoeffer’s Christology and His Religionless Christianity,” Union
Seminary Quarterly Review, Vol XXIII/1 (Fall, 1967): 75.
3 LPP, 382.

! 1
! Daniel Walter

which continues to take form among humans today,4 is also sent to the whole earth, but

its members are likewise limited in time and space. Though Christ calls each one

individually, he promises each the fellowship of the church.5 Its mission is not to

separate itself from the world but to summon the world to participate in the fellowship of

the body of Christ.6 Thus, the church is that cross-section of humanity in which Christ

has already taken form.7 While each individual member is limited, the whole body is

sent by God into all the world. Thus, the body of Christ grows because of divine initiative

and that initiative is directed to the world.8

! The church is built through divine initiative, not human effort. Rather than working

where it sees fit, the church must work where God is working. Christ alone builds (Matt

16:18); his followers participate in the work of building (Matt 28:19-20). God’s desire to

reconcile the world to himself is already accomplished in Christ; the church is called to

participate in that reality.9 To answer this call, the church must be oriented to God

through worship. “The whole common life of the Christian fellowship oscillates between

Word and Sacrament, it begins and ends in worship.”10 The ministry of Word and

Sacrament directs the church toward its source of Life and unites individual believers as

the body of Christ.11 For those who belong to the fellowship of Christ, everything they do

4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (E), (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 84-5.

5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (CD), (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 101.
6 E, 203.
7 E, 85.
8Clifford Green, “Human Sociality and Christian Community,” The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, John W. De Gruchy, ed., (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 120.
9 E, 209.
10 CD, 254
11 CD, 250-4.

! 2
! Daniel Walter

“happens ‘in the body,’ in the church, ‘in Christ.’”12 As in Bonhoeffer’s day, the greatest

danger that the church faces is in supporting human agendas that divide the body. In a

lecture on the nature of the church, Bonhoeffer said, “Confession of faith is not to be

confused with professing a religion. Such profession uses the confession as

propaganda and ammunition against the Godless.” 13 The pulpits of liberal and

conservative churches offer believers alternatives on whether to accept uncritically the

other (the one who differs in race, religion, or life-style) or to condemn the other to

compel repentance. However, Christ did not allow himself to be drawn into the

pharisaical questions that drive one to choose between conflicting alternatives, that

seek to co-opt the divine will for a human agenda.14 Thus, Christian worship must seek

the formation of Christ within the fellowship of believers in the world rather than

supporting causes that corrupt the body with division. In his lecture on the church,

Bonhoeffer continued: “The confession of faith belongs rather to the ‘Discipline of the

Secret’ (Arkanum) in the Christian gathering of those who believe.”15 The “discipline of

the secret” refers to the ancient Christian practice of “safeguarding church integrity

against pagan corruption.”16 The church must expel the idols of scientism, patriotism,

and political ideologies that arrogate divine will to support a human agenda.17 Such idols

12 CD, 255-6.
13Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom (TF), Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson, eds., (San
Francisco: Harper, 1995), 86.
14 E, 30-33.
15 TF, 86.
16Geffrey B. Kelly, “Prayer and Action for Justice: Bonhoeffer’s Spirituality,” The Cambridge Companion to
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John W. De Gruchy, ed., (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 250.
17 In following Christ, the church will find that it defies contemporary categorization. Liberals,
conservatives, and revolutionaries all have sought to base their agenda in Bonhoeffer’s writings. Above
all, his theology is christological. Professor De Gruchy convincingly dissuades anyone who would co-opt
Bonhoeffer for any agenda other than Christ. John W. De Gruchy. “Faith and Witness on the Boundaries:
Bonhoeffer’s Enduring Challenge,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 127 (March 2007): 15.

! 3
! Daniel Walter

relegate God to the boundaries of life, fitting him in boxes of human invention.18 In

hidden worship, the church will learn to refrain from announcing its cause to the world

and to seek Christ as its only cause.19 Hidden worship calls believers in humility to seek

the place where Christ is at work in the world, calling, gathering, and uniting his body.

