Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsRedeeming Bonhoeffer (The Book)
What, then, is the verdict on Metaxas? We all make mistakes. Perhaps teaming up with a really boring historian (they are plentiful!) could be a welcome course correction. We need those stories told accurately. But we need them told vividly as well, and we can hope that Metaxas will not abandon history. We need heroes, in all their glory and grime.
Carl Trueman's conclusion is spot-on advice for studying historical figures: "Of more value than 'Was he an evangelical?' is surely 'How can I learn from him how better to be a Christian?'" Carl models this by being confessionally Reformed but still using the word "hero" with respect to Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman, citing much that he has learned from him.
As Stanley Fish reminds us in his recent New York Times review of True Grit, heroes are not always victorious and triumphant, for "the universe seems at best indifferent, and at worst hostile" to heroism. The lesson of Bonhoeffer is not that "Someone like us stood up to Hitler" or "Someone with our theology did something great." The lesson is that someone who sat at Jesus's feet was willing to risk comfort, acceptance, and freedom for what was right.
Jason B. Hood is Scholar-In-Residence at Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis and blogs at The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology.
Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is available from ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.
Hood earlier wrote about Churches letting Muslims use their worship spaces and heresy charges as a badge of honor.
Collin Hansen interviewed Metaxas about his biography last year.
Christian History has a section on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Previous Christianity Today articles on Bonhoeffer include:
Bonhoeffer Stood Fast | Martyred German pastor showed theology has consequences. (May 5, 2010)
CT Classic: Bonhoeffer in Love | Letters from 1943 to 1945 between the theologian and his fiancée reveal the other half of a costly discipleship. (February 1, 2001)
Christian History Corner: Agent of Grace | PBS's Bonhoeffer film shows us a theologian in action. (June 1, 2000)
The 'Handicap Icon' Gets New Life
Sidelining the Stigma of Mental Illness
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Ryan McLaughlin
I'm only about halfway through "Bonhoeffer", but thus far I find Jason's review to be spot-on. Whether Metaxas means to apply evangelical whitewash to Bonhoeffer's thinking, or simply isn't theologically sophisticated enough to rightly interpret his neo-orthodox subject, the book fails to give us the man as he was. As evangelicals, we don't do ourselves any favors by claiming someone who wasn't one of us, nor do we make our message more convincing by seeming to imply that anyone who was used as a means of God's grace must therefore have been theologically conservative. Jason, it seems like you've taken a lot of heat in the comments here...don't let that stop you from continuing to write great reviews, even if you have to disturb some of modern American evangelicalism's sacred cows in the process.
Scott Arnold
I'm reading the biography now and find some of the criticisms unfounded. However, more to the point, is there an agreed upon definition for "Evangelical"? It seems many people/church groups consider themselves to be Evangelical despite having widely disparate beliefs. I saw a comment on one site that said Bonhoeffer was "not one of us." The only US that matters is the Body of Christ, and I hardly think evangelicals (of which I am one) constitute the entirety of this US (not to be confused with the United States, as sometimes happens).
Noel Hausler
Randall, it's called scholarship. You look at all points of view , not just ones that support your point of view. One like yourself most likly watches Glenn Beck, he supports your bias. I looked at all reviews, including those who have been studying Bonhoeffer for years, like Victoria Barnett and Clifford Green.
Paul Preston
I must say, I was a little appalled by this article. I appreciate the magazine, but the labeling of DB as a "liberal" is a little much. JFK would be considered a liberal in 1960, but a conservative in 2011.
tom thomas
"Nancy Lukens ponders the 'agenda-driven biography' for Sojourners"... What else is "Sojourners" but an extreme agenda-driven publication? As usual, attack and belittle the messenger.