Devotional Thoughts
From the book "Letters and Papers From Prison"
August 23, 1935
One crucial aspect of the struggle with the Confessing Church with the Reich Church and Nazi theologians at the time was over the correct interpretation of Scripture. Representatives of the Reich Church were not above distorting the Bible texts in order to justify the racial policies then in place or to reinforce from a seemingly spiritual point of view for the discriminatory laws against the Jews. Bonhoeffer took issue with the German Christians accusing them of sacrificing the to a pagan ideology. The German Christians sought to make Christianity justify itself before the present age rather than the present age which must be asked to justify itself before the Christian message.
Here is what Bonhoeffer states:
"... The relevant is and begins where God himself is in his Word. The Holy Ghost is the relevant subject not we ourselves, so the Holy Ghost is also the subject of the interpretation. ..."
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