World Come of Age

"Readers today may be surprised to find out that a substantial interpretation of Bonhoeffer came from the Marxist author Mueller, in a book never translated but condensed in Smith’s book. Its author intended to shock people who knew Bonhoeffer as a Lutheran Christian theologian and participant in church life. Mueller helped make Bonhoeffer, for a time, the favoured theologian in Communist East Germany. The ‘world come of age’ was one of the main terms Bonhoeffer used to describe his time. The German word was Muendigkeit , which means adulthood. Bonhoeffer thought the world had become adult, which meant it could strip away so many things that people thought were important for faith and life. Using this version of Christian themes, he argued that one could follow the concept of the ‘world come of age’ and get rid of the trappings of the church and live happily ever after. Bonhoeffer was killed before the war ended. He remained faithful to the moment of death to his faith and advocated a trimmed-down church and world-friendly Gospel. I have very much sympathy for very much of Bonhoeffer’s thought, but consider his view of the adulthood of the world to be, shall we say, naive, and it is hard to picture the theologian throwing Christian means all overboard. What stands out first is his courage, for he came to know that Hitler’s people would not tolerate what he stood for, and, second, that he was picturing and working for a way of being Christian without all the trappings."