American and German Christianity Compared

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me a link to yesterday's blog on the Inhabitatio Dei weblog. Blogger Halden Doerge wrote a blog about Eberhard Bethege on American and German Christianity that quotes from John de Gruchy's biography of Eberhard Bethege. Bethege was a student and the key biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Here's the quote:

As we entered the foyer, an usher stepped forward and gave me two badges to fasten to my lapel: the on on the left said, Jesus First and on the right, one with an American flag...I could not help but think myself in Germany in 1933...Of course, 'Jesus First', but and American Jesus! And so to the long history of faith and its executors another chapter is being added of a mixed image of Christ, of another syncretism on the American model, undisturbed by and knowledge of that centuries-long and sad history.

Bethge added some remarks that have an uncanny contemporary ring to them:

The disturbing fact is this new element, the battle for a 'Christian nation' against humanism. The flag has always been in the churches, but now it has come to represent the new threat of binding the political structure to an ideology, which models a whole new educational system, and a new kind of representation in Washington, and a newly interpreted Constitution.

For Bethge, who had a great love for the United States and the democratic vision of its Founding Fathers, and who enjoyed visiting there, these signs were disturbing. He could only hope that they would not develop along the lines he feared they might.

(John W. de Gruchy, Daring, Trusting Spirit: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Friend Eberhard Bethge [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005], 200-201.)

This information comes at a particularly timely moment. This afternoon I will be involved in a presentation of Theologians Under Hitler to a large group of Democrats in Norman, OK. If I could get an invitation, I would be happy to make a similar presentation to a group of Republicans. I will be speaking to a group of Libertarians next week.