Abstract

Popularly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's status as a martyr seems secure. Yet, theologically, his case is not an easy one. On the one hand his confession appears to be only loosely connected to his death while on the other his treasonous activities raise nearly insuperable problems. Even so, when Bonhoeffer is carefully profiled against early Christian martyrdom and against evolutionary trends in the concept of martyrdom itself , Bonhoeffer can be plausibly fitted within the church's martyr tradition. ;Typically, when the term martyr has been applied to Bonhoeffer, it has served more as a moral epitaph on a theologian's life than a theological description or datum for interpretation. If taken seriously, however, Bonhoeffer's martyrdom can be employed hermeneutically to evince dimensions of his life and thought which have not been given their due. Using Heidegger, Rahner and others, a model is proposed which illumines the complex dialectic of life and death. On the model's terms it becomes possible to understand Christian life as the practice of death, and to understand martyrdom the epitome of Christian death. Applied retrospectively, death and martyrdom are seen to be structurally embedded in Bonhoeffer's thought, comprising a loose but certain telos. An analysis of the penultimate-ultimate distinction then provides a fitting foundation for interpreting Bonhoeffer's martyrdom on his own terms. In "Ethics as Formation," martyrdom emerges as the extreme form of care-giving to the neighbor, and in the neighbor, to God's creation. By it Christ is accomplishing the conformation of the world to himself. ;Bonhoeffer's Finkenwalde "experiment," so often treated as a detour, is actually vital to an understanding of his martyrdom. Inasmuch as the Finkenwalde form of life, metered by ritual, was oriented to action outside the seminary, it became a place wherein "Christian life as the practice of death" could be rehearsed through various concrete acts of self-sacrifice. The work of Ronald Green helps to illumine the sense in which Finkenwalde might have mediated Bonhoeffer's theology and ethics, belief and behavior, and, ultimately, his life and death