Burton Nelson: His Life a Gospel Story

The tribute was delivered by long-time friend Dr. Geffrey B. Kelly, professor of Systematic Theology and chairperson of the Department of Religion at La Salle University in Philadelphia. Kelly also is former president of the International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section (1992 to 2000).

By Dr. Geffrey B. Kelly

When Burton and I were together in Atlanta last November, he told me that, if he died before me, he wanted me to speak at his memorial service. "I don't think I could do that," I said, "I get too emotional." "Don't worry, I'll help you," he said. "Now how can you help me?" I asked him. You won't even be there." He gave me that mirthful smile of his. "Oh, I'll be there!" I think that was the only maudlin conversation we ever had. In very many ways, I feel that Burton is here. I said a prayer to him before I got up here. "You better be next to me, but no tricks!" Burton was my best friend, dearer to me than any blood brother could ever be.

He was a brother to me, yes, but he was a brother to thousands who had the privilege of knowing him as their teacher, their pastor, their confidant, their spiritual guide, their colleague, their friend, their brother.

Above all, Burton was a loving husband to Grace, the great love of his life. How often would Burton say, "Grace is so wonderful!" He was a proud and loving father to Becky, Ingrid, Emily, Sonya, Tim and Marty. And the best grand-pop in the world to all the grandchildren who brightened his world beginning with Erika, and then Rachel, Jason and Alyssa, Colin and Forest, and finally his latest little angels, Maya and Dylan. In my own family, he was always Uncle Burton, a cuddly teddy bear of a man, who brought happiness into our children's hearts whenever he visited us. Often, I had to drag him away from the kids so we could work on our books. Burton was a child at heart and could enter so effortlessly into the special world that children inhabit. "Let the little children come unto me," Jesus once said. That was Burton. Despite his awesome education and professional achievements, Burton could relate to children in a way that was pure Gospel; he was their good news no matter what their persistent questions and boo-boos might be. He spoke their language.

Grace, you and Burton had the knack of making so many of us feel we are part of your family. Thousands of people, many gathered here today, have experienced Burton's love, his guidance, his friendship, his playfulness, his sense of humor, his practical jokes, his joy in the little things of life lived to its fullest. He leaves an unfillable void in our hearts. Your family love made Burton's life one of unending joy. Nothing anyone of us can say can ever take away the sorrow we experience as we all say farewell to this great man.

Five years ago, John Weborg and I wrote a tribute to Burton for the Festschrift in his honor. How we pulled that off behind Burton's back is a TV story ready to be told - with secret meetings, code words and the collaboration of many fellow conspirators. John and I had a half-page on the back cover to say it all. Here's what we wrote back then:

"Dr. Nelson's lifelong ministry seems to encapsulate the spirituality of Martin Luther, who in his devotional writings has insisted that 'first of all, God desires me to love my neighbors, so that I do them no bodily harm, either by word or action. . . but realize that I am obliged to assist and counsel them in every bodily need. As Sirach says: 'The Lord has committed to each of us our neighbor.' This statement describes very well the inner core of compassionate caring that has inspirited both Burton Nelson and Dietrich Bonhoeffer."

We also quoted the citation from North Park Theological Seminary recognizing his thirty-five years of service as professor of theology and ethics: "A seeker of peace and lover of concord; advocate of the public discipleship of Christians; active participant in cross-disciplinary dialogue and action committees, pioneer in Holocaust education both in public institutions and theological seminaries; prophetic voice for victims; steward and interpreter of the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; international friend of many and devoted ecumenist; skilled in the ancient art of the trickster."

Indeed, Burton was a trickster. His practical jokes are legendary; so too were the practical jokes played on him. Whenever we traveled together, whether here, Ireland, England or Germany, he would look for photos of either cows or horses - preferably the hind quarters of horses - to send to one of his favorite targets, one of North Park's great preachers, who gave as good as he got. Burton would manage to send me "hoked up" letters from publishers or copy rightists who had given us a hard time over our texts or from pretentious scholars who spoke in an abstract language far removed from the real world where people suffer, or from obnoxious government officials whose feelings had supposedly been ruffled by our published criticisms.

