Dead heroes are safer - Bonhoeffer, King and Aung San Suu Kyi

"What would have happened to Bonhoeffer if he had survived?"  The question was asked me while we were dutifully reflecting with our neighbour at the end of a lecture on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at IBTSC, Amsterdam*.  My immediate response was that we wouldn't have liked him.  I've been thinking why I said that.

The lecture had already demonstrated why we might not have liked Bonhoeffer while he was serving a German ex-pat church in Spain.  He had given a series of lectures in which he showed himself supportive of notions of the superiority of his own people and of the legitimacy of war.  He was a product of his times and culture.  The theme of the IBTSC lecture+ was that it was while he was studying later at Union Theological Seminary in New York and became involved with a black Baptist church in Harlem, a district experiencing a cultural renaissance (search for Harlem Renaissance, it's fascinating), that he experience a change of perspective.  This led to the writings of Bonhoeffer that have been so influential for many of us.  An enduring legacy.  It may trouble us because there's something in us that would prefer to exercise discipleship that didn't make demands on our comfortable self-interested existences and many of us are so invested in the systems and trappings of organised religion that religionless Christianity seems like an existential threat.  But we don't set him aside or traduce him because of that.

In a similar way, the original question raised itself after watching "King: a filmed record ... Montgomery to Memphis".  We are still inspired and humbled by King's passion for God and for justice because one demands the other.  We are still confronted by the same and new manifestations of racism, denial of rights, poverty and war against which he protested and demonstrated.  He still challenges us with his stance of non-violence in the face of the most extreme provocation.  An enduring legacy even though he shames our feeble attempts to work for justice.

So why are dead heroes safer?  Two reasons, until I think of more.

Heroes are human.  They are fallible just like the rest of us.  They are likely to get things wrong, perhaps in a disastrous way.  Their reputation can easily and quickly shredded.  This is why Aung San Suu Kyi is in the title.  A prime example of someone who earned the respect of most of the world.  Who was lauded for her principles and who would have continued to be if the authorities had found a way of executing her.  The reality of her life and actions recently has been been terrible and she has lost her moral authority.  Maybe history will take a more nuance view but we cannot know that now.  Dead heroes can make no new mistakes - they are safe.  They don't disappoint.

We can construct dead heroes in our our own image or one convenient to our way of thinking and acting.  Both Bonhoeffer and King have been co-opted to all kinds of causes.  Their writings and historical actions can be treated like plasticine and moulded into all kinds of shapes. They are not around to gainsay. They are safe to play with.

Who knows what would have happened had Bonhoeffer and King been allowed to live until a ripe old age?  We live in an age where we seem to take pleasure in building people up so that we can knock them down.  Even if we didn't, we are all only human and we all disappoint, at some time or other, those who expect better of us. Dead heroes are safer.


* IBTSC - International Baptist Theological Study Centre, formerly the International Baptist Theological Centre in Prague.
+ You can see the lecture online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1GaBecIfnJw