The Theologian Who Chose to Go Back

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat in a New York apartment with every reason to stay. Friends had arranged a teaching position at Union Theological Seminary, a safe harbor from the Nazi regime tightening its grip on Germany. He had escaped. He was free.

He lasted twenty-six days.

Writing to Reinhold Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer explained his decision to return: "I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people."

He boarded a ship back to Berlin knowing full well what awaited him. Friends warned him. Colleagues pleaded. The dangers were specific and lethal. Six years later, he was hanged at Flossenburg concentration camp, just weeks before liberation.

When the Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him, Jesus did not flinch. "I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day," he said. His mission was not negotiable. Like Bonhoeffer, and yet infinitely greater, Jesus set his face toward the city where prophets die, driven not by duty alone but by a fierce, gathering love for a people who did not yet understand what they were refusing.