Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

Bonhoeffer moment No. 1: Claiming Christ but losing the gospel

OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist  |  September 24, 2020

At the “turn of the year 1942-3” and some four months before the Nazis arrested him, Lutheran pastor/scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote an essay titled “After Ten Years,” detailing pressures that developed after National Socialism’s assumption of power in 1933. Two years later, Bonhoeffer was dead, executed as the Third Reich was collapsing; his essay hidden “among beams and rafters” until war’s end.

An early paragraph begins: “One may ask whether there have ever before in human history been people with so little ground under their feet — people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile, who looked beyond all these existing alternatives for the source of their strength so entirely in the past or in the future, and why yet, without being dreamers, were able to await the success of their cause so quietly and confidently.”

Bill Leonard

Almost 80 years later, for different but parallel reasons, those words capture our own times. In 2020, it seems as if each new day eradicates a little more economic, political, educational, spiritual ground beneath our feet as individuals, communities, nation and, yes, Christians.

In 2017, I wrote in this space that we are living in a collective Bonhoeffer moment, a time when we, like the German theologian, are being tested beyond measure now by a myriad of challenges and crises, a list that expands daily. The “success” we “await” is a long time coming.

Between now and the “turn of the year” 2020-21, I propose to examine certain Bonhoeffer moments that bring profound tests/trials/ordeals/ideas to nation, church and gospel. I’m not alone; others do that consistently in the Opinion section of BNG. Still others face Bonhoeffer moments in the trenches where the needs, struggles and issues of life and death are perilous. Perhaps by confronting such moments we’ll find a way beyond at least some of them, together.

Race and racism

To begin, I’d suggest that race and racism in America represent a 400-year-old Bonhoeffer moment, stretching from the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619 to the Black Lives Matter movement of the immediate 21st century. Slavery ended officially in 1863, but its demons have never been fully exorcised, perpetuated in Jim Crow laws, white supremacy, segregation, unjust police violence and faulty biblical exegesis.

Robert P. Jones begins his newly published White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in White Christianity with this assessment of his Baptist heritage: “The Christian denomination in which I grew up was founded on the proposition that chattel slavery could flourish alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ. Its founders believed this arrangement was not just possible but also divinely mandated.”

“Southern Protestants conjured up elaborate ‘biblical arguments’ in support of slavery, with Baptists at the forefront.”

Southern Protestants conjured up elaborate “biblical arguments” in support of slavery, with Baptists at the forefront. Consider this exegesis:

Believing Paul’s argument, we would agree that eternal redemption by Christ and eternal ownership of all we are by Christ is infinitely superior to any earthly condition, whether slave or free. Redemption is both freeing and captivating. “For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise, he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave” (1 Corinthians 7:22). We also, as believers in biblical infallibility and in the revelatory ministry of the apostles would see a clear pattern of relationship between slave and master in both the Petrine and the Pauline material. Slaves were to do their service gladly to their masters, even to those who were harsh, embracing the opportunity for sanctification and for emulation of Christ. They were to consider that their work transcended a merely earthly task and was done as unto the Lord.”

What’s happening here? The statement minimizes slaves’ “earthly condition,” spiritualizing it into an “eternal redemption,” for which they are to be grateful. “Biblical infallibility” becomes the authoritative source for a “clear pattern” of slave/master connections, even mandating serving even harsh masters “gladly” as a source of “sanctification” and Christlikeness.

Our Bonhoeffer moment

And therein lies our own 21st century Bonhoeffer moment since those words come not from Richard Furman’s 1822 “biblical” defense of slavery, but in 2020 by Tom Nettles, retired history professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nettles’ exegesis is a rejoinder to an open letter by African American SBC pastor, Dwight McKissic, requesting that the seminary remove the names of slaveholding founders James P. Boyce, John A. Broadus, Basil Manly and William Williams from the school’s buildings as a sign of repentance for its slavery-fused origins.

I’ll leave the debate over names and buildings to Southern Baptists, while repenting for never having questioned such naming during my 17 years on the SBTS faculty. My concern here is for the application of Nettles’ exegesis to a slavery-permitting society whenever it might appear.

Nettles acknowledges that he and McKissic “agree that the Bible reprobates man-stealing (1 Timothy 1:10; Exodus 21:16)” and “that freedom is superior as a temporal condition to slavery and should be achieved when a lawful opportunity arises (1 Corinthians 7:21).”

Contrary to McKissic, he indicates that biblical mandates related to a slavery-oriented culture, then and now, remain intact, noting:

In their faithful service, considering their master as worthy of “all honor,” (slaves) would adorn gospel doctrine. Slaves should serve believing masters with good will toward the prospering and well-being of the master. The bondservant would be rewarded by God for faithful service or would be judged by him impartially for wrongdoing. Masters must not threaten or be harsh, must provide for their bondservants in a just and fair way, and consider releasing those so gifted for service in gospel ministry. Masters, like slaves, will be judged according to an absolute standard of justice. They were to consider one another, even in this relationship of slave and master, as beloved because graciously and eternally loved by God and as brothers because of having received the Spirit of adoption whereby both cry “Abba, Father.” (Galatians 3:26-4:7; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22 – 4:1; 1 Timothy 6:1, 2; Titus 2:9, 10; Philemon 10-20)

“To Christianize the slave/master hierarchy is to claim Christ while denying the gospel itself.”

