Review of Bonhoeffer by Metaxas

I’ve been working for several weeks on a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, and have just finished it.  I’m a fan.

First Impressions
Expecting a popular level biography, I was suprised initially by the length of Metaxas’s work. At 542 pages, the body of the work was a little imposing, yet the book’s chapter divisions were encouraging in their manageable length. Indeed, as I began to work through them I was drawn in quickly. Metaxas’s style is easy and natural.

The Church in Nazi Germany

As I stepped deeper and deeper into the biography, what really hooked me in was the way Metaxas uses the story of Bonhoeffer to tell the broader story of how the rise of National Socialism in Germany challenged the church within Germany.  In the narration of Bonhoeffer’s struggle to obey God throughout the period and his desire that the church might do the same, the biography captures the ecclesial crises well.  Bonhoeffer’s own pursuit of pure faith contrasts well with the stories of capitulation and compromise that perhaps dominated the church in its failure to resist the evils of the day.  This is not a book about one particular theologian as much as it is a story of the church.  While Metaxas perhaps treats Bonhoeffer with such sympathy as to flatten his character, the same cannot be said of his treatment of the church.  The narrative that emerges in these pages is complicated and twisted, and food for thought for all who take the church and her mission seriously in our own time.

Biography (Not Theology)

Bonhoeffer’s renown is interesting, partly because his significance as a theologian is sometimes overshadowed by the fact of his execution and his own actions that led to his murder.  Bonhoeffer’s writings are among some of my favorites. Life Together is one of the best books on Christian community I’ve ever read. He’s a significant figure in the fields of ecclesiology and ethics, although his works there aren’t for the faint of heart.  Metaxas does a good job of introducing some of Bonhoeffer’s theology, but this is never his primary concern.  This isn’t a book for academic theologians.  He’s more interested in providing the story of Bonhoeffer’s life, particularly as a pastor faced with a tremendous ecclesiological crisis, and capturing the imagination with the drama of the second world war from the odd perspective of the minister/spy whose involvement with conspirators gets your hopes up even though you know how the story ends.

That’s one of the reasons I skip biographies; they seem like a lot of trouble to learn what I feel like I already knew in the first place.  Metaxas defeated that prejudice in this case, taking me for a great journey through the narrative of a remarkable person.  At times the book gets too heroish, and it seems like forty or so characters earn the distinction “one of the most sinister men in the Third Reich”.  Truthfully, though, in that era there was just a lot of opportunity for heroism, and more than enough villains to go around.  Who can blame Metaxas for calling it like we all see it?  In my own judgment, part of the reason the book works is that, despite its simplistic view of Bonhoeffer at times, you can’t help loving him as the story progresses.  Even when he missteps, you want to believe that he really did make the right choices, even if they weren’t successful.  I walk away having a much better appreciation for Bonhoeffer, and a great desire to read some more of his work.

I think this is a good read, and if biography is your thing, you’ll probably like it even more than I did.  If World War II biography with a slant towards church history and theological notes is your cup of tea, Metaxas wrote this book specifically for you.  You know who you are.

Note: Thanks to the publisher, Thomas Nelson, for the complimentary review copy of this book.