You might want to go and grab a cup of coffee before reading this. It's a fairly long review of Eric Metaxas's recent biography on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I hope you find it helpful
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Eric Metaxas’s biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is a very curious text. The book is an exceptionally well written narrative of the life and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yet this is no mere biography; it is an effort of biographical reclamation. Mr. Metaxas wants to reclaim “the real” Bonhoeffer from, what he believes is, a liberal theological project which has clouded and misrepresented Bonhoeffer’s life and theology. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy recasts him as a theologically conservative evangelical, far closer to American evangelicalism than previously thought. It’s divided reception, very well received popularly and equally coolly received academically, reveals a great divide between everyday Christian life and academic, theological existence. On the one hand there is the overwhelming success of the book and its endorsement through the evangelical establishment. On the other hand there is a very significant negative response from Bonhoeffer scholars. The book raises as many questions as it seems to answer, not least of which is, “How much does it matter that a work is widely successful and popular, while very critically received by those most familiar with the material?”
On one side, there is a reason the book has sold so well. Mr. Metaxas has skillfully crafted an elegant narrative detailing the life and thought of one of the 20th century’s most courageous church leaders and brilliant theologians. His eloquent and compelling prose has turned the life and thought of a dead, German, theologian into a genuine page turner that people all over the religious spectrum can’t put down. Churches, small groups, and interested readers are ripping their way through a 600 page book and coming away fascinated. This is no small feat. Any time an author can have people voluntarily devote that type of time and energy, it represents a colossal achievement. Mr. Metaxas is clearly a master at his craft.
The book itself becomes more complex as we look at how he’s chosen to tell Bonhoeffer’s story. In some ways, the book is an attempt to update, condense, and renarrate Bonhoeffer’s life apart from Eberhard Bethge’s standard-in-field comprehensive biography. Realistically, not everyone is up to the task of wading through a 1200 page text, exhaustive as it may be in its narrative and meticulous as it is in its notation. Additionally, new source material has come to light in the years following its publication and in many respects a new, easily accessible, Bonhoeffer biography is needed.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if this book is a sufficient effort.
The difficulty is trying to figure out how the book should be read, how much stock should be put into it, and therefore what to take from it. On the one hand, the book is obviously not written for an academic audience. It’s a popular biography written to introduce people to this Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, and Spy’s amazing story. Bonhoeffer’s life and thought were intricate and complex, and Mr. Metaxas’s work has attempted to smooth over the complexities in order to render a compelling story. Subsequently, one should not necessarily expect or demand a high level of academic rigor because church historians and theologians are not his intended audience. He’s written an introductory account into Bonhoeffer which seeks to translate the (admittedly) boring, stuffy, academic-ese into the commonplace vernacular of everyday life in a narrative that moves. As such, it is a very welcome addition to Bonhoeffer literature.
On the other hand, the author is quite vocal about his desire to bring Bonhoeffer studies to a new point. This is no mere ‘retelling’ of Bonhoeffer’s life; there is a specific reading of Bonhoeffer at work and it goes against the grain of a significant amount of Bonhoeffer scholarship. Mr. Metaxas seemingly rescues a theologically and socially conservative Bonhoeffer from decades of (as he sees it) dominantly liberal interpretation. This is, in and of itself, not necessarily bad. Perhaps scholars have overlooked aspects of his life and theology and scholarship needs a corrective. This happens all the time. Scholars research their topics specifically because things are often missed and need adjustment. Bonhoeffer studies, like all studies, are constantly in need of correction so they may grow and progress.
