Bonhoeffer and Faith: Taking the First Step for Our Immigrant Neighbors
Reading Discipleship in 2024
Because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine. Instead, it creates existence anew. Discipleship, 62
The second chapter of Discipleship continues to establish the groundwork for Christian faith. Having already distinguished between cheap grace and costly grace, Bonhoeffer articulates the conditions for belief. Levi steps out from his tax collecting booth; Peter leaves his nets behind. As long as they remain in these situations, they have knowledge of God but not belief. Bonhoeffer describes it this way:
Things used to be different. Then they could live quietly in the country, unnoticed in their work, keep the law, and wait for the Messiah. But now he was there; now his call came. Now faith no longer meant keeping quiet and waiting, but going in discipleship with him. Now his call to discipleship dissolved all ties for the sake of the unique commitment to Jesus Christ. Now all bridges had to be burned and the step taken to enter into the endless insecurity, in order to know what Jesus demands and what Jesus gives. (Discipleship, 62)
The footnotes to this section include a reference to Kierkegaard. Bonhoeffer’s edition of Kierkegaard’s journals includes a heavily marked section that speaks about the relationship between “decisive action” and “becoming Christian”. For Kierkegaard, we can never “be" Christian. Faith is not a starting point that we somehow get beyond; we are always in process of “becoming Christian”. We are confronted with decisions every day—will we follow Jesus or seek our own security? Will we rest in doctrinal or moral abstraction—affirming our beliefs by appealing to higher standard? Or, will we follow Jesus back into the mess of the world? Faith, for Kierkegaard, is never something we add to our life; faith in Jesus Christ always creates a “new existence”.
The problem with the current culture wars is the limited understanding of culture. For many evangelical Christians, morality is the lens for interpreting culture. For both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer, culture is something deeper than “woke-ism” or human sexuality, culture is about ideology—the settled patterns and norms that map a way of life. The map determines the boundaries by which we situate ourselves within a community. It is undergirded by narratives that create and support the map, which is why there is a crisis when new maps with new boundaries are introduced. For Bonhoeffer, this is the nature of discipleship—it messes up the lines, blurs the boundaries, and calls us into a new way of life. Think of Levi and Peter, comfortable in the lives they had made, until Jesus calls them out.
It’s easy to see how these issues are at play in the political rancor surrounding the 2024 election. Both sides conjure fear, portraying the other group as the end to a way of life. The immigration issue has been caught up in this rhetoric. The immigrant and refugee has become abstract concepts that are woven into competing narratives. The southern border has been elevated to a political concept that needs no explanation—just speaking it evokes a response. But these are narratives that, like Levi’s tax booth and Peter’s boat, keep us from following Jesus. Bonhoeffer calls the Christian community to do the work of taking the first step, to “come out of the boat”, and leave behind the security of cheap grace. (Discipleship 68)
What does it mean for us to get out of the boat? It means doing the hard work of welcoming immigrants and refugees into our communities by helping them find work and a place to live. It means connecting them to community resources—schools, medical care, and mental health services. It means helping them find trustworthy legal representation, speaking with local law enforcement to ensure justice equity, and helping them navigate the hidden rules of their new community. It means seeking their flourishing and the flourishing of their families by holding our representatives responsible when they objectify our immigrant neighbors for political gain. It means holding our churches responsible when they put doctrinal and moral principles over the concrete presence of Jesus in our immigrant neighbors.
Bonhoeffer ends this chapter with a discussion of the young man’s question to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” This is a question of unbelief. “Who is my neighbor? is the final question of despair or hubris, in which disobedience justifies itself. The answer is: You yourself are the neighbor: Go and be obedience in acts of love.” (Discipleship 76)
If you got faced with the question of "natural born vs foreign born" (in terms of preferred demographics) what is your answer?