BradTaylor

Bonhoeffer: Chapter 3

In the third chapter of Bonhoeffer, Metaxas details Dietrich’s first trip to Rome, which he took at age 18 with his brother, Klaus.

What immediately struck me in reading this chapter was how exceptionally brilliant Bonhoeffer was. At age 18 he treasured the art he witnessed in Rome with journal entries chock full of first-class nomenclature, even noting Michelangelo’s work and its “perspectival shortening,” whatever that means.

As much as he valued the artistic expressions he witnessed in Rome, his trip there brought him face to face with some realities that would profoundly impact the rest of his life regarding another important expression: the church. On Palm Sunday, 1924, Bonhoeffer wrote that he was beginning, he believed, “to understand the concept of ‘church.’” What was most profound to him was the realization that the church reached beyond the “Lutheran Protestant Church of Germany,” and was a truly universal entity, a worldwide Christian community. And this would be instrumental in his joining the ecumenical movement in Europe, which helped him see the lie that was being espoused in Germany, namely that the church was inseparably linked to the German Volk (simply, the German word for “folk,” or a general term for the German people). This idea was pushed hard by the Nazis and was largely embraced by the German people, and would ultimately be what led Bonhoeffer down the path he chose, the path that would later in his life cause his death.

Incredibly, while he was in Rome at the age of just 18, Bonhoeffer somehow gained audience with the Pope. The first line of his journal detailing this experience simply read: “Great expectations dashed.” Safe to say, though, that his encounter with the Pope was the only disappointing thing about DIetrich’s first trip to Rome. His life and perspective were forever changed.