Bonhoeffer A Biography | a review

{full disclosure: To comply with federal regulations, I want to state that I received this book in return for my review. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.}

I just recently finished reading this hefty read. Coming in over 540 pages long, this book has definite quantitative weight, though the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a much heavier qualitative weight.

Bonhoeffer is famous as the author of Cost of Discipleship and Life Together and as the pastor who died under Hitler’s rule because of his attempted assassination of the Führer. I have had a deep respect for this man for some time. After reading this biography, one can understand why he would rail against cheap grace so strongly in his book Discipleship.

Personally I enjoyed Eric Metaxas the most when he was describing Bonhoeffer’s theology and his unique teaching style—how his theology mixed with his life; how he worked so hard to live what he taught. Alternatively the reading became rather laborious {for me} when reading of correspondence between Bonhoeffer and his to be fiancée.

I will lastly describe what was the most fascinating aspect of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions. His conception of ethics, is most unique to most modern Christian thought. Bonhoeffer finds himself maturing into his 30s during the 1930s, in Germany—the Germany of the rising Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was quite the prophet, being able to see the trouble of Nazism before most. When pressure began to be exercised against the German Church, he lead a counter-push. He saw the coming failure of the German state, when most still saw Hitler as the Reich messiah.

During this time of tremendous upheaval Bonhoeffer develops as remarkable ethical stance. He finds himself in a place where simply living the standard good Christian way wasn’t enough. He believed that the God of the Bible was asking more from His people, that belief must turn into action if it is to be truly belief. This ends up turning into something very similar to Kierkegaard’s Abraham in Fear & Trembling. Bonhoeffer finds himself going from a position of open opposition against the state church, to a position of a conspirator—ending up working as a double agent, towards a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

His understanding of truth and right living change considerably. He admits that from the outside, it might seem that he living contrary to a Christian morality, but for him, he sees himself only answering to God himself for his actions. He takes himself as answering a divine call. As a result of this, he becomes very flexible and merciful to other’s choices. He takes a pacifist position, yet doesn’t encourage others to follow or condemn other who join the military. {For German Christians during this era there was a strong reading of Romans 13 that was entrenched into the psyche. It was difficult oppose the state, even if you could see the atrocities. Many struggled with this tension, though not many took the difficult path that Bonhoeffer chose.}

He saw the German state’s stance towards the Jews early on as very wrong. He then spent the last 10-15 years of his life devoted to the Church which defended and protected the Jews. As a result of Bonhoeffer and many of his fellow conspirators we have records of much of atrocities of Nazi Germany.

He was deeply determined to not only study & teach theology but to live it deeply unto death.