Baker and Bonhoeffer: Responsibility and Community Organizing

The purpose of this paper is to address the question of what a Bonhoeffer-informed political practice and engagement with racial justice might look like today, and to convince those of us shaped by Bonhoeffer that community organizing is the model most consistent with his theology and ethics. It does so by drawing on the community organizing model practiced by Ella Baker during the Black Freedom Struggle. This paper is the next phase of a research and writing project that began with a presentation at the 2024 International Bonhoeffer Congress. While that paper highlighted affinities between Bonhoeffer's political theology and ethics and Baker's organizing strategy, this next step in the project will focus on ways that Baker's theory and practice of radical democratic organizing amends for shortcomings in Bonhoeffer's own thought and practice.

Bonhoeffer became aware of the organizing tradition during his time in America, through courses at Union and his friendship with organizer, Myles Horton, but I am unaware of any treatment of Bonhoeffer and organizing. Thus, my aim in this paper is modest: to build on the work of that initial presentation, make a few additional critical and constructive claims, and incorporate feedback from this presentation to continue a larger project on community organizing that draws on these two figures to develop a vision of ethical responsibility and political action for people of faith.

This paper builds on current scholarship on Bonhoeffer and race, what he contributes and misses, and serves as the next constructive step in my own work on the subject. Bonhoeffer, no doubt, understood the political dimensions of racism, so this paper asks: what model of political engagement would Bonhoeffer’s ethics suggest to us to confront racism today? Since Ella Baker (who worked in Harlem during Bonhoeffer’s tenure there) promoted a theory and practice of organizing that practiced radical listening, empowered marginalized voices, and attended to intersectional concerns from the margins, it both complements and amends Bonhoeffer's political thought. This paper especially attends to the ways Baker's model both resonates with and strengthens Bonhoeffer's ethics of responsibility.

Drawing on my experience with and scholarship on the theology of community organizing, this paper proceeds in three parts:

First, it provides a brief analysis of community organizing as an interfaith, multiracial grassroots approach to empowering citizens for social improvement through political advocacy. Second, it argues that organizing aligns with Bonhoeffer’s political theology and ethics of responsibility, and serves as a practical outgrowth of his engagement with racial justice, through four key affinities:

1. It seeks to hold governmental authority accountable, “making the state responsible” and servicing “the victims” in ways consistent with Bonhoeffer’s political theology, especially in Ethics and “The Church and the Jewish Question.”
2. It resonates with Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on ethics as formation and the disciplined (political) formation practiced at Finkewalde and expressed in Life Together. Community organizing is a disciplined regime of formation into life for others and serves as a practical embodiment of Bonhoeffer’s Christology and ecclesiology—inviting the church into a mode of existing “as community” and representing Christ for others. 
3. It reflects Bonhoeffer’s concept of the responsible life, especially as a response to the “concrete neighbor in their concrete reality.” For Baker, organizing was not built upon a pre-established ideology or abstract principle; it emerged from the life of a community and derived its policy proposals from the lived experiences of those most impacted. 
4. It proceeds from a view of history—and social change—“from below.” Organizing values the dignity and solidarity of all people as those who bear responsibility for one another by empowering those excluded from the political process. Organizing begins with listening to the common concerns of a community. As Bonhoeffer writes, “The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them.”

Finally, the paper concludes by proposing ways in which Baker's theory and model of community organizing addresses notable shortcomings in Bonhoeffer’s engagement with politics and racial justice. Specifically, I argue that Bonhoeffer's ethics of responsibility is best practiced in the form of community organizing modeled by Baker during her time with SNCC and the Black Freedom Struggle in general. I end with a few proposals for this project moving forward, open to feedback and criticism in order to strengthen the larger project.