To consider the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is to have one’s own Christianity confronted. As a twentieth-century martyr, he forces us to ask ourselves what we would die for in a way that early Christian martyrs do not. In other words, his strength of character is intimidating.

I liked him better when I was recently reintroduced to this martyr/hero of World War II by some of his best friends and relatives via a new documentary. Perhaps what I liked better was the question the documentary placed at the center of his life—"What is God’s will for your life?"—a more accessible question than asking what one would die for.

Bonhoeffer premiered at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul on October 23. Producer/Director Martin Doblemeier of Journey Films was there to address the standing-room-only crowd in a program whose proceeds benefited Journey Films and Spectrum magazine.

Bonhoeffer’s poetry was read, his favorite music played, and the documentary commenced. Family photographs were shown of Bonhoeffer’s childhood, his twin sister, and his famous father. Vintage film clips of Germany between the wars, with soldiers marching and Hitler’s speeches, brought the time as well as the man to life. There was also beautiful spiritual music by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem that had so moved Bonhoeffer during his New York days at Union Theological Seminary, as well as interviews with his best friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge, other friends, and Bonhoeffer’s students.

Bonhoeffer went into theology against the wishes of his father and completed his Ph.D. at the tender age of twenty-one. Rather than sit out the war in the United States, he returned to Germany because he felt the German Church was betraying itself by accommodating Hitler. He started a new seminary at Finkenwalde, where he taught the concepts about community about which he had written in his doctoral thesis. Then came the war, Bonhoeffer’s opposition to Hitler, his imprisonment, and his death in 1945.

After the credits rolled and the event ended I found myself returning to Bonhoeffer’s insistence that religion confront the culture of the day. The documentary recounts the events of the 1930’s year-by-year so that one feels the buildup to the war and hears the justification of ridding the world of evil. It all sounded alarmingly familiar.

Now the question that comes to me is whether I could stand for peace in a time of war. Could Christ’s words admonishing us to overcome evil with good make sense in a discussion of weapons of mass destruction? Is violence the only way to end violence?

I am convinced that to be Christ’s follower requires one to stand for peace. How one makes that stand depends upon the answer to the first question, "What is God’s will for my life today?"

Bonhoeffer continues to confront me.

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