Bonhoeffer's pacifism …

Christian Century, May 18, 2004 by Ted Grimsrud

JOHN BUCHANAN links two theologians he sees to be supportive of warfare, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer ("In adversity," April 6). However, Bonhoeffer, who unlike Tillich chose to leave the safety of North America to return to risk his life in Germany, went home as a pacifist committed to nonviolent resistance to the Nazis through the work of the Confessing Church. Only when he was in despair at the disintegration of the church did he turn to involvement in the assassination attempt on Hitler. As far as I know, there is no hint that Bonhoeffer ever justified this choice on the grounds of Niebuhrian "Christian realism" or denied that pacifism was the most faithful Christian commitment.

Ted Grimsrud

Harrisonburg, Va.