“You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman, “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” I always have found the story in…
Eric Metaxas apologizes — sort of
After calling 86 descendants of Dietrich Bonhoeffer “pro-Hamas, Jew-hating lunatics,” Eric Metaxas issued something of an apology Dec. 4. Metaxas, who wrote a controversial biography of Bonhoeffer and is a well-known Christian nationalist and 2020 election denier, used part of…
The Baptist Bonhoeffer
Political party leaders around the globe, including Donald Trump, are openly flirting with fascism to consolidate power by exploiting economic and cultural conflicts. When considering how to respond to these troubling developments, many Christians rightly turn to the example of…
Metaxas calls Bonhoeffer’s relatives ‘Jew-hating lunatics’
Relatives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who have criticized Eric Metaxas are “Jew-hating lunatics,” Metaxas told Glenn Beck Nov. 23. On his podcast, Beck asked Metaxas about criticism of his portrayal of Bonhoeffer — a German pastor who resisted Hitler and was…
New Bonhoeffer film offers a mixed bag of emotions
The task of offering an analysis of the movie Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin has been complicated for me because the promotion for the movie shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a gun in his hand. My attempts to recover from this misleading…
Are we still of any use?
“And so it begins.” As nominations for leadership of government agencies are announced by the newly elected American president, the words of Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written around Christmas 1942, seem startlingly relevant: We have been silent witnesses of evil…
The sacrilegious singing of ‘How Great Thou Art’
Around 3 a.m. Eastern time on Nov. 6, a crowd gathered in the lobby of the West Palm Beach, Fla., convention center where Donald Trump had just delivered his victory speech. The crowd, which included Christian singer Sean Feucht, began…
Is this a Bonhoeffer Moment?
A week before the election I was in a group of clergy where we were sharing our anxiety about the election, expressing our apprehension that Donald Trump would be elected president, and casting about for the meaning of it all….
How conservatives misuse Bonhoeffer, King and Reagan
Recent letters published by descendants of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and members of the International Bonhoeffer Society denouncing misuse of the German theologian’s legacy illustrate a much bigger problem: The false conversion of iconic people to suit the needs of modern-day conservatives….