Eyes to See

a few thoughts on loving those who leave a legacy

I really enjoyed this article by Joel Looper about various treatments of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; he talks about how Bonhoeffer has become a “cipher,” a mere projection of who we wish he was. I’m not a Bonhoeffer expert by any means, even though like most evangelicals of a certain age, I’ve read The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison. And like most Christian college types who bet big on the power of community, I’ve read and taught Life Together. But I am quick to acknowledge that I’m not an expert, and part of the reason for this is that I don’t feel like I have the expertise to sift through the dizzying array of Bonhoeffers that are offered to me in the books and films referenced in the article.

This is not an article to endorse or disparage any of those books or films (though I will say that I devoured and loved Charles Marsh’s Evangelical Anxiety and thus trust him far more than Eric Metaxas). It is simply to say that I don’t know enough to make real sense of who the historical Bonhoeffer really is, and so I’ve reached the point where I sort of mentally shrug when his name is brought up in support of one cause or another. I just don’t know, and I sort of congratulate myself for having the humility to acknowledge this. It’s sort of a low bar, but it’s something.

I live and teach at Houghton University, where my grandparents taught for many years. They cast a long shadow here. I (and the rest of my faculty colleagues) stand on their shoulders. When we first moved back to Houghton, most of the faculty still knew my grandparents, and most who knew admired them. I was surprised to see how often they were invoked in faculty meeting (and other contexts) during arguments. I was even more surprised to see that they were often cited by people on both sides of the arguments—they were the sort of people that others wanted to be on their side. So I heard from some people that Grandma was a progressive, and others that she was a conservative. I heard that Grandpa would certainly never side with the administration against the faculty, but I also heard the administration cite him for support.

And of course, Grandma and Grandpa were way too retired to tell us what they really thought—they moved away, and now both have passed away. Once others were liberated from Grandma and Grandpa’s actual presence, they could argue without rebuttal about who Grandma and Grandpa really were. Others could go about re-fashioning their legacies in their own image.

It’s not just Bonhoeffer and my grandparents. Martin Luther King is regularly cited as a progressive who pushed people into uncomfortable conversations, and as a conservative who would loathe today’s anti-racism efforts and DEI initiatives. Henri Nouwen experienced persistent and unchosen same-sex attraction yet remained faithful to his vows of celibacy until his death in 1996. There is a brutal tug of war for his legacy between progressives and conservatives on LGBT issues, and what Henri would think if he were alive today.

Some of this is unavoidable, but I want more from us Christians. Part of this is selfish—as people remember the impact I had on their lives, I would like their memory to be consistent with who I actually have been, not as what they wish it would have been. But even more so, I’m worried when Christians flatten and distort others’ legacies because it means that we don’t really struggle with the controversial areas of their thought, and that struggle is often where the growth really is. Something is truly lost, and something truly tragic is happening, when Martin Luther King is taught to suburban white kids like me in wealthy public schools like mine as the “civil” civil rights figure, in comparison with the “angry” Malcolm X. It blunts the reality of who King was; it ignores his complexity; it keeps me from having to consider the ways King’s legacy could help me grow. Something is lost when Bonhoeffer becomes an easy ally in all the causes that I care about, instead of somewhat-distant figure who challenges and illuminates my path.

Of course, we do this with Jesus too. Christians know we shouldn’t, and yet we do it anyway. “Blessed are the poor,” says Jesus, “blessed are the hungry.” We who are rich and full find a way to spiritualize this. “Anyone who is angry with a brother or sister is liable to judgment,” says Jesus, “Anyone who calls another a fool is in danger of a hell of fire.” But we know better; we know others are fools, and so Jesus couldn’t really have meant this. “Unless you eat my flesh,” says Jesus, “Unless you drink my blood, you have no life within you,” but come on. This has to be an object lesson, right?

Advent reminds us that Jesus is coming again. And unless we have learned to see him in this world, we will not be ready to welcome him when he returns. This is why we cannot make Jesus a cipher, a projection of our own ideas and needs, an ally in our own cause or the things we think best. And it is also why we cannot reduce and appropriate the work of God in other people. For me to be ready to welcome Christ when he returns, I must learn to welcome the Christ who is present in King, and Nouwen, and Bonhoeffer, and my grandparents. I must also learn to welcome the Christ who is present in the inconvenient people in my workplace, church and community who challenge me; to welcome the Christ who is present in the poor and war-torn who are mediated to me through the screen; to welcome the Christ who is present in the student who has trouble paying attention or thinks they are smarter than me.

This does not mean that everything these people think or say is right. But how can we begin to parse out what we should learn from them if we are desperate to flatten and control them? How can we know what we have to learn from them until we have approached them with the awe and reverence that comes from knowing that we are in the presence of immortal beings created in the image of God?