Church and Jewish Question (1933) - D. Bonhoeffer essay / radio talk

FROM WHO IS CHRIST FOR US? D. Bonhoeffer

translated and edited by Craig Nessam from Vol. 12

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works:

It is not the church but the state that creates

and changes the law.  Too much law and order

is juxtaposed against too little law and order.

This means that the state has so extended

its authority that it steals from the Christian

proclamation and Christian faith its own

right.  The church must resist this presumption

by the governmental order exactly because of its

better understanding of the state and the limits

of State actions.  The state that endangers Christian

proclamation denies itself.  This indicates

a threefold possibility for ecclesial action over

against the state.  

First, there is the questioning of the state about

whether the character of its action is legitimate,

that is, to call the state to responsibility.  

Second, there is service to the victims of

state action.  The church is obligated uncondi-

tionally to the victims in every civil order,

even when they do not belong to the Christian

congregation. . .The third possibility consists

of this, not only to tend to the victims under

the wheel, but to stick a rod in the spokes of

the wheel itself.  Such action would be 

inherently political action by the church and

is only then possible and requisite when the 

church sees that the state has failed in its

function of creating law and order.