Bonhoeffer would vote for Hillary or Trump - and so should you

Wayne Grudem’s defence of a vote for Trump evoked an avalanche of repudiation, a veritable beat down by an array of theologically likeminded, #NeverTrumpers. A vote for Trump would be “wicked,” they said. It would violate Christian conscience and stain one’s reputation. We’ll come back to Grudem and his critics, but first let’s revisit a few chapters from the extraordinary life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - pastor,theologian, and eventual conspirator to assassinate Adolf Hitler. 

Obedience to the will of God required decision after decision Bonhoeffer expected to permanently stain his reputation in the eyes of many respected friends and likely destroy any future in ministry should he survive.

In a 1942 Christmas letter prepared for fellow conspirators Bonhoeffer wrote, "We have been the silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?"

He had, in a thousand ways, knowingly dirtied his hands in the conspiracy - even to the point of volunteering to carry a bomb to Hitler.

Not that Bonhoeffer came to despise his own moral “reputation” as worthless or indifferent. For Bonhoeffer, the same Psalms where “putting to shame,” and “being put to shame” figure repeatedly and prominently as central preoccupations, also teach that the one committed to doing God’s will cannot secure and must not attempt to secure his own reputation.

The obedient servant looks to his master alone for vindication: "'Then I shall not be put to shame, having fixed my eyes on all your commandments' (Psalm 119:6) I look at God’s commandments when I base my decisions neither on other people nor even my own thoughts or experiences, but rather when I ask ever anew, even if contrary to my pious thoughts and experiences, for what God commands me. I can be put to shame even by my most pious decisions and ways but never by God’s commandment. God alone, not my piety, will preserve me from shame and dishonour."

Bonhoeffer identified “three possible ways in which the church can act toward the state.” The third way “is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself.”

The overriding concern? Not one’s reputation, not making some sort of statement about one’s own integrity, but doing what one could to help others, to serve others, to reduce or prevent the suffering of others.

Bonhoeffer bemoaned as scandalous the spectacle of church leaders who, though poised to pop the champagne corks to celebrate Hitler’s arrest or assassination from a safe distance, were unwilling to soil their own consciences or their own hands to see the deeds done themselves. They wanted the spoke hurled, just not by them:

"The man with a conscience fights a lonely battle against the overwhelming forces of inescapable situations which demand decisions...Some who seek to escape from taking a stand publicly find a place of refuge in private virtuousness. Such a man does not steal. He does not commit murder. He does not commit adultery. Within the limits of his powers he does good. He must be blind and deaf to the wrongs which surround him. It is only at the price of an act of self-deception that he can safeguard his private blamelessness against contamination through responsible action in the world. Whatever he may do, that which he omits to do will give him no peace. Either this disquiet will destroy him or he will become the most hypocritical of Pharisees."

For Bonhoeffer, when the suffering of others is at stake, the follower of Jesus Christ acts to stop, prevent, or mitigate the suffering. It acts not for itself but in service to others, even if such service threatens to soil ones ostensibly "clean hands," or jeopardizes one’s present or potential future reputation, or even one’s life. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

For Bonhoeffer, the Christian ought not turn opportunities for such service into occasions for self-display, self-expression, or self-protection. The faithful disciple does not shrink back from the moral cesspool that is this world and settle for some lesser and less urgent cause fixated on oneself rather than others. Bonhoeffer also realised that, however global one’s human and Christian identity, one’s national identity also counts and must impinge upon pursuit of the will of God and discernment of true patriotism.

Could such discipleship and patriotism in 2016 treat as less urgent the potential harm a sitting president of the United States might unleash upon hundreds of millions around the globe than some chance to display the purity of its conservative or liberal credentials or to teach a political party a lesson by staying home on election day or to cast a protest vote for a candidate who cannot win? No.

I see, and Grudem too seems to see, two wheels rolling towards hundreds of millions of actual people, each bound to discharge its own unique mix of help and harm. He has one spoke to jam into one wheel and perhaps prevent deliverance of one package of potential hurt to others.

Retreat from that binary choice offers no platform of superior sanctity on which to preen, no pulpit from which to educate others, no paddle with which to spank a political party, and certainly no ostensibly "spiritual" refuge within which to pursue personal or private virtuousness. Others’ lives are in the path of two wheels, one of which shall roll over them. The names of these wheels are Trump and Hillary. No other names and no other options enter in.

Surely Election Day 2016 beckons each voting age American follower of Jesus Christ to jam his or her one spoke into one of those two wheels.

Mark DeVine is associate professor of history and doctrine at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at All Costs

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