He would send letters from pompous ecclesiastical leaders warning me I was under investigation at the Vatican for my liberal ways. He enjoyed the practical jokes played on him whenever he returned from his faraway lectures wondering what chaos he would find when he opened his office door. I in turn could send him outrageous letters from the Pope or some pompous Vatican official warning him about his giving offense to politicians approved by the hierarchy and urging him to get converted. He enjoyed introducing me as the most Protestant teacher in a Catholic university and John Weborg as the most Catholic teacher in a Protestant seminary. I had to tell him several times that, yes, I was a "closet" Covenanter and enjoying the best of both worlds! Vicki Barnett, one of our colleagues in the Bonhoeffer Society, noted that "pixy like" quality in Burton. She wrote: "Burton always seemed to me like someone out of a Dickens novel - full of funny quirks and very endearing. He was such a lovely, gentle soul."

Burton abounded in generosity. So often he would reach for the check and declare that the dinner was on him. To get around his frequent treating, I would send him zany gifts, usually with a frog motif. When we were in Disneyworld together, he couldn't wait to get on "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride." He rode it a couple of times with Brendan and then with me, laughing with his inner child. He explained that when his children were young, they couldn't quite say "daddy" - what came out sounded like "doddy," which in turn became "Toady" and, thus, Burton as Mr. Toady was reborn. He reveled in the name and I enjoyed giving him the craziest frog figures. Maybe there is some connection between frogs and princes.

For the past 25 years we've all known Burton as a stocky man on the heavy side, perhaps a bit out of shape physically. We've probably forgotten that in his earlier incarnation Burton was an all-state, all-star lineman, tackling halfbacks and mowing down blockers, one who would choose the Christian ministry to serve others instead of the athletic fame - and, as I liked to tease him, the big bucks that could have been his. Earlier photos of his athletic days only increased my admiration for him and helped explain his tenacity in matters of peace and justice.

How close were Burton and me? Well, over the 35 years of our friendship, we shared a room and sometimes even a bed at every convention we ever attended. At times, Charles Sensel, fellow Bonhoeffer Board member, would make it a cheaper threesome and at a couple of times we smuggled in a fourth person who was unable to afford a hotel and who slept on the floor. When we were a threesome in rooms where there were only two large beds, this necessitated a truce. Charles got one bed to himself because he treated sleep like hand to hand combat with all the noisy demons and monsters that disturb the dreams of terrified children. Burton and I would have to share the other bed, but we agreed to sleep on our backs, arms at our sides, with neither of us allowed to toss and turn. Luckily that's the way we usually slept. It actually worked!

Also, another rule: both Charles and Burton had to let me drift off to sleep first, under the most potent sleeping device ever invented, the television. Then and only then were they to go to sleep. In that way I got at least two hours of sleep before their jet engines began to roar and I dreamt I was in my pajamas stuck helpless on the O'Hare runway. To Burton's credit, he would always ask how his snoring was the previous night. My answers varied from tolerable to unearthly to "NASA could use you!" On one occasion when I complained in a moment of weakness, he replied simply, "Could have been worse; it could have been John Weborg!" Once I paraphrased the gospel: "No greater love can a person have than to sleep with Burton snoring away." I told him he should market himself to Boeing so they could test the proper decibel level of their jets against a tape of his nightly noise making.

