Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper H. Gaylon Barker Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation. By Joel Looper. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2021. 260 pp. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was both attracted to and disappointed in America. His attraction led him to make two trips to America in the 1930s; one in 1930–31 to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the other briefly in 1939, when he sought refuge [End Page 105] from the war. In both instances, he was "bitterly disappointed" (16) because "there is no theology here" (17). When viewed through his European Lutheran eyes, America "lacked the gospel" (27). The one bright spot was Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem; while the churches Bonhoeffer attended in New York preached virtually everything except "the gospel of Jesus Christ" (17), at Abyssinian he found that the gospel was "truly preached and received with great welcome and visible emotion" (137). Bonhoeffer's experiences in and reflections on American church life and theology are the subject of Looper's study. The subtitle refers to Bonhoeffer's 1939 essay, "Protestantism without Reformation," which pronounced Bonhoeffer's verdict on American Christianity that it was not really Protestant. Looper examines Bonhoeffer's experiences in America and his responses through a detailed analysis of his written reports and identifies the sources for Bonhoeffer's critique. The first is traced to the work of Thomas Cuming Hall that located the origins and characteristics of American Christianity in the theology of John Wycliffe and the 15th century English pre-Reformation Lollard movement with its emphasis on individualism and conscience (or "the inner light"). When transplanted to America, it brought a "non-ecclesial, antidogmatic, inward-looking theology" (74) and adopted an attitude of tolerance that "involved jettisoning of the question of truth" (82). The second influence shaping Bonhoeffer's response was his use of Luther's "two kingdom" thinking. Drawing on Luther's insights, America, because of its "enthusiastic spiritualism [schwärmerishe Spiritualismus]," had conflated the two kingdoms, collapsing the "church into the world" (112). What was needed was for the church to "simply continue being the church because the world will most certainly continue to be the world" (119). Like Luther, "Bonhoeffer wanted the church to invade the world with the gospel rather than keeping the Word to itself" (190). Looper places Bonhoeffer's reflections in the context of 1930s American theology, contrasting them with the theology of his professors at Union Seminary. For example, the author discusses Bonhoeffer's use of Luther to critique Reinhold Niebuhr, in whom Bonhoeffer found "the person and work of Jesus Christ is missing" (57). In addition, Looper examines the history of Abyssinian Baptist [End Page 106] Church and its roots in American slavery to show how Bonhoeffer's experiences there continued to shape both his involvement in the resistance (his concern for the plight of the Jews) and his later theology. While Bonhoeffer is likely to have missed something in American church life, is what he saw valid? Consider the "radical individualism" that has come to embody American identity; if it indeed has roots in the Lollard movement and its abandonment of the church as institution in favor of following one's own conscience, many would agree that "individualistic religiosity" in American Christianity misses "the point of the gospel" (195). When Bonhoeffer envisioned the church of the future in some of his final writings, it is a church shaped by the gospel and two kingdoms teaching, the very things absent in the American church. This work, which takes seriously Bonhoeffer's reading of the American theological tradition, is a welcome addition to the secondary work on Bonhoeffer's theology. In addition, because of the scope of Looper's analysis, this work should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about the impulses that shaped America's version of Christianity that continue to have an impact on public life in the twenty-first century. As a side note, readers of Lutheran Quarterly might find Looper's analysis of Bonhoeffer's use of Luther's two kingdoms thinking for framing his evaluation of American Christianity an added bonus. H. Gaylon Barker Molloy...