Battle for Bonhoeffer - Book Review
To get us there, Haynes takes us back to 9/11 and the way Bonhoeffer was utilized to justify America's take down of Sadam Hussein. This was clear appropriation of the most general idea of who Bonhoeffer was. It shows the plasticity of Bonhoeffer in the hands of popular American writers and public figures. Much like Jesus or God is good to pull in to justify/rationalize what power wanted to do anyway. Actually, Bonhoeffer is an even better cloak because most people don’t know who Bonhoeffer is anyway so when they hear bits of his story, they are impressed that you have someone like that on your side.
Eric Metaxes takes all this to another level. Metaxes is a popular writer who decided to tackles a Bonhoeffer biography (published 2010) and virtually makes Bonhoeffer a household name in many Christian circles (There were popular renderings before him, but his was bigger by a degree). He also tells Glen Beck, National Review and the Wall Street Journal that scholars throughout the years have gotten Bonhoeffer wrong and he is finally setting the record straight. Playing on public ignorance, Metaxes conflates the initial and admittedly wrong headed “Death of God” movement of the 60s which only addressed small fragments of Bonhoeffer's writing with all scholarship on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. With this move Metaxes runs the playbook on modern right-wing populism--- institutions are all liberal and therefore depraved (including Yale which is his own peacock plume); scholars and experts are idiots; we either don't need to listen to them (irrelevant) or we actively should not listen to them (malicious). Kevin Young writes “The best way to commit a hoax now is to claim you’ve spotted one.” That is Metaxes’s game and it works in marvelous fashion.
Repeatedly factual errors have been pointed out in his book by the scholarly community. Rather than addressing them, he doubles down in interviews saying he stands behind every syllable. I think this is because he is delusional in a way that is currently prevalent---Metaxes is engaged in hero worship where he re-writes history to suit ambitions for his group. Then he and his group can also be heroes beyond critique. This is the danger of his loose populism that casts out scholarship. Nevermind that Metaxes doesn’t read German, so, of course, he owes an undisclosed debt for his own bestseller to the work of the very scholars he is actively condemning.
I read Eric Metaxes biography when it came out. I had family that knew I liked Bonhoeffer (at that point I had read three or four of the six books Bonhoeffer published before his death). They saw Metaxes on Glenn Beck and ordered me the book. I did not like the writing style in places (based on my margin scribbling), but mostly I thought it was really good. A readable and fairly deep introduction to a hero of mine. I went to see Metaxes talk about the book at Perimeter church and mostly he walked through Bonhoeffer’s life. (The typical attender of an event like this has not read the book so this part is necessary). Afterwards Metaxes started to make application to our current time and shared his views of creeping socialism, public healthcare and abortion as the main issues that Bonhoeffer would be fighting today. I remember thinking … does this guy know what he is talking about? We just went through a catastrophic recession brought about by deregulated banks and wild, legal investment schemes. The war on terror was not going well and no exit in sight. (Not to mention all the other issues I was blind to at that time). And this guy really thinks Bonhoeffer would be protesting abortion clinics?
Haynes says in order to make use of Bonhoeffer, in order to set the stage for your big Bonhoeffer moment, you have to see Hitler everywhere. It's no wonder as obsessed as we are with WWII that these moments would happen over and over. When Barrack Obama was elected president in 2008, the evangelical right acted like a socialist regime was coming to destroy all our freedoms. There was a group of very educated people (and some not so educated) who got together and drafted the Manhattan Declaration: A Call To Christian Conscience that same year. They were convinced that with gay marriage rights looming, state suppression of “Merry Christmas", continuing abortion rights—it was time to take a stand for Jesus! Haynes says, ”Restrictions on freedom of conscience, the declaration claimed, lead inevitably to 'soft despotism' and the disintegration of civil society that is 'a prelude to tyranny.'" Ha! I think they were about 8 years too early on this one.
The authors styled themselves (especially Colson) as the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. They talked and thought of this document as the Barmen Declaration which they thought Bonhoeffer helped write with the confessing church. In Germany, there were a bunch of regular Christians who fell for Hitler as a strongman and joined in. You know, regular christiana, nominal Christians and, of course, the liberal ones. But the confessing church were the true christians, who knew right from wrong, read their bibles and who would not stand for the nazification of church. Also, they took a stand for the Jewish people.
Almost none of this is history. The confessing church was only a slightly less compromised church movement. They did take a stand, but not against Jewish persecution, more against the Nazi state telling them what to do and who they could baptize. The Barmen Declaration was written under the leadership of Karl Barth (whom evangelicals have a mostly negative view of as liberal, though liberals view him as conservative). Bonhoeffer wasn't even there. He was an outsider to this. AND the confessing church did not last or take a very bold stand in the end.
People have tried to get Bonhoeffer the status of “Righteous Gentile” at least three times and it has been denied because of the things he wrote about Jewish people during this time. Of course, this reality did not stop Eric Metaxes from including exactly that language in his subtitle to his book. (Never let truth get in the way of a good story, even if you are writing history). So not only is they’re home-grown Hitler laughable and delusional, but the history they take inspiration from is the kind of delusion.
In the little book The Crucifixion of the Jews Franklin H. Littell writes—"the worst crimes in the history of mankind were...committed by baptized Christians. Until the churches have to come clean on that massive Event and stop trying to hide behind the skirts of an occasional Bonhoeffer or Delp, of whom they aren't worthy" no amount of rhetoric will save them from "damnation." Yep, he goes there. I guess that is what happens to a Methodist minister turned scholar spends his time studying the Christian church's complicity in the Holocaust.
But here is the grossest part to me. When these wealthy successful men and women are writing out and signing the Manhattan Declaration, there is brutality, mistreatment, persecution, disregard for human rights all happening in our country. Yet, under the cover of pro-life, they attach their own petty little persecution (not being able to lead prayer in public places, not being able to tack tacky pictures of the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, having to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, having to explain to their grandchildren why a man can marry a man). Conservative Christians have a persecution complex. Even when they have largely run the government since Reagan (after they kicked out that no-good Sunday school teacher Carter). When will they surrender the myth that they are under attack, poor and miserable. When will they stop with their snowflake identity politics that we all have to hear about ALL THE TIME.
And of course, these people can’t keep their hand out of the till. It’s not enough that they claim Bonhoeffer as their forerunner, but they pull in Martin Luther King, Jr as inspiration for their refusal to follow unjust laws. I could be wrong, but I don’t recognize any of these signatures as having anything to do with MLK or the civil rights effort when it was happening. In fact, Haynes points out that we have it on record some of these Moral Majority people were actively preaching segregation from the pulpit (looking at you Jerry Falwell). In a sermon from 1958, Fallwell preaches - “when God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.” (92) Chuck Colson ran the southern strategy for Nixon with Strom Thurman for god’s sake. Does anyone know if he apologized for that?
In some ways I think Metaxes represents a larger slide into a new world where truth is only found through trust and mistrust of individual personalities … ie, like our current president, Metaxes tells his audience that they do not have to do any further work, they can trust him that he knows who the real/true Bonhoeffer is. Ignore the experts, ignore the scholars, ignore any new research that comes to light … just trust me. (I can imagine that part in the jungle book where the snake is singing charms to Mowgli).
Here are a few of my own personal takeaways from reading this book: A) Always pause and think before giving into the temptation to make a Hitler reference; B) regardless of bias, we must have scholarship and welcome the world of scholars if we are to have anything like truth; C) Don’t allow your heroes to become gods or you will be tempted to use them as a shield and justification for your ideas … better to just own up and take responsibility for your ideas and be open to the fact that they may be crap.
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