From Pacifism to Tyrannicide: Considering Bonhoeffer’s Ethics for the Anthropocene
Issue: Vol 33 No. 3 (2020) Special Issue on Religion and Violence
Journal: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
DOI: 10.1558/jasr.42288
Abstract:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s (1906–1945) engagement in conspiracies to assassinate Hitler appears to some as a distinct movement from his earlier position on pacifism. This article examines the contributing factors to this apparent contradiction and addresses Bonhoeffer’s ethical rationale for religious violence in the context of the Third Reich. The article recognises the currency of Bonhoeffer’s decision-making in contemporary political scenarios and in relation to philosophical positions on ethics. Bonhoeffer’s ethical frames of Christonomy, Stellvertretung and Sachgemäßheit (vicarious representative action and contextuality) are discussed in the context of his engagement with the underground Confessing Church and in opposition to the Deutsche Christen (German Christian) church’s complicity with the Reich. The article then turns towards the seminal issues of the Anthropocene, climate change, mass migration and biodiversity loss, asking whether religious violence might be justified in the face of this existential crisis.
Author: Dianne Rayson
References :
2010 Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
2003 Anti-Abortion Extremism: The Army of God. Chrestomathy 2: 1–12.
2012 Obama Challenged on Abortion at Prayer Event. Baptist Press (3 February): n.p.
2000 Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, edited by Victoria J. Barnett, rev. edn. Fortress, Minneapolis.
1995–2014 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition [DBWE]. 17 vols. General eds Wayne Whitson Floyd, Jr, Clifford J. Green and Victoria J. Barnett. Fortress, Minneapolis.
1998 Edited by Clifford J. Green, trans. Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens.
1996 Edited by Wayne Whitson Floyd, Jr, trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt.
1997 Edited by John W. de Gruchy, trans. Douglas Stephen Bax.
2001 Edited by Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss.
2004 Edited by Clifford J. Green, trans. Reinhard Krauss and Charles West.
2010 Edited by John W. de Gruchy, trans. Isobel Best, Lisa E. Dahill, Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens.
2009 Edited by Larry L. Rasmussen, trans. Isabel Best and David Higgins.
2006 Edited by Mark S. Brocker, trans. Lisa E. Dahill.
2014 Species Extinction is a Great Wrong. Editorial. Biological Conversation 170: 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.12.022
2009 Reading from the Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation. Pickwick, Eugene, OR.
2015 How to Read Bonhoeffer’s Peace Statements: Or, Bonhoeffer Was a Lutheran and Not an Anabaptist. Theology 118(3): 162–71.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X14564933
2017 Bonhoeffer’s Reception of Luther. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
2018 Bonhoeffer on Resistance. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
1998 Editor’s Introduction. In DBWE 2: 1–20. Minneapolis: Fortress.
2005 Pacifism and Tyrannicide: Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic. Studies in Christian Ethics 18(3): 31–47.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946805058796
2015 Peace Ethic or ‘Pacifism’? An Assessment of Bonhoeffer the Assassin. Modern Theology 31(1): 201–208.
https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12144
2018 Is this a Bonhoeffer Moment? Lessons for American Christians from the Confessing Church in Germany. Sojourners (February): n.p.
2018 The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI.
2020 How to Talk about Climate Change. Murdoch Books, Sydney.
2018 Summary for Policymakers. In Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. World Meterological Organization, Geneva.
2001 Editor’s Introduction. In DBWE 4: 1–34. Fortress, Minneapolis.
2020 Christonomy in a World Come of Age: The Vision and Actualisation of Bonhoeffer’s Christian Ethics. Phronema 35(2): 61–83.
2014 Re-writing the Icon: Exploring and Exploiting the Bonhoeffer Legacy. The Bonhoeffer Legacy: Australasian Journal of Bonhoeffer Studies 2(2): 1–18.
2004 Aristotelian Ethics and Habermasian Critical Theory: A Conjoined Force for Proportionism in Ethical Discourse and Roman Catholic Moral Theology. Australian eJournal of Theology 3 (August): 1–14.
2013 Jürgen Habermas: Education’s Reluctant Hero. In Social Theory and Educational Research: Understanding Foucault, Habermas, Derrida and Bourdieu, edited by M. Murphy, 69–83. Routledge, London.
2019 Interpreting the Divine Mandates in a Bonhoeffer Moment. Political Theology 20(7): 574–94.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2019.1588493
2010 Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. A Righteous Gentile vs the Third Reich. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN.
1991 Bioethics for Medical and Health Professionals: History, Principles and Case Studies. Social Science Press, Wentworth Falls, NSW.
2013 ‘Jamming a Spoke in the Wheel’: The Bonhoeffer Four and the War on Terror. 9th Australian Bonhoeffer Conference, Kincumber, NSW.
2013 Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering his Call to Peacemaking. Foreword by Stanley Hauerwas. Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, MI.
2006 Disbelief and Christonomy of the World. Studia Theologica 60(1): 91–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393380500352274
2019 Three Rival Versions of Moral Reasoning: Interpreting Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Lying, Guilt, and Responsibility. Harvard Theological Review 112(2): 160–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001781601900004X
2009 Editor’s Introduction. In DBWE 12: 1–49. Fortress, Minneapolis.
2016 Bonhoeffer and ‘The Right to Self-Assertion’: Understanding Theologically the Mastery of Nature and War. In Ecological Aspects of War: Religious Perspectives from Australia, edited by Anne F. Elvey, Deborah Guess and Keith Dyer, 95–110. ATF, Adelaide.
2017 Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Anthropogenic Climate Change: In Search of an Ecoethic. PhD thesis, University of Newcastle. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1349861
2018a Earthly Christianity: Bonhoeffer’s Contribution to Ecotheology and Ecoethics. The Bonhoeffer Legacy: An International Journal 6(1): 21–34.
2018b Women’s Bodies and War: Bonhoeffer on Self-Assertion. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan and Katie Edwards, 119–42. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland.
2020 Bonhoeffer in the Anthropocene: The Climate Crisis and Ecoethics. In Political Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited by Lori Brant Hale and W. David Hall, 143–56. Lexington, Lanham, MD.
2002 Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women’s Role in Peace-Building. United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), New York.
1989 Theologishe Ethic im Kampf gene den Nationalsozialsimus: Der Weg Dietrich Bonhoeffers mit Juristen Hans von Dohnanyi und Gerhard Leibholz in den Widerstand. Chr. Kaiser, Munich.
2011 War in Christ’s World: Bonhoeffer and Just Peacemaking on War and Christology. Dialog: A Journal of Theology 50(1): 90–96.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6385.2010.00585.x
2014 Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. Baylor University Press, Waco, TX.