“Bonhoeffer and Resistance to Tyranny and Organized Stupidity” with Larry Rasmussen
Saturday, July 5, 2025 11 am Pacific/2 pm Eastern
The Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a brilliant German theologian and Lutheran minister who wrote one of the greatest books on the Sermon on the Mount, The Cost of Discipleship, before he went on to reject nonviolence and join the secret movement to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested by the Nazis and shot to death shortly before the end of the war. In the 1930s, he wrote a brilliant essay on resistance to tyranny and what he called “organized stupidity.” It reads like it was written yesterday, and offers helpful insights for understanding the Trump Administration’s massive evil-doing and stupidity.
In the collection of his writings, Letters and Papers from Prisons, we read Bonhoeffer’s essay “On Stupidity” which is pertinent for our predicament. Here’s a classic excerpt:
“Every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
We welcome back author and theologian Larry Rasmussen, who has spent his life writing and studying about environmental theology and Bonhoeffer, to speak with us about Bonhoeffer’s reflections on resistance, tyranny and government stupidity, from the Nazis to today. He’s our professor who can explain and help diagnose our current national crisis.
Larry Rasmussen, a renowned Christian environmental ethicist, is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics emeritus at Union Theological Seminary. He is the author of Earth Community, Earth Ethics;winner of the Grawemeyer Award; and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Christian Ethics. He has mentored a generation of scholars in eco-theology and green religion, rooted in practices of environmental justice within community contexts. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This session will last an hour and a half; Cost: $30. Scholarships are available! Join us!