Eric Metaxas is an extremely gifted, enthusiastic, informed, and accessible author. Couple that with years of research on the subject and you have a wonderful contribution to the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Metaxas has provided an engaging, thoughtful, informative, and extensive (542 pages) work on Bonhoeffer’s life.

Apart from my previous love for history, interest in WWII, and great respect for Bonhoeffer, I thoroughly enjoyed discovering some things about him I did not know.

• I did not realize he was home-schooled for a time by his mother (YES!).
• I did not realize, as a German, he was on the right side of the “Jewish question” from the beginning.
• I did not realize he was a student of Adolf von Harnack, who was a chief proponent of liberalism. Harnack viewed the Scripture as merely historical texts deserving scrutiny. He came to deny the miraculous accounts of the NT and that the Gospel of John was canonical. (I knew this about Harnack) Bonhoeffer, was respected by him as a theology student, but Bonhoeffer winsomely and respectfully opposed him. (The two were extreme opposites yet held a mutual admiration. Bonhoeffer spoke at Harnack’s funeral!)
• I knew that Barth had an influence on Bonhoeffer’s theology, but I never knew to what degree and that Barth and Bonhoeffer were actually friends!
• I did not realize Bonhoeffer had so many key connections outside of Germany. He played a crucial role in informing the world and church of what was truly happening in Germany and that many Germans opposed Hitler and were ready to remove him.
• I knew Bonhoeffer played an important part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, but I did not realize how involved he was nor did I realize it was the faltering “Valkyrie” plot that led to his arrest.
• I did not realize what an impact and witness he was for Christ while a prisoner, hoping for release but never knowing from minute to minute if he would be executed.
• I knew the Holocaust was horrifying, but reading the descriptions of what Bonhoeffer knew was taking place was still startling! (I hope it always will be!)

A few quotes that “grasped” me.

p. 69 - “The religion of Christ is not a tidbit after one’s bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or it is nothing. People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christian.”

p.70 - he had been “grasped” by God; that God was leading him, and sometimes where he preferred not to go

p.81 - the “success” of the sermon is utterly dependent on the God who breaks through and “grasps” us, or we cannot be “grasped.”

p.83 - religion was a dead, man-made thing, and at the heart of Christianity was something else entirely—God himself, alive

p.85 - “Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”

p.495 - from prison to Maria - “there is an even holier angel than the one of pain, that is the one of joy in God”

p.514 said of Bonhoeffer from fellow inmate - “He was one of the very few men that I ever met to whom his God was real and ever close to him.”

p.517 - on his way to execution - “This is the end . . . For me the beginning of life.”

p.540 - “only the believer is obedient, and only he who obeys believes”

p.542 - “while in God confiding I cannot but rejoice”

There are some who have questioned Bonhoeffer’s ethics. Certainly when you learn more about his context, you understand his positions. For example, he knew of an instance where drunken Nazi soldiers gathered a group of Jews, beat them down, and trampled them to death—for fun, only to turn right around and gather another group!

From the time I read Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, he has been a hero to me, but now more than ever. He held tenaciously to Scripture as God’s revelation to man. He held firm in his conviction that Christianity is a life, and that conviction led him to his death. He held firm to his faith and was ever caught up in the joy of Christ, right up to the gallows!