On Reading the Old Testament
August 3, 2010 § 1 Comment
Here’s another little excerpt from Bonhoffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison.
By the way, I notice more and more how much I am thinking and perceiving things in line with the Old Testament; thus in recent months I have been reading much more the Old than the New Testament. Only when one knows that the name of God may not be uttered may one sometimes speak the name of Jesus Christ. Only when one loves life and the earth so much that with it everything seems to be lost and at its end may one believe in the resurrection of the dead and a new world. Only when one accepts the law of God as something binding for oneself may one perhaps sometimes speak of grace. And only when the wrath and vengeance of God against God’s enemies are allowed to stand can something of forgiveness and the love of enemies touch our hearts. Whoever wishes to be and perceive things too quickly and too directly in the New Testament is to my mind no Christian. (213)
Bonhoeffer’s words sound like an indictment of semi-Marcionism present today in supersessionism and replacement theology. Here’s another Bonhoeffer quote that can be restated for our time:
He who does not cry out for the Jews cannot sing the Gregorian chant.
Today: He who does not cry out for Israel, when Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ahmadinejad call for her extermination, cannot sing the Songs of Zion without sounding awfully hollow.