! A “church for others” is directed to work in the world where God is at work. While

the church must seek God as the center of life through worship, God is found at the

margins of the world.20 Thus, the church must also be found at the margins. Instead of

seeking the “place of honor” (Luke 14:8), the church must seek “the lowest place.”

Instead of seeking a place of power and influence in government and society, the

church must be found among the poor, the lowly, and the rejected in society because

that is where Christ is at work.21 The truth of this paradox is manifest in the mystery of

the incarnation, the significance of which is not the miracle itself but the humiliation of

the Incarnate One: God became a peasant in an insignificant corner of the Roman

Empire.22 Christians “say of the Humiliated One, ‘This is God.’ ... Anyone who cannot do

this does not know the meaning of ‘God became man.’” 23 God drew closest to the world

in humiliation. The church is the tangible presence of Christ in the world among the

rejected, the hopeless, and the powerless.

18 LPP, 282.
19 CD, 155-161 and E, 38.
20Bonhoeffer maintains the tension of this paradox in his writings. God must be at the center of life
instead of used as a “stop-gap” to answer questions at the frontier of human knowledge, LPP, 311-2, 326,
341. At the same time, in Christ, God became incarnate at the edge of society and even “pushed out of
the world,” LPP 360-1. See also De Gruchy, 14.
21 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (LT), (Fortress Press, 2005), 45-6.
22 Bethge, “Bonhoeffer’s Christology,” 71.
23 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center (CC), (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 110.

! 4
! Daniel Walter

! In following the “man for others,” Christians must also live for others. The

humiliation of the incarnation communicates most profoundly that the entirety of Jesus’

life is lived only for others. While religion merely makes partial claims, faith in Christ

demands one’s whole life: “Jesus calls men not to a new religion but to life.”24 The

proper response to this call is not religious activity, a moral tune-up, a refinement of

church doctrine, or political action. The only proper response is to lay down of one’s own

life to receive the life Christ offers.25 Without Christ, to live the selfless life is impossible,

but through faith that is “held captive by the sight of Jesus Christ” one is freed from the

imprisonment of the sinful nature to live as Christ.26 Through faith, Jesus sets the

church free to live for others.27

! To live for others, the church must die to self. In a letter from prison, Bonhoeffer

wrote, “...it [is] only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One

must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself….”28 The desire

for recognition is deceitfully subtle and one of the greatest temptations the church faces

today because it can be spiritualized. The believer desires to be found faithful because

God rewards the faithful and uses them to work in his kingdom. However, this desire

seeks to base the Kingdom of God on a retributive system rather than grace. The

church must renounce any attempt to justify itself before the world but must seek its

justification in God alone through Christ.29 Rather than drawing attention to their good

24 LPP, 362.
25 E, 219.
26 E, 121.
27David H. Jensen, “Religionless Christianity and Vulnerable Discipleship: the Interfaith Promise of
Bonhoeffer’s Theology,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 38:2-3 (Spring-Summer 2001): 161.
28 LPP, 369.
29 CD, 274-8.

! 5
! Daniel Walter

works, believers must keep their eyes fixed on Jesus.30 In so doing, the saints will not

be aware of their goodness because Christ will be the only goodness they know.31 They

will not care to vindicate their religion because their only desire will be to see Christ

formed in the world. Only in renouncing all desire to make something of oneself can the

church follow Christ who was “not concerned with himself being good (Matt. 19.17).” 32

! A “church for others” does not reduce people to their utilitarian value, but it

delights in life for its own sake. “In relation to Jesus Christ the status of life as an end in

itself is understood as creaturehood, and its status as a means to an end is understood

as participation in the kingdom of God….”33 As such, the church must cherish what

enriches life: it must show the world how to live a full life, embracing its joys, even as it

willingly accepts suffering.34 Bonhoeffer himself enjoyed friendship, music, and other

pleasures as part of the Christian life.35 His life was sustained by joy that was rooted in

gratitude to God for every blessing he received, even throughout his incarceration.36 In

Christ, God reconciled humanity to himself for his own good pleasure. Salvation brings

the joy of fellowship with God as well as the privilege of participating in God’s mission to

the world. Only with a balanced understanding of life, as both means and end, will the

church be the church.

