LSTC Chicago

Becoming Human: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theological Confrontation with White Supremacy

Dr. Reggie Williams, associate professor of Christian Ethics,

McCormick Theological Seminary

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, and political activist in Germany, during one of the world's most infamous political regimes. The context of his min-istry included interaction with nostalgia for national greatness in post-WWI Germany. German Nazism was in its nascent stages and most non-Jewish Germans did not see it as dangerous. Yet, after spending a year as a student in Harlem, New York, attending a black Baptist church, and studying the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Bon-hoeffer saw racism as a Christian problem. Upon his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer recognized that white racist Christians there had turned Jesus into a representation of ideal humanity, which is historically catastrophic, dis-torting humanity in all aspects of human social interac-tion. Rather than the idealized humanity of white su-premacy, Bonhoeffer advocated that we see ourselves and others in the concrete reality, enabling us to love and live in real community, with real human beings.

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