From the very beginning, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings centered around the life of the church. The church, its calling and welfare, was his passion. As a young doctoral student, he wrote two dissertations. One was titled, “Christ Existing as Community.” As…
‘This is our 1933,’ Jones warns
“This is our 1933,” Robert P. Jones told the FaithWorks “Compassion and Justice” conference Feb. 20 in Austin, Texas. Jones, founder and president of Public Religion Research Institute, was a keynote speaker at the event held at Riverbend Church. FaithWorks,…
Is Scott Adams in heaven?
‘Dilbert’ cartoonist Scott Adams died Jan. 13 after a short battle with prostate cancer. Adams was known for his wry satire of white-collar office life through his long-running comic strip, which appeared in 2,000 newspapers in at least 70 countries…
Walking with King and Heschel past Beth Israel Synagogue
As we have honored Martin Luther King this past weekend, I am remembering his friendship with Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Heschel’s joining with him in the Civil Rights March in Selma March 21, 1965. Heschel was criticized for leaving his…
We need a new (and better) Stuttgart Declaration
I was a new staff member when I heard some helpful advice through the church grapevine: My job security depended on the orientation of the blinds in my office windows. Church members wanted all the blinds in the building to…
Truth on the scaffold: Bonhoeffer’s witness to American Christians today
Anyone watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency can see that truth itself is on the scaffold. Bonhoeffer’s life and thought gives us a lens to see our present dilemma as a nation and church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is among the…
The strange grace of struggling with Bonhoeffer on what it means to be a ‘good’ person
“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…