But life with Burton was nearly always the unending fun and laughter that he could weave into our serious discussions and our courses. It was amazing how, at the same time, he could challenge with his serious approach to the important life and death issues in his courses and yet convey this with a warmth and lightheartedness that endeared him to every student he taught. It seemed that all the students thought they were special. I noticed the same with Burton's colleagues. At conventions, walking with Burton to the next meeting or to lunch would take more time than any ordinary individual would take. He couldn't walk 10 feet before he spied someone he knew or, in turn, he was stopped by someone who spied him. There would follow the warm embraces, the exchanges. And invariably, Burton would take my arm and introduce me: "I want you to meet my good friend. . ." The light in their eyes, the smiles, the joy of recognition, of seeing a close friend again, all these told me that here was a man with thousands of friends and absolutely no enemies. The magnetism of Burton was astounding. It didn't take me long to thank the Lord that my closest friend was the one in whom the goodness of Jesus Christ was being radiated to me and to everyone who came in contact with him in ways that made the Gospel come to life. John de Gruchy, writing from South Africa, said what most of us in the Bonhoeffer Society felt about Burton: "The Bonhoeffer Society does not have many saints, but Burton was certainly one of them . . . I do want to express deep gratitude for years of friendship, immense courtesy and caring and the spirit of humility that characterized who he was and what he did."

Burton's availability to his students and to countless people who made demands on his time and energy was pure Gospel. Not long into our collaboration on the first of our two books together, I noticed on his desk a passage from Bonhoeffer's book, Life Together. It was the same passage that was on my desk as a steady reminder of why we were teachers of religion whose time was not our own but the Lord's. When I reread it last evening, I thought it was a perfect statement of why Burton became, indeed, a man totally dedicated to others. Bonhoeffer was speaking of the vocation to be helpful to anyone who crosses our paths. "We have in mind simple assistance in minor, external matters. There are many such things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the lowest service. Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then, pass them by, preoccupied with our more important daily tasks, just as the priest - perhaps reading the Bible - passed by the man who had fallen among robbers. When we do that, we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised in our lives to show us that God's way, and not our own is what counts." This is the kind of faith that I noted and admired in Burton. He made time for anybody who had a problem or who wanted a favor or who needed his help. He was so much like the busy, almost frenetic Jesus of Mark, Chapter 3. He seemed to be at everybody's disposal.

What was it like working with Burton to produce two critically acclaimed books - A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer? It was a thrill, especially in the process of rereading all the collected writings of Bonhoeffer and rediscovering the gems of wisdom and inspiration that is the Bonhoeffer legacy. For me, too, it was a wonderful experience being so close to one in whom Bonhoeffer's prophetic spirit seemed to radiate. But it was slow, painstaking work, particularly when Burton would uncover a dramatic passage from the untranslated sermons and the often-neglected sections from Bonhoeffer's letters and the written expressions of his frustration in challenging the churches to oppose the systemic evil that was the Nazi ideology. "Wait 'till you see this, Geff," he would say. "Isn't this beautiful? We have to find a place for this in our book." He'd say that even though we were on notice from the publisher that our book was already seriously overweight! But Burton had great powers of persuasion in his horse trading with publishers, persuading them to change the format, to stretch margins to accommodate more of his reflections on Bonhoeffer. He could edit my share of the writing like no one other dared to do.

He once took a 72-page chapter that I wrote for our latest book and pared it down to a manageable 40, which became 30 pages in print. He had those eyes that were part angelic, most compassionate and part bulldog. Telling me what he had cut from that chapter with those eyes on me, I didn't dare argue. Yes, I enjoyed working with him, especially with his great editorial instinct for concise prose. No one can tell in our books where Kelly leaves off and Burton begins and vice-versa. One of our reviewers, Bill Peck, captured our togetherness very perceptively: "Those of us who have known Geff Kelly and Burt Nelson for many years have perhaps wondered what Geff's exuberant spontaneity, unbridled - not to say outrageous – wit . . . along with Burt Nelson's meticulous and heart-warming personal knowledge of everyone even tangentially related to the Bonhoeffer story, would produce if they were ever to collaborate in writing a definitive book about Bonhoeffer's significance can now hold the answer in our hands. It is a solid scholarly achievement." It was out last work together.