But surely the master/slave construct is not a “complementarity,” in which each party shares temporal inequality, but spiritual equality before a God who decrees such a horrendous subject/object association. Because the biblical writers developed a theology for Christianizing master/slave linkage does not mean that such a practice is perpetually legitimated by the gospel of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. In fact, the incarnation itself is a judgment against that relationship wherever it appears. To Christianize the slave/master hierarchy is to claim Christ while denying the gospel itself: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”

For Nettles, “The elimination of slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation and the South’s defeat in the Civil War, did not change the theology of Boyce and the seminary cohort in any of these truths of revelation. All of this confirms the vital importance of the transcendent, trans-historical, trans-cultural, trans-temporal blessing of revealed truth. … For the manner in which these blessings of grace were embraced, articulated and transferred to succeeding generations, we should let our gratitude smother our suspicion.”

But for the church, at least the African American church, it was and is the gospel of Jesus Christ that eliminated slavery, long before the Emancipation Proclamation made slavery illegal in the land of the free and the home of white supremacy.

We still hear that in the testimony of the slave woman named Winney, disciplined by a Kentucky Baptist Church in 1807 for saying out loud that “she once thought it her duty to serve her mistress and her master, but since the Lord had converted her she had never believed that any Christian kept negroes or slaves.”

Preach on, Sister Winney. Preach on. Maybe someday we’ll all claim Christ and that gospel.

Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie. 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:slaveryBonhoefferTom NettlesBill LeonardSouthern Baptist Theological Seminary
More by
Bill Leonard, Senior Columnist
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • First they came for them, then they came for us

      Opinion

    • U.S. immigration policies are harming persecuted Christians, evangelical leaders warn

      News

    • Hispanic students report highest levels of discrimination in some educational institutions

      News

    • Idolatry is alive and well today

      Opinion


    Curated

    • As psychedelic-assisted therapy grows, so does interest from a new group: chaplains

      As psychedelic-assisted therapy grows, so does interest from a new group: chaplains

    • Victims march to Rome to demand ‘zero tolerance’ on church abuse

      Victims march to Rome to demand ‘zero tolerance’ on church abuse

    • AI Has No Place in the Pulpit

      AI Has No Place in the Pulpit

    • This Christian text you’ve never heard of, The Shepherd of Hermas, barely mentions Jesus − but it was a favorite of early Christians far and wide

      This Christian text you’ve never heard of, The Shepherd of Hermas, barely mentions Jesus − but it was a favorite of early Christians far and wide

    Read Next:

    SoConCon links Focus on the Family with secular politics of Heritage Foundation and Koch groups

    NewsSteve Rabey

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • First Fresh Expressions United Methodist gathering won’t go to Florida

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • 50 years later, Celebrate Life still is the wind we soar on

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom allegedly ‘manufactured’ wedding cases to battle gay rights

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Never say never: The Now and Forever Windows at the National Cathedral

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • LBJ’s Great Society hurt Blacks more than slavery, Tim Scott declares

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • For the Bible tells me so: The Bible and the Civil Rights movement

      OpinionKaitlyn Schiess

    • Candidates seek to increase LGBTQ representation in public office

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Templeton Foundation funds first-of-its-kind research into the religious ‘nones’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Listen to the woman: Cassidy Hutchinson

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Cats and dogs at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • Hispanic students report highest levels of discrimination in some educational institutions

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Idolatry is alive and well today

      OpinionNapoleon Harris

    • Conspiracy theories link Jesus, JFK and Trump

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • First they came for them, then they came for us

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • U.S. immigration policies are harming persecuted Christians, evangelical leaders warn

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • The importance of remembering the March on Washington in 2023

      AnalysisJeremiah Bullock

    • Don’t call it burn-out

      OpinionTodd Thomason

    • SoConCon links Focus on the Family with secular politics of Heritage Foundation and Koch groups

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Together for Hope names Appalachia director

      NewsBNG staff

    • Why potluck and Wednesday night dinners are important

      OpinionMaina Mwaura

    • Remembering BNG columnist Terry Austin

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Are Americans ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ or both or neither?

