Andy Rowell

Category: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  • A critique of the critiques of the Bonhoeffer film

    I don’t really want to defend any film dramatization. I prefer nonfiction books and documentaries for their accuracy too. “Based on a true story” film dramatizations are a two-hour teaser about a person or event for people who aren’t going to read the book or watch the documentary!

    But I have read seven (?) reviews of the Bonhoeffer film by Bonhoeffer scholars and watched it and have read all of Bonhoeffer’s books and I haven’t yet heard a persuasive damning criticism of the film. And I have disagreed vehemently with a historical judgment in each scholarly review!

    In any dramatization, they do not have recordings of all of what was said so they have to make up scenes of dialogue. And it is someone’s decades-long life and so the filmmakers are summarizing it and unlike a documentary are trying to pack each scene with meaning that captures multiple events.

    With all historical figures, a lot of the important stuff they did was not done publicly but privately. With Bonhoeffer, his best friend Eberhard Bethge wrote a 1000-page biography but still our knowledge of Bonhoeffer’s involvement of assassination plots and his time in prison are a little fuzzy.

    Regarding And-Democrats-are-the-Nazis! purveyor Eric Metaxas:

    Other Bonhoeffer scholars were consulted in the making of the film. The filmmakers distanced themselves from Eric Metaxas after 2018. The actors denounced Metaxas. The family of Bonhoeffer denounced Metaxas. Metaxas recommends the film.

    Things I disagree with from the reviews:

    – “Bonhoeffer wasn’t into politics.” What? He was obsessed with Hitler’s regime.

    – “Finkenwalde wasn’t raided by Gestapo.” Yes, it was!

    – “Bonhoeffer didn’t give sermon denouncing Hitler.” Yes, he did on the radio!

    – “Bonhoeffer wasn’t a spy.” Yes, he was a double-agent trying to undermine Hitler but in military intelligence.

    – “Bonhoeffer didn’t help Jews escape.” Yes, he created a ruse to help Jewish brother-in-law escape.

    – “Bonhoeffer was a pacifist.” Yes, but read Ethics see him struggling with this!

    – “That’s not what happened at the end.” I want to read the brand new book (October 15, 2024) on this!

    Book Details

    – “The secondary characters were more important and nuanced than is depicted.” The movie focuses on Dietrich!

    – “He is depicted as jettisoning his theology for violence and power.” Does it really?

    – “It depicts him as an assassin.” Does it? He is part of a couple of meetings in the film and we have many indications from his writings that he did have some knowledge of the assassination planning.

    – “He never saluted Hitler.” He had to. He did it with Bethge once and explained this was an unavoidable compromise.

    – “He wasn’t slapped in Harlem.” But he was deeply moved by and close with Black Christians in Harlem. He did road trip through the South. He was later tortured in prison in Germany.

  • My Fall 2013 Required Textbooks at Bethel Seminary for Discipleship, Evangelism, and Leadership courses

    Here are the textbooks I am requiring for my three Ministry Leadership (ML) courses this fall at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). I am teaching each of these courses this three times this year and I am teaching each in both traditional format as well as in an online or intensive format. I would love to have you. Registration begins today: July 1st, 2013. 

     

    ML 506: Discipleship in Community

    Parrett, Gary A., and S. Steve Kang. Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful: A Biblical Vision for Education in the Church. Downers Grove, IL.:
    IVP Academic, 2009. 

    This is a thoughtful theological treatment of teaching and theological formation in the church–drawing on the richness of the literature in Christian education, social science, and spiritual formation. Parrett is known as a superb person and teacher as well as (along with Kang) being cognizant of the need to be sensitive and thoughtful about diversity in the church. This is the preeminent text today for helping pastors grasp the spiritual formation task while equipping them for teaching effectiveness. Too many pastors know nothing beyond preaching and thus try to bring the lecture method into all settings including small groups and classrooms and are oblivious of the challenges and rewards of seeing adults, youth, children really learn and grow. 

     

    Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible. Vol. 5.
    Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1996.

    Bonhoeffer's Life Together is both a classic warning against pride in ministry leadership while also being an inspirational description of a passionate, creative, ecumenical, emergency attempt to form pastors for ministry. It is a classic and it only gets richer as one learns more about Bonhoeffer's life and his theological work from the beginning of his career to the end of it which reinforces his ideas here.

     

    ML 507: Missional Outreach and Evangelism

    Bowen, John P. Evangelism for "Normal" People: Good News for Those Looking for a Fresh Approach. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. 

    Bowen, with years of experience in post-Christian university contexts with Inter-Varsity university ministry as well as steeped in the biblical and theological thoughtfulness of evangelical Anglicanism, describes the process of inviting outsiders into Christian community. This textbook in evangelism by a leading professor of evangelism sketches the biblical and theological case behind virtually all of the thriving contemporary approaches to church and ministry today.

     

    Keller, Timothy J. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
    New York: Dutton, 2008. 

    Keller, one of our most articulate theologically-interested church leaders is also one of the best examples of an effective evangelists in 2013. Here he plies his craft–knocking down objections to the Christian faith and making his case for it so as to make intellectually plausible the winsome life with Christ which he hopes Christians live out before their non-believing neighbors. 

     

    Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids,
    MI: Eerdmans, 1989.

    Newbigin, in his life and in this book, demonstrate the full scope of sophisticated philosophical reflection on epistemology in a pluralist world, strong biblical sensibilities, as well as an emphasis on the sociological demonstration of the gospel in the church. In Newbigin, we see a first-rate apologist, academic, missionary, pastor, and leader. 

