Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic, Conditional Pacifism, and Resistance

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was first and foremost a Christian theologian whose peace ethic grew out of his theology, as did his role in the coup d’état conspiracy to overthrow Hitler and National Socialism. Bonhoeffer’s was not an ethic of principles, neither nor did he abandon his Christian peace ethic to support the conspiracy. This chapter traces the development of his peace ethic to a form of conditional pacifism whose main components were Christological, ecclesial, scriptural, and doctrinal. Likewise it argues that his ethic of free responsibility exercised in the conspiracy must be understood from key theological passages and ethical themes in his book Ethics.