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Chi Alpha campus ministry leaders indicted in Texas

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Why the Haitian shoe seller can’t sell shoes

      AnalysisCynthia Vacca Davis

    • First Fresh Expressions United Methodist gathering won’t go to Florida

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • 50 years later, Celebrate Life still is the wind we soar on

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom allegedly ‘manufactured’ wedding cases to battle gay rights

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • LBJ’s Great Society hurt Blacks more than slavery, Tim Scott declares

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Candidates seek to increase LGBTQ representation in public office

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Templeton Foundation funds first-of-its-kind research into the religious ‘nones’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Hispanic students report highest levels of discrimination in some educational institutions

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Conspiracy theories link Jesus, JFK and Trump

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • U.S. immigration policies are harming persecuted Christians, evangelical leaders warn

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • SoConCon links Focus on the Family with secular politics of Heritage Foundation and Koch groups

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Together for Hope names Appalachia director

      NewsBNG staff

    • Remembering BNG columnist Terry Austin

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Are Americans ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ or both or neither?

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Chi Alpha campus ministry leaders indicted in Texas

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • This week’s BNG webinar: Amy Butler

      NewsBNG staff

    • A former victim of Boko Haram terrorism finds love in America; meanwhile, others remain in captivity 

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • Falwell accuses Liberty University of financial and sexual irregularities in legal filing

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Samford students mark one-year anniversary with another silent protest for LGBTQ inclusion

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Most Americans see immigration as a good thing, but Republicans disagree

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • United Methodist court exonerates suspended Latina bishop on four charges

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Kate Campbell is glad to be back in the room where it happens

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • In South Africa, fire deaths shine a light on immigrant churches in ‘hijacked’ slum buildings”

      NewsRay Mwareya

    • Finding a pastor today is nothing like it was 30 years ago, consultants caution

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • SBC expels Oklahoma church over pastor’s racial impersonations

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • Never say never: The Now and Forever Windows at the National Cathedral

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • For the Bible tells me so: The Bible and the Civil Rights movement

      OpinionKaitlyn Schiess

    • Listen to the woman: Cassidy Hutchinson

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Cats and dogs at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • Idolatry is alive and well today

      OpinionNapoleon Harris

    • First they came for them, then they came for us

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • Don’t call it burn-out

      OpinionTodd Thomason

    • Why potluck and Wednesday night dinners are important

      OpinionMaina Mwaura

    • American idols: Andrew Whitehead on American faith and Christian nationalism

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Creating inner peace

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • ‘Nobody wants to be an addict’

      OpinionTambi Brown Swiney

    • Men and congregational singing: The rest of the story

      OpinionCharlie Fuller

    • Things Christians need to know, for our own sake, about Yom Kippur, Judaism’s Day of Atonement

      OpinionKen Sehested

    • The real religious crisis in America

      OpinionMartin Thielen

    • Fear of dancing and the courage to be serious

      OpinionGreg Jarrell

    • Ken and Angela Paxton do a little sidestep — while quoting Bible verses

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • This is why people are leaving the church

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Criticism of Andy Stanley is rooted in father wounds

      OpinionRick Pidcock

    • What do we mean by ‘affirming’?

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • How long before a revolution?

      OpinionJamar A. Boyd II

    • On death

      OpinionGlen Schmucker

    • Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley: What’s really going on?

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • More religion in public schools raises concerns about religious liberty

      OpinionBryan Kelley

    • In biblical truth-telling, we need to mind the gap between clergy and laity

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • A ‘sad day’ for America?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • As psychedelic-assisted therapy grows, so does interest from a new group: chaplains

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Victims march to Rome to demand ‘zero tolerance’ on church abuse

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • AI Has No Place in the Pulpit

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • This Christian text you’ve never heard of, The Shepherd of Hermas, barely mentions Jesus − but it was a favorite of early Christians far and wide

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Greek court: Orthodox students cannot be exempted from religion classes

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Everything is political, oh my! Why churches should build better capacity for political dialogue

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pastors Wonder About Church Members Who Never Came Back Post-Pandemic

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Meeting between Jewish leaders and Benjamin Netanyahu broaches judicial overhaul — and gets personal

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • West Side Story: Diverse NY Church Represents 5 Continents

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • National Cathedral windows shift from themes of Confederacy to racial justice

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Culture War Is Not Spiritual Warfare

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • AI won’t be replacing your priest, minister, rabbi or imam any time soon

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Who is Siggy Flicker, the ‘Real Housewife’ behind Trump’s Rosh Hashanah message condemning ‘liberal Jews’?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ideological rifts among U.S. bishops are in the spotlight ahead of momentous Vatican meeting

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Two mainland China bishops to attend big Vatican meeting after tensions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Nazi Germany had admirers among American religious leaders – and white supremacy fueled their support

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • How Japanese American Pastors Prepared Their Flocks For Internment

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Belly dancers, terrorists or taxi drivers: Arab American comedians spoof stereotypes

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Freedom struggles of China’s Christian rights lawyers

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Holy Food’ explores American history and religion through food

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Connecting With the Good News Generation

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • What’s the news impact of the intense racism investigation at Wheaton College?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Sikh activist whose killing has divided Canada and India?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Riding a wave of converts, one group aims to fuse Orthodoxy with Southern values

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2023 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS