Planting Apple Trees: Utilizing Bonhoeffer’s Ethics to Formulate a Foundation for a Church-Community

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

-Martin Luther

Introduction

There are not many ecological ethicists or eco-theologians that regularly refer to the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in their search for a spiritually driven ecojustice. However, Bonhoeffer’s writings are saturated in language of nature, demonstrating the serious considerations of the relationships between humans and nature that captured Bonhoeffer’s thought. Moreso, nature was central to Bonhoeffer’s youth ministry as he regularly led youth trips to the Henz mountains and often writes about his experiences while hiking. Although he never wrote or spoke directly about issues of environmentalism and climate change, there is no doubt that nature played a primary role in his ministry, perhaps even affecting his theological insights. Further, it seems that Bonhoeffer would not have shied away from tackling yet another provocative issue of the church and state. Bonhoeffer’s position as a theologian and pastor during the rule of the Third Reich, demanded he address more urgent issues of direct violence. This demand resulted in many of his more well-known works, such as The Church and the Jewish Question and The Fuhrer and the Individual in the Younger Generation. However, in the year 2017 there is no doubt that climate change is perhaps one of the most urgent issues of our time as it results in an ongoing slow violence of the poor. So much in fact, that James Martin-Schramm authored a piece entitled “Bonhoeffer and the Climate Question,” arguing that it is the “Jewish Question” of our time. As the United States continues to observe growing so-called “climate denialists,” it seems as though the issue of the church’s relationship to climate change requires the provocative nature of Bonhoeffer’s theology.

In Ethics Based On Orders of Creation, Bonhoeffer rejects Luther’s “orders of creation”, and instead moves to accept “orders of preservation,” presenting a new middle-ground to the natural theology debate. I move further to suggest that Bonhoeffer’s “orders of preservation,” would be more applicable to ecotheology if they read as “orders of conservation” that seek to preserve human life. This paper seeks to explore how this linguistic change, alters the lived reality of Bonhoeffer’s theology, particularly in relation to a congregational response to climate change. The thesis of this paper argues that the slow violence of climate change on the poor and marginalized demands a conservationist response from the church-community based on Bonhoeffer’s two-kingdom theory and driven by his acceptance of the “orders of preservation,” which seeks to preserve human life and reduce destruction through the conservation of the environment.

The nature of Bonhoeffer's theology regarding the orders of preservation seems to innately function as a form of conservationist ethics. However, ascribing conservationist ethics to Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall, provides new angles of vision in eco-theology. Extending originally from Luther’s “orders of creation” and further through Bonhoeffer, “orders of conservation” are most vital to building a foundation for the church to confront issues of climate change in light of his “divine mandates.” We must first understand why Bonhoeffer’s provocative theology is required when addressing the slow violence asserted on the poor as bodies and lives are continuously threatened through structural and cultural violence. Second, we must understand Bonhoeffer’s definition of the church and further, church-community, to support the claim that climate change requires a congregational response in relationship to Luther’s two-kingdom theory. Lastly, we must consider why a linguistic change to “orders of conservation” proves more valuable in forming this congregational response with considerations to Bonhoeffer’s “divine mandates.”

The Slow Violence of Climate Change

Johan Galtung argues that there are three basic forms of violence that occur in society; direct, structural, and cultural. Galtung differentiates these three prongs of violence by describing how “direct violence is an event; structural violence is a process with ups and downs; cultural violence is an invariant, a 'permanence’, remaining essentially the same for long periods, given the slow transformations of basic culture.” For Bonhoeffer, the witnessing of all forms of violence taking place in overlapping periods of time carried out by the Third Reich of Nazi Germany was simply not ignorable for a theologian of his time. He spoke out against the Third Reich early, witnessing Galtung’s three prongs of violence and attempting to disrupt them. As direct violence is easily accessible through American media, the effects of climate change seem invisible, simply being ignored as they take place slowly over a period time effecting the most marginalized of society. Galtung argues that “structural violence is silent, it does not show- it is essentially static, it is the tranquil waters,” creating space for climate denialists that fail to acknowledge or bear witness to such structural violence. In response to Galtung, Rob Nixon extends into defining slow violence; “Simply put, structural violence is a theory that entails rethinking different notions of causation and agency with respect to violent effect. Slow violence, by contrast, might well include forms of structural violence, but has a wider descriptive range in calling attention, not simply to questions of agency, but to broader, more complex descriptive categories of violence enacted slowly over time.” Nixon continues to describe how this slow violence has greatly affected people and communities in lower-socioeconomic levels or those in marginalized communities, through forced displacement, removal of environmental resources known as “asset stripping”, or forced reallocation of resources. Slow violence, though silent, is not invisible to the communities it directly affects, but sneaks under the radar for much of the public. These examples may mean that indigenous communities are forcibly removed from their land, that the land of local farmers are no longer sustainable, or that large oil companies enact their political reach to obtain land and natural resources for their own profit; it is slow, but violent. These are the very examples of slow violence that solicited Martin-Schramm to deem climate change as the “Jewish Question” of our time and requires Bonhoeffer’s ethical response.

Employment of ‘Church’ and ‘Congregation’

In an effort to understand why the slow violence of inequitable environmentalism requires a congregational response, we must first investigate how Bonhoeffer defines ‘church’ and ‘church-community’. Bonhoeffer declares that we can locate the place of the church by first locating the place of God, which exists everywhere and in everything. However, “the place of God in the world is not the same as the place of the church.” This can be further described through Bonhoeffer’s declaration of the church-community; “The church-community is Christ; Christ is the church-community.” Further, “the presence of God on earth is Christ; the presence of Christ on earth is the church.” Therefore, Bonhoeffer continues to declare that God takes on the form of humanness and earthliness in the form of Christ, which is found in the church that exists in the body of the church-community. This teaching is central to Bonhoeffer’s argument of the role of the church-community in the world, or the worldliness of the church. Grounding the church in Christ allows him to proclaim that “Church is not to be understood as a religious community!” This is also central to the argument of the place of the church in the environmental movement. The church-community can not simply exist as a religious community because a “religious community is individualistic” and “atomistic” as religion is “understood as the crown of cultural community.” If we exist as a religious community, than we have grown into the culture of the world instead of existing as an entity of Christ within the world. As a religious community, we continue to become a tool of the culture, leading to further offenses of cultural violence, but as Christians, we belong to the assembly, the church-community, where the word exists and Christ exists. We must act as a church-community and not as a religious entity when tackling issues of environmentalism as to avoid continuing as simply another tool of the state and committing further offenses of cultural and structural violence on bodies victim to deficient environmentalism.

The church-community shares the word as an assembly and within the assembly. Bonhoeffer describes that, “assembly, the office of the preacher, and confession, creates a necessary connection and are necessarily established in the church as proclamation of the word of Christ. Not a single one of these can be understood apart from the word.” In this particular lecture, The Nature of the Church, progressing forward with an understanding as a church who exists within the word and within Christ, allows Bonhoeffer to continue to move towards further declaring the role of the church-community within the world through the lens of Luther’s two-kingdom theory. The church and state exist together, but the church “serves the state.” Most importantly, “Obedience to the state exists only when the state does not threaten the word.” In the case of environmentalism, the state does threaten the word of God, as it is actively destroying the natural resources that exists within God’s kingdom and violently attacking members within the baptized assembly of Christ; and where Christ is, the church resides, and where the church resides, the word resides. The slow violence on the poor and marginalized should be taken as a direct threat to members of the church-community and therefore, endangering the word of God. Bonhoeffer does not require our obedience to the state when the word of God is threatened. Where the word of God is threatened, Bonhoeffer’s christology proves helpful by declaring Christ as mediator; “Christ’s status as mediator must be proven in that he can be seen as the center of human existence, of history, and of nature,” and within the church-community. Further, the slow violence that takes place at the hands of the state, through diminishing environmental regulation, valuing capitalism over environmentalism, and continuous destruction of natural resources, directly threatens the humanness of the church, the church-community, the word of God, and therefore, Christ himself.

Finding the Middle Ground: Orders of Preservation

To understand Bonhoeffer’s molding of natural theology, we must first understand his locality in the contemporary debate of natural theology. Jordan Ballor describes that Bonhoeffer offered a unique third-way of interpreting the orders of creation and orders of preservation. While Karl Barth rejected both, and Emil Brunner accepted both, Bonhoeffer moved to reject Luther’s orders of creation, but affirmed the orders of preservation. Lisa Hickman explains that this move is important because “First, they are God's ongoing work to uphold and preserve what is good within creation. Second, in a move differing from traditional Catholic theologies of natural law, the orders of preservation acknowledge that the original order in creation no longer exists. What can be identified after the Fall is what has been preserved toward Christ. God's work now will be to preserve, now that creation is complete.” For conservationist ethics, this move is vital. Bonhoeffer recognizes the original state of creation no longer exists because of the fallen state of sin and so it frees us to look forward toward hope, understanding that “God had preserved the world through Christ, so that through him the world might be reconciled with its Creator.” As Hickman’s framework asserts in her disability theology argument, this moves the conversation away from asking why God ‘created’ this violent environment and instead orients the conversation toward the preservation of life in Christ. Bonhoeffer clearly states the centrality of Christ in this question: “The Creator is now the preserver; the created world is now the fallen but preserved world. In the world between curse and promise, between tob and ra, good and evil, God deals with humankind in a distinctive way.” This provides conservationists with a new hope, pushing us to consider how we can preserve life in light of the slow violence experienced as a result of climate change, while simultaneously conserving natural resources. This moves us to declare that conservation of resources is necessary in the preservation of life.

How does this demand the role of the church-community? Hickman employs Bonhoeffer’s argument by declaring that “God, who remains the Creator, has completed the work of creation. Christ, though, through his intimacy with his Father, will still be at work on that portion that has not been completed. This may sound paradoxical at first. But the line Bonhoeffer draws here will have great consequence later. God's work in creation is done. Now, Christ will be at work preserving that creation through his ongoing work.” As was discussed earlier, the role of the church-community is found in Christ, therefore the preservation of creation is required of the Christ-centered church-community. This argument is therefore twofold; there is a responsibility of the church-community to preserve life precisely because the work of Christ is ongoing in the orders of preservation and Christ exists in humanness through the church-community. Hickman further describes that Bonhoeffer “uses the language of ‘the natural’ to speak of ‘the form of life preserved by God after the Fall, with reference to the way in which it is directed towards the coming of Christ.’ This assurance forms the basis for protection for all bodies,” including the poor and marginalized, “from any ‘arbitrary infringement’ and preserves all of life from any unnatural death. These rights must be protected, or all orders of society will be perverted.” Again, we are called to conservation of the environment precisely to preserve the lives of all bodies, even in their imperfect state as sinful creatures, as a Christ centered action. We can not seek full preservation, as preservationist ethicists’ call us to, because the original state of creation no longer exists, but we can work towards a conservationist ethic, allowing for the proper use of nature, which recognizes that full preservation is simply not possible as a results of the fall. Therefore, the argument placed here is not necessarily to preserve the perfect created nature of the environment, because that does not, and will not exist, as a result of the fall, but to conserve the environment in an effort to preserve the life and bodies of those who are victim to the slow structural violence of climate change.

Orders of Conservation and the Divine Mandates

Bonhoeffer’s essay entitled The Concrete Commandment and the Divine Mandates further complicates this assertion as he describes the “divine mandates.” In the introduction to this essay, Clifford Green reminds us that “Luther himself held that God created three orders to organize human life and maintain justice in the world: daily life (which included marriage and family as well as livelihood), worldly government, and the church.” In response to Luther’s three orders Bonhoeffer declares:

“The divine mandates depend solely on God’s one commandment as it is revealed in Jesus Christ. They are implanted in the world from above as organizing structures—“orders”—of the reality of Christ, that is, of the reality of God’s love for the world and for human beings that has been revealed in Jesus Christ. They are thus in no way an outgrowth of history; they are not earthly powers, but divine commissions. Church, marriage and family, culture, and government can only be explained and understood from above, from God.”

Bonhoeffer’s employment of the divine mandates further concretely connects Christ to that which has been preserved. These divine mandates provide an opportunity to connect with Christ in the world. Hickman argues that “These are the spheres in which the preservation of the good will point toward specific purposes in the world, drawing on their strength in Christ...Humanity labors for the sake of Christ, marries for the sake of Christ, governs for the sake of Christ, and is the church for the sake of Christ. The human vocation in these areas seeks to work alongside the ‘Creator and Preserver of life’ by seeking preservation over destruction.” To add further, seeking preservation of life through the conservation of natural resources, should again be done for the sake of Christ. Again, it is revealed to us that in Creation and Fall, “For Bonhoeffer, Genesis 1–3 is not a creation story, but rather a relation story.”

The suggested ‘Orders of Conservation’ in relation to developing a foundation for a conservationist- congregational response to climate change aligns with Bonhoeffer’s divine mandates. It calls us as the church-community to maintain conservationist ethics within these divine mandates, because they orient us towards Christ and thread us into a relation-focused story, instead of creation-focused story. Bonhoeffer reminds us that “where one member is, there is the entire body of Christ. The church-community has one life; it is impossible to think of its members as separated. Where the church-community is, there Christ is also.” Again, where one member of the church exists, so does the whole church-community and where one member of the church is threatened, so is the whole church-community. Merging conservationist ethics and Bonhoeffer’s view of the church-community in relation to the divine mandates, also stresses the value of a relational theology.

That is, the linguistic alteration of Bonhoeffer’s argument may seem minute to many, however in the case of environmental ethics, it creates a drastic change. The long held debate of preservationist and conservationist ethics must be brought to light. The National Park Service describes this difference clearly:

“Conservation and preservation are closely linked and may indeed seem to mean the same thing. Both terms involve a degree of protection, but how that is protection is carried out is the key difference. Conservation is generally associated with the protection of natural resources, while preservation is associated with the protection of buildings, objects, and landscapes. Put simply conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use.”

This is simply an example of a secular relational theology to nature. Seeking conservation in relation to answering the problem of climate change, hopes to protect people through nature from being taken advantage of by corporations or government (state). The primary function of a conservationist ethic most closely aligns with Bonhoeffer’s christology, as it seeks to preserve life through conservation and reduce overall destruction. In addition to seeking a middle ground much like Bonhoeffer did in his response to Barth and Brunner, the suggestion of “orders of conservation” allows for an ecological argument in formulating a congregational response to climate change that also considers the channels of conservation, through the divine mandates. It allows for much more acceptable employment of Bonhoeffer’s “mandates of creation.” These concrete structures of preservation, require deep conservation to maintain a Christ-centered church-community, while still allowing room for Christ to operate as mediator in environmental issues. Linguistically, understanding the nuances in differentiating between preservation and conservation, we begin to understand why conservation is the most church-community and Christ-centered approach to environmentalism because it too, is a relational theology.

Conclusion

Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the church-community as an assembly in which Christ is both head and brother affords us the opportunity to begin to develop a foundation to a congregational response to climate change. However, through Bonhoeffer’s denial of the orders of creation and acceptance of the orders of preservation, we are reminded of our fallen world and sinful nature, pushing us to further orient ourselves with Christ by turning away from environmental destruction and turning towards the preservation of the life. Turning towards such preservation of life requires us to mobilize the divine mandates as channels of conservation: church, marriage and family, culture, and government.

Though we can not concretely assert that these areas are opportunities for Christ-centered conservation, they serve as a starting point in developing a congregational response to climate change. That is, Bonhoeffer makes clear that these mandates “are not earthly powers, but divine commissions,” and our role as individuals within the church-community is not to attempt to assign God God’s place in the world, but instead to recall the role of Christ in our world. Grounding ourselves as relational beings in Christ, “means that family, culture, and government,” noting the exclusion of church, “are set free to be what they are in their own nature.” In Christ, as a church, we are to proclaim the word and exist as an assembly, because “where Jesus Christ is proclaimed according to the divine mandate, there is also always a church-community” and “The word of God...rules over and governs the world.” Where we find the church-community proclaiming the word of God and the state actively harming the word of God, we find the church-community's responsibility to address climate change.

Bonhoeffer details the church as a “corporate entity,” because it occupies two locations; proclamation of Christ to the world as an instrument while simultaneously acting on behalf of the world, therefore fulfilling its divine mandate. This also drives us to discover the congregational response to climate change. It is precisely because the church-community is Christ-centered that it seeks to hold a responsibility to proclaiming the word of God to both the state and survivors of environmental violence, in an effort to preserve life through the conservation of nature. Additionally, it is because the church-community is of this world, that it must hold the other three entities of the divine mandates- family, culture, and government- responsible for the actions of their violence. Additionally, returning to Luther’s two-kingdom argument, for Bonhoeffer, it is vital for the church, as corporate entity, to hold the state accountable for their actions of violence and environmentalism of the poor. Therefore, it has been demonstrated that the slow violence of climate change on the poor and marginalized demands a conservationist foundation derived from Bonhoeffer’s christology and orders of preservation, in developing a congregational response to climate change.

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