I don’t think anyone who has read much of Bonhoeffer would confuse him for an evangelical. This is all the more reason for evangelicals to read him. Doing so might destroy some of our stereotypes of “liberals” (although Bonhoeffer would probably have rejected that label).

Ethics is brilliant. The Cost of Discipleship is one of my all-time favorites.

To say that Hitler was elected to office is extremely misleading. He did have the largest party in parliament, but he had that already in July 1932 and was not appointed chancellor until January 1933 (after losing seats in the Nov. 1932 election). For a good read on Hitler’s appointment to the chancellorship, read Henry Ashby Turner’s book on Hitler’s 30 Days to Power (hint—there were no elections in January 1933). Metaxas, by the way, does not understand that Hindenburg was already ruling by emergency decree since 1930; Hitler didn’t suddently begin doing this after the Reichstag Fire in Feb. 1933.

Concerning the police state, the Gestapo and concentration camps were already created by the spring of 1933. Many communists had already been executed and Roehm and many SA officers had been executed *before* August 1934. The police state was already a reality before Hindenburg died.

Thanks for the info Tim … I am reading it on my Kindle app…I’m in the middle of the book on and am enjoying it immensely… I know that when Eric responds you will report on the too.

As with all offerings of the written word, our mission as disciples of Christ is to partake and eat- “nothing is unclean ” … as we are led by the Spirit we will “spit out the bones, chew , swallow and digest the meat and be nourished”… if you want absolute Truth…there is only one Book that provides that… Be Blessed …

First of all, yesterday I was rather hurried in my responses. I shoud have started by thanking Tim Challies for posting some of my review. I think his approach makes a lot of sense. Examine the criticisms, but also wait for a response from Metaxas.

Now, concerning the claim that Bonhoeffer did believe in the resurrection and the virgin birth: I don’t have time to explain in great detail here, but it seems to me that when evangelicals claim they believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection, they are claiming that an empirical event happened in real space and time. It is an event that is ontological, which Bonhoeffer denied. Yes, if you asked Bonhoeffer: Do you, Dr. Bonhoeffer, believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection , I have no doubt that he would have responded yes. However, he would have understood this as an “event” in the realm of faith, not one in empirical history. This understanding of events happening in “Heilsgeschichte” (Barth’s term for “salvation history) rather than in “Historie,” i.e., empirical history, is quite different from the evangelical understanding of an event happening. Part of the problem here is that Bonhoeffer (and almost all other theologians of early twentieth-century Germany embraced a coherence theory of truth, which is completely different from the correspondence theory of truth that most evangelicals embrace. I don’t have time in this response to explain the difference, but see Douglas Groothuis’s book _Truth Decay_. Nancy Pearcey does a great job in her new book, _Saving Leonaro_ to explain the “two-story division of truth.This was Bonhoeffer’s view, as he was heavily influenced by Kierkegaard (when Bonhoeffer mentioned the greatest influences on his theology, he always mentioned Paul, Luther, Kierkegaard, and Barth). That’s all I have time to say just now, but I will explain all this fully in the book I’m working on: _Why Evangelicals Do Not Understand Bonhoeffer: The Perils of Modern Theology_. I should mention that it is gratifying to see from the above comments that many evangelicals do recognize the problems wth Bonhoeffer’s theology.

Let me preface what I am going to say with the fact that I’m a “born again” Christian and have been for over 44 years. I am also a Southern Baptist who is extensively involved in various ministries including teaching Bible study classes, lay preaching, and counseling. If your concern is simply with Metaxas’ portrayal of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so be it. However, if your problem is with how Metaxas sheds light on Bonhoeffer’s theology, and then compare that to Bonhoeffer’s actual writings, I take issue with that line of thinking. Having read Metaxas’ biography on Bonhoeffer, I found it informative and insightful. Furthermore, I have also read Bonhoeffer’s classics, Cost of Discipleship and Ethics, both of which were excellent. In the book, Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer’s exposition on grace—cheap grace, costly grace, faith and obedience, is not only extremely insightful, but very Biblical. Upon reading your review, Mr. Challies, and comments from your blog readers, NO WHERE have I seen where we should hold Mr. Bonhoeffer’s theology up against the Scriptures. The comments from so-called scholars, or self-proclaimed experts, saying “this isn’t true” or “those are falsifications,” in truth, seek only to elevate themselves. They do this in lieu of seeking God’s glory in all things—theirs is just an opinion. What we should truly do is, as Paul stated in Acts 17:11 when in Berea, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Bonhoeffer’s theology should be judged in that LIGHT only. I am not the least bit hesitant to say I incorporate his perspectives in my Bible studies and sermons. “Counterfeit Bonhoeffer?” I dare say not. What truly is counterfeit is today’s “postmodern” church in which we see the effects permeate everywhere. More can be said, but suffice it to say those readers who tend to rely on a critique on whether these books are worthy to read or not, do so to their own detriment, and are missing out on an inspiring book about a man who lived out his faith. God Bless.

I am about a quarter of the way through Metaxes’ biography and was taken aback by the allegations that the critics made concerning D. Bonhoeffer and Metaxes’ biography.