30 CD, 287.
31 E, 38.
32 E, 237.
33 E, 149.
34 LPP, 191.
35Even though, he lived during serious and desperate times and his work was vital for resisting the Nazi
regime, Bonhoeffer insisted that the Christian rather than the “ethical” person could “take pleasure in
something with an easy mind.” Eberhard Bethge, “Bonhoeffer’s Theology of Friendship,” in Friendship
and Resistance: Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 95-6.
36 LPP, 393.

! 6
! Daniel Walter

! While the incarnation prescribes the place of the church in the world, the life of

Christ delineates its action. Jesus’ life consisted of preaching, prayer, and righteous

action. Since the church had worn the world out with its words of self-justification,

Bonhoeffer foresaw a period of silence, where the ministry of the church would be

limited to “prayer and righteous action.”37 Today the church must confess its faith

through deeds. When these deeds have become significant enough for the world to

notice without Christians shouting for recognition, “...then the world itself will long to

confess the Word.”38 The church, therefore, is called to practice a “discipline of modesty

in claims and humility in action”39 to recover the balance of word, prayer, and action.

The church must be like Christ, who stood before his accusers silently (Matt 27:12) and

did not open his mouth (Is 53:7), but he answered them with prayers of forgiveness

(Luke 23:34) and selfless deeds of love (John 15:13).

! As the body of Christ, the church also completes the suffering of Christ. Though

Christ died “once for all” (1 Pet 3:18), the church “must share in the shame of the cross,

the public death of the sinner….”40 To be the body of Christ, the church must share in

Christ’s bodily suffering. Christ has “left a residue of suffering for his church to fulfill”41

until his coming. While this suffering is ultimately for its benefit, the church is tempted to

seek self-preservation precisely when it suffers. In the last century the church has faced

atheist political ideologies, materialistic philosophies, and the expansion of Islam, all of

which threaten the church with extinction. The temptation to confront power with power

37 LPP, 300.
38 TF, 86.
39 Kelly, 251.
40 E, 116.
41 CD, 244.

! 7
! Daniel Walter

derives from the desire for self-preservation. Christ confronts this desire with his own

willingness to suffer and die. Though he is omnipotent, “God lets himself be pushed out

of the world and on to the cross.”42 In his mercy, God helps us in weakness. The church

is called to watch with Christ at Gethsemene, to “stand by God in his hour of grieving.”43

Though the church faces problems that threaten its existence, it must cease fighting for

itself or it will cease to be the church. “The only way in which the church can defend her

own territory is by fighting not for it but for the salvation of the world.” 44

! A church that fights for the world, not its own preservation, is a community

characterized by forgiveness and repentance. Thus the church is not a community of

the fully sanctified. Rather, it models a life of confession, forgiveness, and repentance

among the saints.45 The saints are not alarmed by the sin of another because they are

“appalled by the horror of their own sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross….”46 Thus, the

church gracefully hears the confession of sinners and liberally but responsibly lavishes

the gifts of God’s forgiveness that restore the sinner to fellowship with God and the body

of Christ. The church dies to its own righteousness and lives solely by the righteousness

of God alone. Because they have died to their sinful nature and live as forgiven sinners,

the saints proclaim God’s forgiveness and reconciliation to the world.

! Christians are called not only to proclaim forgiveness but also to bear the sins of

fellow Christians. “Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of

forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian’s

42 LPP, 360.
43 LPP, 349, 361, 370.
44 E, 200.
45 CD, 287.
46 LT, 114.

! 8
! Daniel Walter

duty to bear.”47 True preservation of the community does not come through judging and

fighting for recognition but through confession, forgiveness, and repentance. Those who

follow Christ know that he has borne their sin and accepted them into his body; likewise,

they seek to preserve the community through bearing with the sins of others and

forgiving them.48 This is not the forgiveness one bestows upon oneself, but the

forgiveness of God spoken through a brother or sister in Christ in response to a

confession and in anticipation of repentance, assured in a community that exhibits

tenderness and discipline.49 Recognition of guilt does not result from realizing one’s own

wretchedness but only through encountering Christ who takes form in the church.50

! In forgiving and bearing with the sins of Christians, the suffering of Christ is not

complete. Though he was sinless, Christ died as a criminal, bearing the sin of others.51

The church is also called to bear the sin of others. Rather than condemning the world

guilty of rejecting Christ, the church must declare itself guilty of apostasy, confess this

guilt, and accept its burden. That the church accepts the guilt of others is a sure “sign of

the living presence of Christ”52 because Christ bore the sin of the world on the cross.

