One powerful sign of the kingdom in our time is Paul Schneider, a German
Reformed clergyman, who became known as the pastor of Buchenwald prison.
He was arrested because he fearlessly proclaimed from his pulpit that Jesus
alone is Lord, and this immediately challenged the pretensions of Hitler,
who claimed to be the only Savior and Fuhrer of Germany. When
Schneider was told by the Gestapo to cease preaching the exclusivistic
claims of the gospel because his children might become orphans, he replied,
"Better that they should be orphans than grow up and know that their father
bowed down to the devil instead of the living God".
Incarcerated in the notorious Buchenwald prison, Schneider was soon
placed in solitary confinement because he would not keep quiet concerning
the uncompromising demands and infallible promises of the gospel.
He eventually died of the ill effects of torture, but even from his solitary
cell his voice could often be heard consoling his fellow prisoners in the
faith and
castigating his guards, calling them to repentance.
In the same period, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a then relatively unknown German Lutheran pastor and theologian, aroused the ire of the Nazis by his radio address attacking the Nazi leadership principle and also by his open support of the Confessing Church movement. Having founded what soon became an underground seminary at Finkenwalde in Pomerania, he demonstrated in his own life what he had urged on others - that fidelity to the kingdom of God takes precedence over all other loyalties, including that which we owe to our nation. By the late 1930s, Bonhoeffer's activities were greatly restricted by the Gestapo. Two of his former professors at Union Theological Seminary in New York succeeded in bringing him safely to America but he could not allow himself to remain in refuge, detached from the sufferings of his people. Against his teachers' advice, he boldly decided to return to Germany, even though by this time he was a marked man.
After the war began, Bonhoeffer, despite his pacifist convictions, was led to participate in a resistance group that eventually plotted to assassinate Hitler. In April 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel in Berlin. While in prison, he had an opportunity to escape, but he called off the escape plans for fear of reprisals against his family. Although often tempted to despair, he radiated a joy and peace that were a constant source of inspiration to his fellow prisoners. He was hanged on the gallows in the Flossenburg prison camp in April 1945.
It is interesting to compare Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul Schneider, both of whom were exceptional Christians. Bonhoeffer was arrested because of his illegal activities in the resistance movement. Schneider was taken into custody simply because of his confession that Jesus alone is Lord. Bonhoeffer has been hailed by secular and political theologians as an outstanding example of political involvement on behalf of the oppressed. What they have not sufficiently discerned is that Bonhoeffer's political acts were motivated by a deep religious faith in the God of the Bible, by an unequivocal commitment to the gospel of reconciliation and redemption. Bonhoeffer will come to be appreciated in this new age of persecution for his devotion to Jesus Christ and not simply for his political heroism. [Go to part III]