However, the intended audience for that type of project is quite different than the audience for whom he’s written. By and large, non-academics are unaware of the key interpretive decisions Mr. Metaxas has made in his narrative and will not demand a high level of evidence, but church historians and theologians will. For instance, Mr. Metaxas has done an awful lot by making the Abyssinian Baptist Church the central locus in Bonhoeffer’s personal conversion during his year at Union Seminary from 1930-31 (instead of his friendships at Union seminary or, most likely, a combination of both in equal measure). Careful readers of the text will see the significant weight Mr. Metaxas gives that experience and its long term impact in terms of Bonhoeffer’s conservative vs. liberal socio-political and theological trajectory, his own Christian experience, and the message he felt he would bring back to Berlin. People unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer’s life and theology, however, will be quite unaware of just how much other evidence Mr. Metaxas has left to the side in order to clearly make that point (such as, among others, the depth and impact of his friendships established at Union, his theological commitments before coming to America, and the effect his year in Barcelona had upon him). Subsequently, they will not know just how much his later arguments regarding Bonhoeffer’s theology, his personal piety, and its relationship to his conservative vs. liberal socio-political ideas and are hamstrung by assertion and a lack of evidence.
Theologians and church historians are aware of these dynamics but they’re not in the loop, so to speak. After all, if you want to substantially alter a prevailing interpretation of a theologian’s body of work, you enter dialogue with people who know. Even when you disagree with them. Especially because you disagree with them. This isn’t necessarily anything profound; we do this type of thing all the time in our own professional fields every day. That’s what professional journals, conferences, and other academic texts are for. Mr. Metaxas’s biography has, quite intentionally, bypassed scholarship and gone directly “to the people”, as it were. Again, this is a very curious turn of events precisely because of how obvious this avoidance is and the myriad of questions it raises in its wake. If Mr. Metaxas wants to change Bonhoeffer’s reception, he’s quite obviously talking to the wrong audience.
Subsequently, the text exists at cross purposes. It is a book written to address and engage a popular audience while advancing Bonhoeffer studies in a technical sense. This is not, by definition, impossible, though it is quite difficult to achieve. Its success or failure rests on the author’s ability to establish trust. Non-academics need to trust that it is a story worth reading and that it won’t get weighed down in narrative stalling technicalities. Scholars will have to trust that an accurate technical knowledge undergirds the blurring strokes such a narrative form requires.
The work is wildly successful on one level, and falls flat at the other. As I have already mentioned, the biography has received tremendous popular success, selling something on the order of 70,000 copies. It really is a page turner that can be difficult to put down. Churches, Christian organizations, and seminaries have welcomed the work as a triumph and a fabulous achievement. People who had merely heard of Bonhoeffer’s life have been wonderfully engaged and thrust into the midst of his compelling life and legacy. Unfortunately, the scholarly reception is as cool as the non-academic reception is enthusiastic and, unfortunately, this is not without merit. Mr. Metaxas’s most substantial claims and theological moves are vastly unsubstantiated. And precisely because these claims are unsubstantiated, Mr. Metaxas simply does not hold up the academic end of the bargain, so to speak.
The issue is not so much that the book is wrong (though some areas certainly do come close), but that it is a vastly under defended argument for what it aspires to do. And so one just doesn’t know how to read the text. There are a number of discrepancies and issues, almost all of them individually minor, yet quite major when taken on aggregate. From this perspective, the work feels like the academic equivalent of the death from 1,000 paper cuts. Allow me a couple of (admittedly minor) “for instance” moments, which will hopefully show the developing issues surrounding the work.
For instance, there is a significant issue with respect to Bonhoeffer’s own identity as a Lutheran theologian. From start to finish, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor. He thought in Lutheran categories and always saw his disagreements with the German Lutherans as an “in house” conflict to reclaim the real Luther. Yet the text is astonishingly silent on this. In a work designed to give a theological/historical development of Bonhoeffer’s most significant influences, Martin Luther is hardly to be seen. This is either a shocking moment of oversight or neglect, and the reader simply does not know which it is. Instead, Mr. Metaxas paints Bonhoeffer as a Barthian. The text diligently works to establish the personal and theological relationship between Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth. That relationship was, indeed, quite rich and profound, and a substantial body of work details and highlights the Barth/Bonhoeffer friendship. However, Bonhoeffer’s theological relationship to Barth was always secondary to his theological relationship to Martin Luther. Even when not mentioned by name, Lutheran theological categories undergird Bonhoeffer’s theological and pastoral project. This leads the reader to wonder why Mr. Metaxas never mentions it.
