278 - Bonhoeffer's Ethic of Discipleship

Bonhoeffer's Ethic of Discipleship

By Kenneth Earl Morris

University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986. 180 Pp. $17.95.

Kenneth Morris begins the Preface to his book by saying, "the idea for a study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer occurred to me while I was searching for a topic through which to explore a threefold interest in psychological development, political thought, and religion." Indeed, the study does move between those three perspectives, and it is to Morris' great credit that he attempts not to reduce his interpretation of Bonhoeffer's life to any one of the three perspectives. In spite of the multiple perspectives, the book is not written from a theological vantage point, and so, in fact, theological concepts tend to be reduced to psycho-social categories.

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Morris is interested in describing Bonhoeffer's ethic of discipleship as it was developed in relationship to Bonhoeffer's psychology, on one hand, and the environing political situation, on the other. The ethic of discipleship was set forth primarily in The Cost of Discipleship, and in it Morris finds three principal paradoxes. The paradox of sociality focuses upon the tension between the individual and the social character of reality. The paradox of grace concerns the contrast of "cheap" instrumental grace of human effort versus "costly" grace of God's incarnation. The paradox of obedience concerns how a person can be obedient to a divine command that is objectively uncertain. Morris proceeds to interpret the ethic of discipleship around these three paradoxes.

The author's thesis is that Bonhoeffer's religious vocation developed in response to his older brother's death in World War 1. That death contributed to an emotional breakdown of Bonhoeffer's mother. She and her young son entered into a psychological alliance for him to take the place of the older brother in her religious life. Bonhoeffer's religious vocation, the acceptance of the guilt of another, and giving Jesus Christ one's own death are related to this psychological alliance.

Bonhoeffer's concept of sociality was established in his doctoral thesis, The Communion of Saints. Therein, a psycho-social understanding of reality was wed to a theology of Christ's transcendence. When the concept of sociality was brought together with the willingness to die for Christ in obedience beyond instrumental calculation, the ethic of discipleship was born. Morris attempts to show that these elements were present in a speech in 1932, prior to the advent of the Nazis. Therefore, the ethic of discipleship was originally an effort to resolve the paradoxes already mentioned, and only later was it developed into a political response to the Nazis.

Furthermore, Morris argues that the decision to enter the assassination plot against Hitler's life was a move within and beyond discipleship. In an effort genuinely to be obedient and not to speak with hollow words, Bonhoeffer joined his family members in the assassination plot. In Morris' view, Bonhoeffer's adult life was a struggle to reconcile his teenage vocational commitment to theology with his desire to gain the respect of his agnostic and highly accomplished father. That struggle was resolved in the concept of "religionless Christianity" developed in a Nazi prison, and therein the ethic of discipleship was transcended.

Morris' argument depends very much upon establishing a developmental sequence and upon resolving paradoxes. It depends upon showing just when certain ideas appeared and upon speculation about the psychological relationships between mother and son, father and son. When one begins with a method of sequence and paradox, it is not surprising that one finds them, nor is it surprising that theology is transformed to sequence and paradox. The theory of Bonhoeffer's psychological dynamics is highly speculative and very difficult to prove or disprove.

For all of that, the book is very original and does manage to keep

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multiple perspectives before the reader. It is worthy of the attention of anyone interested in the study of Bonhoeffer, and may indeed turn out to be an important contribution to Bonhoeffer studies.

DONALD E. MILLER

Church of the Brethren
Elgin, Illinois