Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 80 Years On

 

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the execution by the Gestapo of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (spelled incorrectly above) only a month before the Nazi regime capitulated to the Allies. His death came after a year and a half of incarceration on suspicion that he was involved in a plot to kill Hitler.

Bonhoeffer emigrated to the United States for theological studies in 1930 and while he was less than impressed by the seminary  but he met a black student named Frank Fisher who introduced him to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. He taught taught Sunday School there and formed a love for the African-American church. He heard Adam Clayton Powell preach the "Gospel of Social Justice" and became sensitive to the social injustices experienced by racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., as well as the ineptitude of churches when it came to bringing about integration. Dietrich eventually chose to return to Germany despite the rise of Nazism. 

                                                         Dietrich Bonhoeffer Icon -- Kelly Latimore

Boenhoeffer has become the darling of some Evangelical Christians in the United States, a group that tends to sneer at the term social justice. I wonder how much they know about his background?I read Bonhoeffer in my 20s but I wasn't aware of the Harlem connection. Nor was I aware that one of his poems was set to music. 

I appreciate that Kelly Latimore has bestowed saintly status on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great Christian figures of the 20th century. 

[Hymn] By Gentle Powers (By Gracious Powers)

Music: Siegfried Fietz (b.1946; 1977; Berleburg)

Original lyric: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (潘霍華; 1994; 1906-1945)

English lyric: Ulrich Schaffer

Verse 1

Surrounded by such true and gentle powers

So wondrously consoled and without fear,

Thus will I spend with You these final hours,

And then together enter a new year.

Chorus

By gentle powers lovingly surrounded,

With patience we’ll endure, let come what may.

God is with us at night and in the morning

and certainly on every future day.

Verse 2

The worries of the old year still torment us.

We’re troubled still by long and wicked days.

O Lord, give our frightened souls the healing,

For which You’ve chastened us in many ways.

Verse 3

And though You offer us the cup so heavy.

So painful, it’s the most that we can stand.

Not faltering, with thanks we will accept it

And take it as a gift from Your good hand.

Verse 4

And should it be Your will once more to grant us.

To see the world and to enjoy the sun,

Then we will all the past events remember

And finally our life with You is one.

Verse 5

Let the candles blaze today warmly and brightly,

which You brought into our darkness;

let’s again follow together, if it can be.

We know that Your light shines in the night.

Verse 6

If now the stillness is deeply ready for us

let us then hear that resonant tone

of the world which extends unseen around us,

[and] of all Your children’s loud praise-song.