Without a concrete reason, readers are left to their own ponderings and, unfortunately, none of them are very inspiring. Does Mr. Metaxas not understand the theologically Lutheran categories undergirding Bonhoeffer’s thought, even if Luther isn’t mentioned by name? Does he not grasp the form and structure of Bonhoeffer’s theology? Alternatively, is it merely narratively expedient to overlook Bonhoeffer’s Lutheranism and align him with Barth instead? After all, Mr. Metaxas painted with a very broad brush as he drew the battle lines surrounding the Church Struggle. The biography pitts Bonhoeffer against the German Lutherans and their corruption of the Gospel. From this perspective, it doesn’t precisely do to have your protagonist theologically tied to the bad guys when you’re trying to keep the story moving along. This is even doubly so when there is ample evidence that your hero was substantially theologically aligned to one of the loudest voices against the Reich Church. But the question remains broad and looming. How can you write a theological account of Bonhoeffer's life without making explicit reference to his Lutheranism? Especially when you are quite intentional about linking him to Barth, why ignore Bonhoeffer’s deepest influence? Or, if Mr. Metaxas believes Barth’s influence was greater that Luther’s (which would be a very substantial transition within Bonhoeffer studies) where is his argument and evidence?
To be fair, it’s also not an enormously significant point in the midst of the larger narrative. Does Bonhoeffer’s Lutheran identity vis-a-vis his Barthian affiliations dramatically alter our understanding of his life? No, not really. This is particularly true because of how Barth’s theology, at some key moments, takes its cues from Martin Luther. Whether or not Bonhoeffer’s deepest theological allegiance was to Barth or Luther is significant at a technical historical and theological level, but not for Mr. Metaxas’s target audience. Yet, it represents a curious and glaring oversight and raises considerable issues regarding the quality of Mr. Metaxas’s reading of Bonhoeffer. If he either missed or ignored this, what else? When telling the story anyways why tell it in this manner? Whatever the reason, it gives the impression that Mr. Metaxas is not telling the complete story, and for those who know the larger backdrop it is a substantial red flag.
Another area of complexity comes in his theological language. In referring to Bonhoeffer’s theology and motivations, Metaxas often talks of “God” as the driving force in Bonhoeffer's theology, but very rarely specifically of “Christ.” And, again, one doesn’t know how big of an issue this is. From a technical, academic, theological perspective, there is an enormous difference between saying, "God does" instead of "Christ does". This is doubly so because it was exceptionally important to Bonhoeffer himself. To give an account of Bonhoeffer’s thought which isn't explicitly Christological is historically curious, and makes one wonder if Bonhoeffer’s theology has been fully understood. But, then again, considering the text’s broader aims, it could be wholly appropriate to smooth the language over in such a moment. As stuffy as theologians can be, we do understand that most people aren’t too fussed about these types of differentiations. And yet, severe issues are raised by leeching Bonhoeffer's explicit Christology from his theological reflection. The language transition shows that the author has either a) not grasped Bonhoeffer’s theology b) adapted the language for ease and readability or c) both. Unfortunately, readers are left to wonder which answer is correct and an awful lot hangs in the balance. Without a concrete ability to answer that he’s merely smoothing over the language (merely a short endnote would have sufficed) there are significant questions regarding the quality of Mr. Metaxas’s interpretation.
