“The church confesses that it has witnessed the lawless
application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless
innocent people, oppression, hatred, and murder, and that it has not found ways
to hasten to their aid. It is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most
defenseless brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.”[1]
These words were penned by an imprisoned pastor who was
suffering under the hands of a tyrannical regime, bent on destroying their own
people. He had witnessed the church turning a blind eye, and he had experienced
an unwillingness to let their hands be soiled by “someone else’s problem.” He lamented the failure of religious leaders to
abandon self-preservation by reminding them, in word and un deed that “The church
is the church only when it exists for others.”[2]
The pastor was Dietrich Bonheoffer and he wrote the words
above during the years leading up to his execution in a Nazi concentration
camp. His words fit equally well into our contemporary dilemma as we face yet
another tyrannical regime, another massacre of the innocent of epic proportion,
and a war-weary public that is either too exhausted, or too apathetic to respond.
Key to any discussion about Syria for Christians must be an
examination of the fundamental relationship between the church and the
government. Herein lies one of the greatest contributions Bonhoeffer makes to
us who bear the name of Christ. Few people struggled as earnestly to unravel
the mysterious relationship between the two in the way that he was forced to.
The Third Reich was able to blur the lines between these fundamental institutions in dramatic ways by
blending together national redefinitions of patriotism, salvation, and power. Many
churches capitulated.
Admittedly, there are significant ways in which the current events in Syria do not parallel the historic
catastrophe of Nazi Germany. Yet, much of what Bonhoeffer
preaches to the church in that hour does find application in our current ethical struggle. Most notably in the West is the way in which the church has often
struggled with a biblical understanding of their political responsibility,
erring frequently towards one extreme or the other. On the one hand finding
solace by removing themselves entirely from political affairs, or on the other,
meddling to the point of usurping the government and legislating morality.
To clarify, Bonhoeffer suggests that the government is the
institution that bears the sword on behalf of the oppressed, and that the church
stands as the institution who holds the government responsible to that task.
The linchpin, Bonhoeffer notes, is Jesus Christ.
Jesus showed that government can
only serve Him, precisely because it is power which comes down from above, no
matter whether it discharges its office well or badly. Both acquitting him of
guilt and in delivering Him up to be crucified, government was obliged to show
that it stands in the service of Jesus Christ. Thus it was precisely through
the cross that Jesus won back his dominion over government (Col. 2:15), and, at
the end of all things, “all dominion and government and power” will be both
abolished and preserved through him. So long as the earth continues, Jesus will
always be at the same time Lord of all government and head of the church.[3]
In this way the church can, and should, support the
government, when they act on behalf of
injustice and loss of innocent life. This is not a call to “blind obedience,”
and to suggest such would be to completely misunderstand the cultural context from
which Bonhoeffer wrote. Let us remember that he was killed for his role in an
assassination attempt on the leader of his own government. Bonhoeffer would be
the first to readily concede that there are times when the church is called, precisely
because of its regard for the oppressed, particularly the religiously oppressed,
to stand against their government.
I readily
admit that the myriad of highly complicated political and theological issues
surrounding whether or not to initiate a missile strike on Syria will not be
handled in a lone blog entry, and certainly not one written by me. But I do add
to my own voice to Dietrich’s when he reminds all who claim the name of Christ
to consider this:
“We are not to simply bandage the
wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into
the wheel itself.”
