Karl Barth famously objected to National Socialism by confessing Christ as the only Lord. The same can be said about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. No doubt, Bonhoeffer was just as centred on Christ as Barth and this christocentrism was the basis for Bonhoeffer’s rejection of Nazism, as exemplified in his early denunciation of the Aryan clause. Yet, opinions differ on whether Bonhoeffer maintained the Lutheran division of labour between state and church. Did Bonhoeffer’s rejection of Nazism also reject the idea of a ‘Christian ruler’ over all? Was a genuine Christian culture preferred over a secular one? But Bonhoeffer’s own question was also, who is Christ, really, for us today? So what does that mean in the context of a growing ‘christianist’ populism today?

This text explores what is known as the immunization effect in relation to the growing useage of Christian imagery in populist movement. The immunization effect holds that high church attendence appears to "immunize" against edherence to populist movements. This is partly true, yet I argue that the immunization effect cannot write the church free from Christianityäs connection to populism in Europe.