A 2023 study from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics found that 40 percent of both Biden and Trump supporters “at least somewhat believed the other side had become so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to prevent them from achieving their goals.” 

That was the second paragraph in this article from Christianity Today. (It was written before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the withdrawal of Biden from the race.)

This is a time when Dietrich Bonhoeffer is mentioned. On the far right, I’ve seen his name invoked when violent uprisings are being promoted in case the “radical left” takes power. Jared Stacy in this article cautions about the truncated view of Bonhoeffer extreme positions like to look at in his life without taking into account the full struggle Bonhoeffer went through… and then gladly accepting his punishment when he was arrested for being a part of the conspiracy to kill Hitler.

Stacy challenges the reader to rethink Bonhoeffer, but also to consider a far lesser known pastor and theologian, Kornelis Heiko Miskotte, who pastored in Nazi occupied Amsterdam. He led Christians through spiritual formation during Nazi occupation, and he also took action by sheltering Jews in his home. He equipped believers to follow Christ closely and allow the Spirit to bear witness through them to the horrible occupation of the Germans around them.

Biblical pastoral theology should give clergy resources to help their church members answer vital questions like “Whom do we trust?” and “In what do we hope?”—which have a profound impact as much on our everyday lives as in the most extreme moments. And as Eugene Peterson would say, a pastor’s primary job is not galvanizing congregants for a partisan cause but rather, in the words of his biographer, “teaching people to pray and teaching them to die a good death.”

By taking his parishioners deep into the Word he hoped to cultivate a better resistance to Nazi occupation.

In this way, Miskotte saw Christian sanctification as a form of sabotage.

When we are faithfully discipled in allegiance to the Kingdom of God, it is a threat to totalitarian regimes in any age. Faithful discipleship in the first century was a threat to the Romans.

To proclaim “Jesus is Lord” then was to question Caesar’s claim of total authority, and thus this confession was seen as an indirect sabotage and subversion of the Roman order and the violence that built it.

Declaring “Jesus is Lord” is what it means to be a Christian. It is Christ alone… no rivals, no counter-creeds… no other allegiances. And that is a direct threat to totalitarian regimes.

We need to think about a Confessing Church in the U.S. right now. We may need a new Barmen Declaration of some sort. What we don’t need is taking an action from Bonhoeffer’s life, divorcing it from his long theological struggle, and just deciding we’ll overthrow elections we don’t like. Not in the name of Christ!

Instead of the Bonhoeffer option and its anomalous permission for violence, American Christians can rediscover the wisdom of pastoral theology in Miskotte and—closer to home—similar witnesses like Martin Luther King Jr., who during the Montgomery bus boycott instructed participants to

pray for guidance and commit yourself to complete non-violence in word and action as you enter the bus. … If cursed, do not curse back. If pushed, do not push back. If struck, do not strike back, but evidence love and goodwill at all times.

We are in the prophetic path of witnessing to the peace of Christ, which reconciles and sustains the world. Restoration comes through Cross, not the sword.