Book Notice: Eric Metaxas: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

As people (or it could just be me) we have a tendency to read our hero’s life-story believing that if we stood in their shoes we would have acted or reacted in the same way. I can’t say that about Bonhoeffer. In Eric Metaxas’s new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, I saw myself several times, but not in Bonhoeffer.

I stood among the shallow-minded Union Theological Seminary students whom Bonhoeffer encountered in New York. At 25 years old, Bonhoeffer was already eons ahead of them both academically and spiritually. He wrote that the Union students:

Talk a blue streak without the slightest substantive foundation and with no evidence of criteria … They are unfamiliar with even the most basic questions. They become intoxicated with liberal and humanistic phrases, laugh at the fundamentalists, and yet basically are not even up to their level (pg. 99).

This quote has stuck with me since finishing the book. If I’m honest I find myself talking the same theological blue streak and exhibiting an equal deficiency of depth, insight and self-awareness. I see in myself a lack of maturity and charity and humility and biblical and theological wisdom. Bonhoeffer was the opposite, and as a young man he possessed all of these qualities.

Concerning the book, there are a lot of qualities deserving of comment (narrative style, judicious insight, interaction with sources, organization), but I wish to highlight three.

First, Bonhoeffer was a theologian. His life as a theologian and pastor, calls into question the dichotomy between the pastor’s role to preach and live theology, on the one hand, and the scholar’s role to produce theology on the other. Bonhoeffer was both. Perhaps Bonhoeffer offers a refreshing example of pastor-theologian to a new generation of pastors who wish to construct theology within the context of the church. Bonhoeffer’s work called the church to obedience rather than compromise, and that summons could only be invoked from a deep theological well.

Second, Bonhoeffer embraced ambiguity. Progressing through the narrative, I noticed Bonheoffer’s willingness to accept the murkiness of espionage and conspiracy as discipleship to Jesus. To Bonhoeffer, the ethical implications of faith weren’t separated into simple, clean-cut categories. In other words, killing the Furor was perceived to be God’s will. This provides an ethically uncomfortable question for us to consider (albeit in a comfortable vacuum): What if God’s will is “wrong”, as it’s normally understood? Bonhoeffer was willing to courageously pray and think through these unthinkable difficulties to discern God’s will, and then to put those conclusions into concrete action.

Third, Bonhoeffer was mature. In his relationship with his finance, his decision making, his view of responsibility, his spiritual disciplines, and his ability to endure great suffering that led to death, Bonhoeffer was sustained by Jesus Christ and His body. As you read his letters and books, you interact with a mature person in Jesus Christ.

Metaxas has done an excellent job in bringing us Bonhoeffer’s life-story. We need people like Bonhoeffer, ethically thoughtful, theologically rich, and responsibly Christian. His life challenges complacency, while drawing attention to Jesus Christ, His presence today, and discipleship to Him.

Review by guest contributor: Jameson Ross

Book Notice: Lawrence, Bonhoeffer

Joel Lawrence

Bonhoeffer: A Guide for the Perplexed

New York, London: T & T Clark, 2010

Truth be told, Joel Lawrence is one of my best friends. He and his wife Myndi have been significant partners with Karla and I for a decade now. Joel and I both graduated from Dallas Seminary [although we only became acquainted at the very end of our ThM years] and we both worked on an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge at the very same time [2001-2005/6].  Joel and I once lived in a single room together for two months will attending a Goehte Institute course in Prien am Chimsee in southeastern Germany. So I can hardly be seen as an objective reader of his new book on Bonhoeffer. Nevertheless, I can promise that the book is a result of an intensive study over the last ten years beginning in his Masters work in Cambridge. Joel did his thesis on Bonhoeffer. I can remember many times discussing Bonhoeffer over a beer and a pipe in some pub in Cambridge.

There is a resurgence of late in interest in Bonhoeffer. One can point, for example, to the very recent biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy published by Eric Metazas. Joel's book on Bonhoeffer provides a useful introduction to his thought. The book is both accessible and brief. But its brevity and accessibility should not be confused for elementary or unsophisticated; Joel's work is a serious engagement with the challenges of interpreting Bonhoeffer. Because Bonhoeffer remains in many ways an enigma given that both this life and theological work were cut short by his death at the hands of the Nazis, his theological outlook can be difficult to ascertain. What's more, as Joel puts it,

Because of the nature of his theology and the fact that he died young before he had the opportunity to answer the questions he raised, one can make Bonhoeffer say just about anything one wants (9).

Joel attempts to assist an interested reader of Bonhoeffer in sorting out his thought by rooting in his historical and theological context and by integrating the various  strands of Bonhoeffer's thought. Joel identifies three fundamental themes of Bonhoeffer's work: Christ, the Church and the world. Joel uses these to assist the reader in keeping the "big picture" as they work with a particular portion of Bonhoeffer's writings. Working from back to front historically, Joel shows in the chapters of his book that the questions Bonhoeffer raised in his letters from prison were the outgrowth of his earlier seeds of thought. Joel is adamant that one must read Bonhoeffer's work comprehensively always taking into account the corpus of his ideas. He cautions readers of Bonhoeffer to appreciate the unfinished nature of Bonhoeffer's thought espeically in his prision letters. He admonishes readers to avoid  ripping sound bites out of his writings to prop up one's particular pet theological idea. Joel says, "There can be no 'cheap' readinds of Bonhoeffer, only 'costly' readings" (112).

Joel concludes the book with a chapter on the continued significance of Bonhoeffer for the 21st century suggesting that Bonhoeffer has a prophetic voice to us through the themes of Christian worldiness, the suffering of God and religionless Christianity.