Today is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birthday. As the unofficial Protestant saint of martyrs, his legacy continues to influence Christians today. What his life teaches us is the possibility that racial reconciliation is possible in the here and now. For himself, in his mid-20s, he chose to go to New York, attend Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and learn about the African American Christian traditions. In a practical sense, Bonhoeffer’s decision to sit at the feet of clergy from a different ethnicity than himself led him to live out a theology of justice and reconciliation.
For a video about how influential Bonhoeffer’s life is, check out Unsettled Christianity.
Bonhoeffer’s time in Harlem is something I know little about but it is something that has intrigued me. He does seem to have been greatly impacted by the Black church. I wonder how much influence this had on his decision to return to Germany?
A lot to do with it. He saw the racism in the US and then looked in the German mirror.
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Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, the biography by Eric Metaxas (whom is in the video at Unsettled Christianity), gets into much of the African American church’s influence on the German theologian. The white American biographer gives a good history of “the already historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, which was started exactly one hundred years earlier [to Bonhoeffer's worship of God there], [founded] during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, when a group of African Americans left the First Baptist Church of New York City over its segregated policy.” Metaxas says, “By the mid-1930s, Abyssinian … was arguably the largest Protestant church of any kind in the whole United States …. [and its pastor, Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Sr.] was active in combating racism and minced no words about the saving power of Jesus Christ.” And, “There, in the socially downtrodden African American community, Bonhoeffer would finally hear the gospel preached and see its power manifested.” (page 108).
Metaxas explains that Bonhoeffer drew parallels between (A) the “Aryan Paragraph” adopted by many of the “mainstream Protestant Christian leaders” in Germany, who “reasoned that Jews who were baptized Christians could form their own church and had no particular business expecting to be a part of a distinctly ‘German’ church” and (B) the “separate, but equal” notions “in the Jim Crow American South,” notions of “Many sincere white American Christians … about Christians of other races until just a few decades ago.” (page 152) And it was in the African American community in Harlem, that “For the first time Bonhoeffer saw the gospel preached and lived out in obedience to God’s commands. He was entirely captivated, and for the rest of his time in New York, he was there every Sunday to worship and to teach a Sunday school class of boys; he was active in a number of groups in the church; and he gained the trust of many members and was invited to their homes. Bonhoeffer realized that the older people at Abyssinian had been born when slavery was legal in the United States. Surely some of them were born into the horrid institution.” Metaxas goes on to share how Bonhoeffer’s experience was formed by the music there and by “negro literature.” The biographer gives a few quotations of the German regarding how he was ever trying to “get to know the situation of the Negroes in a bit more detail.” At first, he had a strong “belief that there was no ‘analogous situation in Germany’”; but after being in New York among the community there, that all changed. We can imagine that these experiences did lead to his decision to return home.
Bless you, Kurk.
I take it you are reading Metaxes book.