However, after a little digging, I’m not sure that these critiques are grounded enough to give up on the book yet. (Previous commenters have already mentioned the context for Bonhoeffer’s statement concerning the virgin birth and brought to light that Hitler was indeed democratically elected in the beginning.)

A couple of things that didn’t line up:Clifford Green writes: “Metaxas repeats […] the canard about Bonhoeffer’s radio speech on the Fhrer being cut off as if he were a marked man from the beginning of Hitler’s rule, when in fact he just went over the time limit.”However on Page 138, Mataxes writes: “The Nazis may have censored the broadcast, but it’s also possible that Bonhoeffer and the station manager misunderstood each other, and he simply ran out of time.”

Weikart quotes a footnote from The Cost of Discipleship in which Bonhoeffer warns against viewing statements about Christ’s resurrection as ontological statements. He proceeds to tell us what “ontological” means, namely that the resurrection did not happen in real space and time. Typing “ontological” into my search engine gave me this quote from Wikipedia: “An ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone.” That gives a different interpretation of the footnote, in other words, we should be careful insisting that the resurrection can be proved by reason alone without faith.

Finally here are a couple of quotes from the two reviews that suggest the critics are not entirely neutral:

Clifford Green - “Informed readers will attend to what else is missing. Contrary to claims in the publicity, there is no new research in this biography. Bonhoeffer scholars are thanked but only mentioned in their role as editors; their research and writings are never discussed. (Disclosure: I have edited several volumes in the Bonhoeffer Works.)”

Richard Weikhart - “…also, I am currently writing another book that will probably be entitled, “Why Evangelicals Do Not Understand Bonhoeffer.”

All that to say, these accusations are serious and I am all for finding out the truth. However, we are not doing ourselves a favor by taken these two critics at their word and discarding Metaxas’ biography before checking their facts.

Would Bonhoeffer or Barth or C.S. Lewis for that matter, consider themselves “Evangelicals”?

And how does today’s Evangelical *essentially* differ from a Neo-Orthodox or Liberal anyway?

Tim, you’re man for this mission!

How a Fundamentalist understands Bonhoeffer: http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/bonhoeffer/general.htm

Eric’s book is well written and engaging. I have corresponded with the author and have seen him speak. He is an interesting fellow alhtough some of his TV credits already had my revisionism detector on high alert.

If his book doesn’t appeal the the scholars due to inaccuracies or generalizations, that is understandable. Metaxas is not an expert and is essentially writing a popular intro to Bonhoeffer. He has the misfortune to be writing on someone who has a specific society of intellectuals who who studied and written on hs every word. What chance was there that his popular work would satisfy them?

My advice is enjoy Metaxas and then seek out Bethge’s bio or the recent one by Schlingensiepen. Bonhoeffer is certainly worth the effort. I can also recommend a video called “Hanged on a Twisted Cross” by Bethge’s daughter Renate.

For what it’s worth, the publish-and-review phenomenon you are witnessing is merely a public conversation whose results are unfolding while you read. As the blog points out, the scholars that are upset about the popular treatment may not be entirely accurate. However, their comments too are in the public domain and can be answered by anyone who feels capable. Unfortunately, the blogger is correct in his assertion that evangelicals tend to pick and choose the parts they like in their would-be heros. C.S. Lewis is another, perhaps less controversial, example of an ‘honorary evangelical’. But others could be added that are clearly outside the camp: G.K. Chesterton, Walker Percy, and J.R.R Tolkien were all Roman Catholic through and through and would have detested most of what passes today in evangelical churches: the faith sometimes delivered and vaguely practiced. I was taught in a secular university by a christian professor of the ‘centrist’ kind (probably attacked by both ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ christians) that both Bonhoeffer and Barth held evangelical convictions about the power of the gospel to transform the world, etc, but engaged fully with the critical scholarship of the day. This included a so-called ‘higher criticism’ of the bible, and a social anthropology that might appear ‘materialist’ to contemporary evangelicals. In the end I find it compelling that virtually none of the most quoted authors of the past century (some listed above) were not evangelical (e.g. precious few engaged in apologetics as the blogger says of B.) and yet these men appeal so widely to this segment of (north american!) christianity. Is it possible that they speak to a part of us (or you?) that is malnourished? This has been my experience.

Grace and Peace.

A much better book is that of Ferdinand Schlingensiepen entitled Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 (Original in 2006 - German) translated in English and released the same month as EM’s “decidely evangelical” work on DB. There was no full court press media blitz on the volume…it was quietly released by T&T Clark/Continuum. FS is the co-founder of the International DB Society. His father was a friend of DB and a member of the Confessing Church. His thesis is that DB simply wants to be heard not put into any theological camp and FS accomplishes this task. Read this text along with John A Moses The Reluctant Revolutionary: DB’s Collision with Prusso-German History (2009) and you will see DB in a new light - his own.

dang it!

i’m also this person:

the kind of person who read, enjoyed and enthusiastically recommended the book.

here’s my very brief review: http://davemiers.com/2010/09/02/new-dietrich-bonhoeffer-biography-by-eri…