In our 35 years of friendship and scholarly collaboration, Burt and I never exchanged an angry word. I can't describe the respect we had for one another, a carryover of the respect Burton gave everyone he ever met. But this was special! Did I ever see Burton angry? You bet! But it was the prophetic anger of a Jesus who could rebuke Peter for all his blustering, who could tell some of his closest followers that they didn't know of what wrongheaded spirit they were, or the angry complaint that "these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." It was akin to Bonhoeffer's anger at the way the churches and Christians had betrayed Jesus in the Hitler era. What made Burton angry?

Burton was angry at politicians who claimed to be inspired by Jesus Christ, but whose actions were far from the Jesus to whom they were giving mere lip service for their own political gain. For Burton this was hypocrisy and blasphemy! And he didn't mind saying so.

Burton was angry at those who advocated and waged war against nations and peoples for the cause of political self-aggrandizement or base motives of revenge or in pursuit of economic gain.

Burton was angry at the bombing strategies that caused the deaths of countless innocent civilians robbing them of their human dignity and destroying their dreams for a better future.

Burton was angry at the lies and seductive slogans used by politicians to deceive the people into approving the wars they wage with little regard to the blood they shed in complete violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Burton was angry at the sins of corporation leaders whose business policies were animated by greed, selfishness and indifference to the financial plight of the poor of our nation and of helpless people in underdeveloped nations.

Burton was angry at the seeming inability of our rich nation to provide adequate health care for all its citizens, especially the poor.

Bonhoeffer was angry at the ways in which powerful nations have preyed on smaller, more helpless nations and poor peoples for the sake of economic exploitation, cheap labor, and domination of the mighty over the weak.

Burton was angry at the racism in our country, the apartheid in South Africa and the murder of the Jews by the Nazis. He taught on the Holocaust and was on the Board of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. He was a strong opponent of racism and apartheid long before the politicians made it a national concern.

I could go on, but let this suffice to say that we would not honor Burton's theological and ethical legacy if we did not take seriously this gentle man's prophetic outrage at the injustices that continue even today, despite the great promises and boasts of our nation to be a land of freedom, justice, and peace.

Burton's favorite Bonhoeffer passages, that he often quoted, bear this out. Like Burton, Bonhoeffer castigated war mongering and the waging of war, at one time even wishing the defeat of his own country because of its danger to Christianity and world civilization. He declared in a sermon to the "World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches" that to take up arms against one another is to take up arms against none other than Jesus Christ. Like Bonhoeffer, Burton believed strongly in the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. He lived it. "Peace must be dared," Bonhoeffer wrote, "it is the great venture." He challenged the churches to become the true "church of Christ" by forbidding war, because "in the name of Christ," they have "taken the weapons from the hands of their sons, forbidden war, proclaimed the peace of Christ against the raging world." Burton liked to repeat that, many years before the cold war and the military industrial complex, Bonhoeffer had condemned the idolatry of national security - a concept so often invoked in the Hitler era and even today to justify violence. In that famous denunciation he would add that "the church renounces obedience to Christ should it sanction war. The church of Christ stands against war for peace among people, between nations, classes, and races." And Burton admired the dramatic sermon Bonhoeffer gave on the German Memorial Day with many of the men in the congregation bedecked in their military uniforms and displaying their medals won in battle. Bonhoeffer railed against the politicians who declare that Jesus Christ has no relevance in matters of war because Christ does not speak the language of political reality. This was in Bonhoeffer's eyes a blatant attempt to seduce and bewitch the people. "The world," he wrote, "bands together against the spirit of Christ, the demons are enraged; it is a revolt against Christ. And the great power of the rebellion is called - war! . . ."

Hitler's boast of creating a new world order, echoed in recent years by other seductive politicians, was countered by Bonhoeffer in a dramatic sermon in which he declared that we already have a "new world order": "That is the Gospel of the dawn of the new world, the new order, that is the world of God and the order of God. The deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, and the Gospel is preached to the poor." Burton fought hard with the copy editor to include that passage into our book, A Testament to Freedom.

