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Using torture to interrogate suspected terrorists. Intervening in other countries to stop genocide. Resolving ancient disputes and modern violence in the Middle East. Blowing the whistle on corporate crime. Restraining a rogue state. Confronting the crack dealers across town—or down the street.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become the patron saint of hard cases, a guide to the ethically perplexed, an inspiration in a dilemma, a beacon in moral murk. His participation in a conspiracy to murder Hitler and his subsequent imprisonment and execution when the plot failed has become the defining moment of his short life. Bonhoeffer has much to offer us as we consider the terrible challenges of contemporary life. But he also offers us deep wisdom for living in the everyday as well.

Bonhoeffer was born into a genteel German middle-class family with a distinguished and even noble heritage on both sides. His father, Karl, was a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Berlin, and his family enjoyed a large home, servants, and all of the security and pleasure of the establishment—even during the difficult years for Germany following World War I.

Young Dietrich was an intellectual prodigy who astounded his lightly religious family by devoting his talents to theology—earning his Ph.D. at Berlin in 1927 and then his Habilitation (a sort of "crowning degree" that came with an invitation to teach) in 1930. He was also ordained in the state Lutheran church and spent short stints in pastorates in Barcelona and London as well as Germany.

He visited America twice, with Union Theological Seminary in New York City as his home base. Appalled by the Americans' lack of theoretical theological interest, he became impressed by their practical concern—notably that of Reinhold Niebuhr. He also was deeply moved by African-American Christianity, and he often visited black churches in nearby Harlem, notably the grand Abyssinian Baptist Church. These experiences combined to press the academic Bonhoeffer further into pastoral and practical modes.

Back in Germany, as the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s and advanced their program of nationalism, revenge, and racism, Bonhoeffer responded in three ways.

Locally, he left the prestige of the university to head up a small, illegal seminary in the country to train pastors for the Confessing Church, a fellowship of Christians who believed that the primitive confession "Jesus is Lord" must be maintained against the cult of Hitler as Leader. During and shortly after this brief, intense two-year stint, Bonhoeffer wrote his two most popular guides to Christian living, The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together.

Nationally, he participated in public and private debates about the relationship of the Nazi Party and the church, thus placing himself under the watch of the Gestapo. He successively lost the right to teach, preach, and publish.

Internationally, he used his extensive contacts in the ecumenical movement both to encourage the Western church to speak out against Nazism and to encourage other governments to put diplomatic pressure on the Nazis to ameliorate their programs. He became a formidable proponent of nonviolence at this time, and even made plans to travel to India to study the political philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi.

Bonhoeffer was related to several Jews and had a brother-in-law positioned in Army Intelligence (the Abwehr), so he knew better than most what the Nazis were doing in their anti-Semitic crusade. As war broke out and the Nazis intensified their racism and imperialism, Bonhoeffer agreed to join a conspiracy within the Abwehr to overthrow Hitler. He was hired by the Abwehr both to protect him from the Gestapo and to give him the opportunity to serve as a double agent. Ostensibly visiting his international contacts in ecumenical church work, he was supposed to be spying on other countries. But in fact, he acquainted friends elsewhere with the German Resistance and sought assurances that, should their plans succeed, the Allies would not capitalize on Germany's disarray to visit upon her even more grief.

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