This is another minor point in and of itself. How much of a difference is it to say that “God calls us to obedience” instead of “Christ calls us to obedience”? Well, it depends on who you ask. Really only theologians would say it matters an awful lot. But, when we consider that he was an exceptionally careful theologian and that it meant an awful lot to Bonhoeffer himself, enough so that he structured all of his theology along Christology, it’s actually quite important. That seems to be the type of detail you want your readers to know that you’re aware of, especially when you’re making a theologically relevant argument and arguing for a significantly different interpretive trajectory. Especially if/ when you blend the language for readability, which is understandable, you need to make note of your awareness in the midst of the conflation. Otherwise, it genuinely appears as if you’ve misunderstood him. And here, again, a minor endnote would suffice but does not exist. This makes Bonhoeffer historians and theologians quite nervous about Mr. Metaxas’s command of the material, and trust continues teetering perilously in the balance.
This narrative trust is important because when Metaxas speaks of significant influences within Bonhoeffer’s life that shaped his theology, articulates his personal reading of Bonhoeffer, and later moves into the murky waters of the Ethics and prison letters, it is absolutely crucial that a proper command of Bonhoeffer’s theology informs the commentary. Whenever a Bonhoeffer scholar comments on his later theology, a substantial amount of trust must have already been earned, and Mr. Metaxas’s efforts simply fall short. There just isn’t enough evidence, either in content or endnote, to substantiate the broad revisionist claims he makes, and his simplifications along the way have not engendered the trust for scholars to go along. Dietrich Bonhoeffer may, indeed, have been a conservative evangelical theologian. But he wasn’t based upon the argument that Mr. Metaxas builds.
And, I guess that's the big worry. Mr. Metaxas isn't a theologian and he has said that he is not pretending to be one, yet his account of Bonhoeffer’s thought certainly does toe that line. Subsequently, when he looks like he has missed a subtle and substantial nuance, such as the difference between Bonhoeffer’s peace ethic and pacifism, and then builds an argument upon that misunderstanding, it leads to very controversial and unsubstantiated conclusions (such as arguing that Bonhoeffer was never a pacifist). Add in a substantial oversimplification with regard to the Church Struggle and you get the academic reaction that's come down the pike: “Beware. Bad Biography. Bonhoeffer Hijacked.” Stuff like that.
I’m not necessarily so quick to jump on that bandwagon. To say “Beware” would admit to a level of familiarity and understanding with respect to Mr. Metaxas that I’m not sure I can grasp. I honestly do not know just what type of command Mr. Metaxas possesses over Bonhoeffer’s theology and his theological formation. After all, I’m not the target audience. The text wasn’t written for me, a Bonhoeffer scholar. In other interviews, such as his brief interview with Christianity Today or on Glen Beck, he has spoken as if I’m the bad guy in this narrative. I’m one of those evangelical Christians who does read the academic journals, the boring textbooks, goes to conferences on Bonhoeffer’s theology, and is, apparently, part of the liberal system that Bonhoeffer needs to be rescued from. And I am also one of those people who gets quite nervous because Mr. Metaxas’s theological assertions and conclusions don’t follow. Or, at least they don’t follow based on the evidence he provides. And, obviously, he isn’t concerned about addressing any of those weaknesses by entering into dialogue with the academic community.
This is, perhaps, what is most curious. He is quite vocal about putting forth a new reading of Bonhoeffer but has also shown himself quite unconcerned with defending the quality of his argument in the face of the critical academic reception. So, in some respects, there has been little to no meaningful dialogue surrounding his new interpretation. Mr. Metaxas could very easily defend his work with a 20 page article in an academic journal or a 25 minute paper at any number of academic conferences. He’s a brilliant communicator, a skilled thinker, and quite adept at articulating his work. Yet, surely, this is not his concern. He seems far more interested in promoting his work instead of proving it. Rather than engaging the establishment and steering them toward his more faithful interpretation, it feels as if he is content to take pot shots from the sidelines and avoid constructive dialogue. Subsequently, this fantastically popular and wonderfully written work comes off as if it does not have very substantial issues of interpretation and assertion between the covers. Which is why the text is, more than anything else, quite curious. Because one is left wondering precisely what research lies underneath these broad statements, who he’s really addressing as he writes, and if his arguments are as sound as the excellent prose would lead you to believe.