Burton also admired the way Bonhoeffer, from an affluent family of the upper crust of German society, had made common cause with the poor. One of his favorite passages from Bonhoeffer Ethics occurred when Bonhoeffer was pleading for consideration to be given to the needy all the while not losing sight of our ultimate call to be with God. "The hungry need bread and the homeless need a roof; the dispossessed need justice and the lonely need community . . . To allow the hungry to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one's neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one's neighbor." That passage, written in the last years of Bonhoeffer's life, rejoined another of Burton's favorite passages spoken during his pastoral internship in Barcelona. Bonhoeffer had declared to his fairly affluent parishioners that "Christianity preaches the unending worth of the apparently worthless, and the unending worthlessness of what is apparently so valuable. The weak shall be made strong through God and the dying shall live."

The dying shall live. Those words ring true today of Burton. Burton lives on in our hearts and in our memories, in his writings and in the unforgettable example of a Christian life that he made so inspiring. Our mutual friend, Bill Peck, has said it well in recalling for this occasion the words that come to his mind in remembering Burton: warmth, generosity, scholarly integrity, persistence, genuineness whether in grief or in humor and loyalty. Burton was unfailingly warm and kindly, always ready with a smile. If you needed a place to stay, he would invite you in. He was the Bonhoeffer society's definitive practitioner of living history." Another colleague, Mark Brocker, a Lutheran pastor in Oregon, wrote of Burton: "I appreciated Burton's vast knowledge of everything a person could possibly want to know about Bonhoeffer's life, his sensitivity to the 'spirit' of Bonhoeffer and his ability to befriend a hot-headed liberal Irish Catholic. But most of all, I appreciated Burton's graciousness. Burton truly had a gift for speaking "words that give grace" (Ephesians 4:29)." A German colleague, Gottfried Brezger, wrote in a similar vein: "In his deep competence and kindness he was for me the father of the extended Bonhoeffer family in your country." And Keith Clements, from the World Council of Churches in Geneva, offered this reflection on Burton's life: "To summarize what Burton has meant to me, I would say that it is a very rare combination of intellectual enthusiasm, deep human compassion, and - I use the words most positively - a beautiful piety."

For me, personally, Burton quickly became one of the great loves of my life, a soul brother on whom I depended and with whom I could share my sorrows and on whom I could rely for comfort and help in those times when I was down and worried about whether my chronically ill daughter would ever survive. When she wasn't expected to live, his was the shoulder I could cry on and with whom I could vent my frustrations. I have through his friendship come to appreciate ever more the presence of God in our lives. I've studied and taught Christology my whole professional life. I've learned more about Jesus from Burton than I ever could derive from the learned tomes I studied. Here, too, we often read together a passage in our own translation from Bonhoeffer's book on Church, Sanctorum Communio. It says so well what we experienced from each other and from our families. "We must take other people's wants and infirmities to heart as if they were our own and offer them our means as if they were ours, just as Christ does for us in the sacrament. This (is) 'being transformed into one another through love.' . . . In this event we are bound to reach the point where the wants, infirmities, and sins of our neighbor afflict us as if they were our own, just as Christ was afflicted by our sins." This is the Burton we all know, the gospel story of a great man for whom our wants, infirmities and sins could touch him as if they were his.

Finally, while preparing these words, I was touched by a hymn from the musical "Les Miserables." The scene is that of Jean Valjean in his old age, facing his imminent death, when Fantine, a saint in heaven, appears in a vision. Jean Valjean had loved and defended her and before her death had promised to raise her daughter as his own. She is with the saintly Eponine, who had died at the barricades. Jean Valjean sings with these saints appearing to him from heaven above: "Take my hand and lead me to salvation; take my love for love is everlasting; and remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God." This is how we remember Burton, one who loved not just another person, but thousands of persons and in whom we can all say "we have seen the face of God."

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