Monday, January 31, 2022

Pseudo-Bonhoeffer: "One can't be a Christian and a nationalist at the same time."

     Jean Lasserre, War and the gospel, trans. Oliver Coburn (London:  James Clarke & Co. Limited; Scottsdale, PA:  Herald Press, 1962 [1953]), 34:
Nothing in the Scriptures gives the Christian authority to tear apart the body of Christ for the State or anything else.  Do we believe in the Universal Church, in the communion of Saints, or do we believe in the eternal mission of our country?  One cannot believe in both at once; one cannot be a Christian and nationalist.
Of the translation in the header Mary Bonsanquet (The life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York:  Harper & Row, 1968), 89) may be the source.  Yet even she is clear that it wasn't Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said this, but rather Lasserre.  Nor does she claim that she is doing anything more than quoting the book by Lasserre first published in French in 1953 (La guerre et l'évangile (Paris:  La Réconciliation)), long after Bonhoeffer had already been executed by the Nazis.  Note also that her English is more faithful to the original French (and the French context) as reproduced below.  Bonsanquet:

'Do we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, or do we believe in the eternal mission of France?  One can't be a Christian and a nationalist at the same time.'

Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  a biography, rev. ed. (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2000), 154, citing the English translation given above (though, again, Bosanquet is clearly closer to the original French):

'Do we believe in the Universal Church, in the communion of saints, or do we believe in the eternal mission of our country? . . . one cannot be Christian and nationalist.'

Jean Lasserre, La guerre et l'évangile (Paris:  La Réconciliation, 1953), 41-42, as quoted in Frédéric Rognon, "Pacifisme et tyrannicide chez Jean Lasserre et Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Seconde partie:  l'interprétation des incidences théologiques," Études théologiques et religieuses 80, no. 2 (2005):  165 (159-176):

Rien, dans l’Écriture, n’autorise le chrétien à déchirer le corps de Christ au nom de quoi que ce soit.  Croyons-nous la Sainte Église universelle ? le communion des Saints ? ou bien croyons-nous en la mission éternelle de la France ? On ne peut pas croire les deux à la fois ; on ne peut pas être en même temps chrétien et nationaliste.


 

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