     

    ML 523: Introduction to Transformational Leadership

    Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 6th ed., Thousand
    Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2013. 

    Both of my colleagues teaching leadership at Bethel Seminary, Mark McCloskey and Justin Irving, also require this classic leadership textbook which familiarizes students with the latest in leadership theory and modeling.  

     

    Wren, J. Thomas. The Leader's Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages. New York: Free Press, 1995. 

    This books provides readings from a variety of figures throughout history on leadership–fleshing out the analytical contemporary models and theories in the Northouse volume. 

     

    Yoder, John Howard. Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1992.

    This 80-page gem by genius theologian and ethicist John Howard Yoder gives a compelling description of what the church should look like. A leader in the church has the task for wrestling with how this vision compares with the status quo. We'll start the course with this to catalyze our reflection.  

     

  • Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts is useful background on Bonhoeffer and Barth

    I would recommend Erik Larson's #1 New York Times Best Seller (Hardcover Nonfiction for June 4, 2011) In the Garden of Beasts for those interested in Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth.  Below I note a few explicit connections between the events and people named by Larson and Bonhoeffer as well as briefly noting some of the major events in Bonhoeffer and Barth's lives in Germany in 1933 and 1934.

    Larson, Erik. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. New York: Crown, 2011.

    I listened to the audio version through Overdrive downloadable audio through my public library. 

    The book is a relatively quick-moving and engaging historical account of the first two years (1933-1934) of William Dodd's tenure as United States ambassador to Germany.  Dodd (1869-1940) moved to Germany soon after Hitler's rise to power in January 1933.  By the end of 1934, Dodd had begun to see the true nature of Hitler's regime.  Dodd's daughter Martha (1908-1990), (two years younger than Bonhoeffer) is also prominently featured in the book because while her father was doing official duties, she was busy sleeping with Nazi officials, a Russian spy, and American cultural elite including Carl Sandburg. 

    See also the reviews in the New York Times

    Perched in Berlin With Hitler Rising
    By JANET MASLIN
    Published: May 19, 2011

    Sleeping With the Gestapo
    By DOROTHY GALLAGHER
    Published: June 10, 2011

     

    Connections with Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Berlin in 1933

    Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) in particular had significant connections in Berlin. 

    • His father was the leading psychiatrist at the University of Berlin and evaluated the defendant Marinus van der Lubbe who was accused of starting the Reichstag fire (Bethge 264-265, Schlingensiepen 124-125).  The trial is described in Larson's book.  (In an unimpressive section Metaxas 146-147 restates Bethge's account using many of the same phrases Bethge uses).
    • Bonhoeffer also communicated with the American Rabbi Stephen Wise who Bonhoeffer had met in New York in 1930-1931 (Bethge 267; good work here by Metaxas 115-116, 158).  Wise appears a number of times in Larson's account.
    • Rudolph Diels, head of the Gestapo, in 1933 who is a significant and partly sympathetic character in Larson's account, also appears even-handed in his interaction with Bonhoeffer–returning some leaflets that his men had confiscated (Bethge 295-296, mentioned barely in Schlingensiepen 133). 

    Bonhoeffer was not slow to understand the situation in Germany.  On March 1, 1933 he gave a radio talk against "The Führer Principle;" in April wrote an article "The Church and the Jewish Question;"  in the summer lectured on Christology which would become what was called in English Christ the Center; and in August wrote against "The Aryan Clause in the Church."  "The year 1933 was the most hectic Bonhoeffer ever experienced, either before or afterwards" (Schlingensiepen 114).

    He spent much of 1934 in London, England serving as a pastor there. 

    References:

    Chapter 7 "Berlin 1933" pp. 257-323 of Bethge, Eberhard. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Man for His Times; a Biography. Rev. ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

    Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Berlin: 1932-1933. Volume 12 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009.

    Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile Vs. The Third Reich. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

    Schlingensiepen, Ferdinand. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. New York: T&T Clark, 2010.

     

    Karl Barth in 1933-1934

    Though less connected with Berlin and Larson's narrative, Barth experienced some of the tightening of Hitler's grip on Germany especially in 1934.  

    In 1933, Karl Barth (1886-1968) was teaching in Bonn, Germany on subjects such as: Book III of Calvin's Institutes, the material that would become Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, the material that would appear in Homiletics, and the book of John. He also led studies of Luther's Greater Catechism and Emil Brunner's Ethics.    

    In March of 1933, he began to address the political situation in his address "The First Commandment as a Theological Axiom" but most directly in Theological Existence Today which appeared in June 1933. On July 1st, he sent Hitler a copy.  A second edition had to be printed July 8, 1933.  It was banned a year later on July 28, 1934.

    In May 1934, the Barmen Declaration, drafted by Barth, was a brief moment when there was united opposition to "the German Christians" (those willing to subsume the church under the Nazi regime). 

    In 1933-1934, Barth refused to resign from an opposing political party to National Socialism and refused to do the Hitler salute in his classes–both of which drew the attention of Nazi authorities.  

    In September and October 1934, Barth composed his Nein! (No!) against Emil Brunner. 

    In November 1934, Barth refused to sign the oath of loyalty to Hitler, faced a disciplinary hearing, and was dismissed from his teaching position. In March 1935 he received a total ban from speaking in public in Germany.

    See

    Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976: 219-262. 

     

    See my categories:

    Karl Barth

    and

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    especially

    Reviews of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

    My new book review of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas is posted online at Books & Culture

    Book review of Karl Barth biography by Eberhard Busch