Bonhoeffer and his friends soon would. A “confessing church” would emerge, struggling to be free from coercions of the Third Reich. A “Barmen Declaration” would be published. But for now Bonhoeffer pleaded for action. On April 7, 1934, he wrote a letter to Henry Louis Henriod, the Swiss theologian who headed the ecumenical World Alliance. He pled for support for the pastors and Christians in Germany who knew (to their peril) their church was no longer a church. Here we learn a lesson about the perils