The body of Christ, therefore, must enter “into the fellowship of guilt” 53 for the sake of

others. Bonhoeffer’s participation in the plot to assassinate Hitler must not be

understood as a suspension of his pacifist principles but his willingness to bear the

47 CD, 90.
48 LT, 102.
49 CD, 287-92.
50 E, 111.
51 CC, 112-3.
52 E, 111.
53 E, 238.

! 9
! Daniel Walter

burden of guilt incurred by the assassination.54 Bonhoeffer did not justify his action to

the world, but he threw himself entirely into the grace and judgment of God.55 Similarly,

the church must have such a regard for the well-being of others, that it takes no regard

for itself, being free to give up everything except forgiveness and reconciliation.56

! In being joined with Christ in his redemptive suffering and death, the church also

participates in the joy of resurrection. The resurrected Christ sends the church into the

world to make disciples of all nations. The church fulfills that mission by finding itself

where God is at work in the world, by living the life of Christ, and by participating in the

suffering of God in the world. Mission is no longer one of several functions that the

church accomplishes, but the church exists for the missio Dei. Foreseeing a future world

that was antagonistic to religion, Bonhoeffer asked, “How can Christ become Lord of the

religionless?”57 While the world did not become progressively less religious as

Bonhoeffer envisioned, this missiological question is his most important. The

significance of the question is not in the term “religionless,” which is merely a

characterization of the people Bonhoeffer wanted to reach with the gospel. Rather its

significance is in its christological focus: how can Christ become Lord of those who do

not act like traditional Christians? The church today must substitute “religionless” with

the people groups it encounters on the margins of society, whether they be atheist,

spiritist, or Muslim, whether they identify themselves by race, economic status, or

sexual orientation. It must renounce any claims to purity to achieve solidarity with the

54Bonhoeffer did not justify the coup from utilitarian ethics, but he accepted the guilt of his actions for the
sake on behalf of the church in Germany for those who were perishing in the death camps. Renate Wind,
A Spoke in the Wheel: The Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 143-4.
55 E, 231.
56 TF, 87.
57 LPP, 280.

! 10
! Daniel Walter

sinful world.58 Rather than “winning others for Christ,” its goal must be to “give itself up

for Christ” on behalf of others as the only way to be the church.

Works Cited

Bethge, Eberhard. “Bonhoeffer’s Christology and His Religionless Christianity.” Union

! Seminary Quarterly Review. Vol XXIII/1 (Fall 1967): 61-77.

————. “Bonhoeffer’s Theology of Friendship.” In Friendship and Resistance: Essays

! on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 80-104. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center. New York: Harper and Row, 1960.

————. The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Touchstone, 1995.

————. Ethics. New York: Touchstone, 1995.

————. Life Together. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

————. Letters and Papers from Prison. New York: Touchstone, 1997.

————. A Testament to Freedom. Edited by Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson.

! San Francisco: Harper, 1995.

De Gruchy, John W. “Faith and Witness on the Boundaries: Bonhoeffer’s Enduring

! Challenge.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 127 (March 2007): 6-21.

Green, Clifford. “Human Sociality and Christian Community.” In The Cambridge

! Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Edited by John W. De Gruchy. Cambridge
! University Press, 1999.

Jensen, David H. “Religionless Christianity and Vulnerable Discipleship: the Interfaith

! Promise of Bonhoeffer’s Theology.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38:2-3
! (Spring-Summer 2001): 151-167.

Kelly, Geffrey B. “Prayer and Action for Justice: Bonhoeffer’s Spirituality.” In The
! Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Edited by John W. De Gruchy.
! Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Wind, Renate. A Spoke in the Wheel: The Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Grand Rapids, MI:
! Eerdmans, 1992.

58 TF, 87.

! 11