Dying to Come Alive: Lessons from the Life of a Modern MartyrSample

The youth conference on the island of Fanø began on August 22, 1934, and Bonhoeffer led the devotions. One participant, Margarete Hoffer, recalled, “At our first devotions we were urgently told, as the watchword for our entire conference, that our work cannot and must not consist of anything but listening together to what the Lord says, and in praying together that we may hear aright. Listening in faith to the words of the Bible, hearing one another as listeners who obey; this is the core of all ecumenical work.” Another participant, E. C. Blackman, said, “We started in the right atmosphere, for at our devotions on the first morning Bonhoeffer reminded us that our primary object was not to commend our own views, national or individual, but to hear what God would say to us.”

The radical nature of what Bonhoeffer said and did at Fanø is difficult to overstate. One may draw a direct line from Fanø to Flossenbürg concentration camp eleven years later. The prison doctor at Flossenbürg, having no idea whom he was watching, later recalled: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to God . . . so certain that God heard his prayer. . . . I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” This was Bonhoeffer at Fanø. What made him stand out, to some as an inspiration, to others as an oddity, and to others as an offense, was that he did not hope that God heard his prayers, but knew it. When he said they needed to humble themselves and listen to God’s commands and obey them, he was not posturing. He wanted to impart this vision of God and was saying that one must utterly trust God now and must know that hearing him is indeed all that matters. Many in the ecumenical movement and in the Confessing Church obviously didn’t quite believe that. But Bonhoeffer knew that God could not help them unless they acted out of faith and obedience.

Who in your life has inspired you to follow God in faith and obedience? In what ways did they model faith and obedience? Are you modeling these same principles for someone else in your life?