Claims on Bonhoeffer: The misuse of a theologian

In a 2002 speech in Berlin thanking Germany for its support of the war on terrorism, President George W. Bush invoked none other than the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He compared the fight against terrorism to Bonhoeffer’s “stand against Nazi rule,” thereby aligning his stance with that of one of Christianity’s most beloved modern martyrs.

Bush was hardly the first and certainly not the last to claim Bonhoeffer for his cause. In July 1993, pro-life advocate and abortion clinic bomber Paul Hill cited Bonhoeffer’s involvement in “plotting the death of Hitler” to justify Hill’s actions. For Hill, murdering abortion providers was the only way to stop what he regarded as America’s own holocaust of innocent life.

In 2005, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson invoked Bonhoeffer, “who lived under the hellish conditions of Nazi Germany,” in calling for the United States to assassinate Venezuela president Hugo Chávez and Iraq leader Saddam Hussein.