Summary of an article by Gottfried Brezger. “To take part in Christ’s greatness of heart, in responsible action and true sympathy” – The dynamics of including the Christology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the traces of  Martin Luther in the resistance against the dynamics of political exclusion

Already the beginning of the Christology is dynamic with the message of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ: being a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, Christ is the power of God for believers (1 Corinthians 1).

In the struggle and confrontation with the including exclusion of the xenophobic national (so called) ‘community’ under the Nazi regime, the ‘Confessing Church’ found its basis and orientation by confessing the ‘Solus Christus’ according to the Barmen Theological Declaration.

The confession of the church is exclusively related to Jesus Christ as its Lord and at the same time inclusive. Being born into his humiliation and suffering, the believers are part of the vicarious suffering of Christ and encounter with ‘the Other’ in vicarious responsibility. A Christian becomes Christ to ‘the Other’:  Bonhoeffer emphasizes this referring to Martin Luther, and vice versa as a Christian encounters Christ in ‘the Other’. In praying and doing justice and waiting for God’s own time, the believers experience the reality of Christ under the sign of reconciliation in the midst of  mankind’s worldly reality with the human heart crooked in itself.

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Gottfried Brezger is a theologian and certified sociologist, Reverend in retirement, chairman of the registered association‚ Memorial and Place of Encounter Bonhoeffer House  in Berlin.

Read whole article (in German language)