Bonhoeffer's Stupidity and Ministerial Power in Christendom. Written in red by David H. J. Gay. Bonhoeffer's Stupidity and Ministerial Power in Christendom. It is almost a century since Dietrich Bonhoeffer was protesting about what he could see going on around him in the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. In particular, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany, Bonhoeffer bravely published a circular to serve as a warning about the political and religious scene in Nazi Germany. One of the topics he discussed in that circular was what he called the theory of stupidity. In April 1945, a few days before the Americans reached and liberated the concentration camp at Flossenburg, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis. The context of Bonhoeffer's Circular was, of course, the 1930s, 1940s Nazification of German society in general, and in particular, the church. But the ramifications of what he argued in that work go further than that, much further, and still have tremendous resonance today, resonance on the corrupting influence of power. My interest is in the spiritual corruption involving power. Let me use the Christendom word. I am concerned with the effect of power in the religious scene. In part, Bonhoeffer was concerned with how a religious institution, the Christendom Church, responds to pressure from outside. In other words, persecution. And that is something which always has relevance. In this article, however, I am concerned with how Christendom believers respond to the exercise of ministerial power within the institution of the Church. With that in mind, I have accommodated, but not excessively accommodated, and for those who wish to check, they can read the original Bonhoeffer work on many sites on the internet. I have accommodated, but not excessively accommodated, Bonhoeffer's words to apply them specifically to the exercise of ministerial power in Christendom, and the corrupting effect this has on both those who exercise that power and those who submit to it. Here is my piece. Every strong upsurge of ministerial power infects a large part of the attendees of the Christendom Church with the inability or unwillingness to think. This process is symbiotic. The power of the one, that is the ministerial power, needs the inability or unwillingness to think by the other, that is the attendees of the Christendom Church. 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 ministerial power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and more or less consciously give up establishing an autonomous position towards the emerging circumstances. That is, they give up thinking for themselves. Above all, avoid thinking outside the prescribed box. The fact that the Christendom Church person who is unable or unwilling to think 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 a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him. Slogans such as, going to church, regularly attending the house of God, to take part in a worship service and so on. In conversation with such a person, if such can be had, one finds that he repeatedly calls on mantras drawn from a confession of faith, which relies on proof texts, that he accepts without question the theology handed down from the pulpit, that he depends on repeated phrases from hymnals, and the like. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. No wonder. since a Berean spirit is abhorrent to those who hold the levers of ministerial power. As long-term prisoners can dread the thought of freedom, so those who are seduced by ministerial power can prefer their chains to their liberty. It is far more comfortable for them to be told what is what than for them to take the risk of thinking for themselves.