Dietrich Bonhoeffer—In the News

Any attempt to invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his resistance against Hitler as a reason to engage in political violence in our contemporary context must be strongly opposed…. Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself provides the best defense against these misuses of his life and work. He did not ask, "how far will you go?" He did not ask, "is this a Bonhoeffer moment?" Bonhoeffer’s life was defined by the question, "Who is Christ for us today?" With this question, Bonhoeffer teaches us that Christ is to be found in the presence and suffering of the neighbor, whether across the street or across the border. With this question, he has inspired Christians and non-Christians around the world to work for a society based on solidarity and humanity.

This excerpt is from a statement written collaboratively by scholars from the United States and Germany, including me, published on October 17, 2024 in Die Zeit and as a signable petition on change.org. As egregious distortions of Bonhoeffer’s life and work have become more and more part of the public discourse, especially in the last year and in the midst of the contentious and highly divisive presidential election in the US, writing such a statement became increasingly imperative. The statement points explicitly to the political rhetoric of Eric Metaxas, the distorted use of Bonhoeffer in Project 2025, and the dangerous marketing of a 2024 biopic of Bonhoeffer by Angel Studios, the film’s distributor.

For years, Eric Metaxas has presented a fabricated version of Bonhoeffer’s life and legacy, fashioning him into an American evangelical icon devoid of the moral, theological, and historical complexity that make him a compelling figure for Bonhoeffer scholars and readers around the world. Metaxas’s (now) self-proclaimed identity as a Christian Nationalist (which he sometimes embraces and sometimes denies) and connections to Christian Nationalist activities (like the Jericho March), coupled with the publications of his Letter to the American Church (2023) and Religionless Christianity: God’s Answer to Evil (2024) gave us cause for grave concern. Both books, and a documentary based on the former, push an agenda—via his co-opted reading of Bonhoeffer—that is contrary to Bonhoeffer’s concern, for example, for the marginalized, for those who experience the world “from below.” Likewise, the unexpected and uninformed use of Bonhoeffer’s concept of cheap grace in Project 2025, to spin protection for refugees into “open borders activism” and to dismiss environmental concerns with false exhortations, put us on alert.

In addition, at the end of the summer, marketing for the November release of a major motion picture about Bonhoeffer kicked into high gear. The Angel Studios’ branding of the film, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin., leaned heavily into the image of Bonhoeffer as assassin, replete with posters of him, trench-coat clad, carrying a gun. Movie trailers and social media posts promoted the “true” story of Bonhoeffer, “a man who preached love while plotting the assassination of an evil tyrant” and asked viewers to consider “how far they would go” to stand up for what is right. This characterization of Bonhoeffer fails to capture the authentic account of a man who wrestled with moral certitude and who never offered a theological justification for his role in the resistance. We recognized the dangers of this presentation.

The writer/director of the film, Todd Komarnicki, has worked to distance himself from marketing decisions made by the distributor, but the film itself paints this same distorted picture of Bonhoeffer’s life and legacy. In a recent movie review, Christopher Probst describes the film as “sincere but problematic.” I agree with Probst. The narrative arc of the film is concerned, from the beginning, with Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler. This storytelling choice simultaneously overplays Bonhoeffer’s role in that plot and underplays the complexity of his struggle regarding his involvement that could do the real work of moving audiences to thoughtful consideration of his life in light of their own.

Mac Loftin’s insightful review of the film, “The new Bonhoeffer movie isn’t just bad. It’s dangerous,” gets at the heart of the missed opportunity to tell a more nuanced story: “In the hundreds of pages he wrote during his years in the conspiracy, Bonhoeffer adamantly warned that any sense of moral clarity we might feel is always an illusion. It tricks us into thinking that we have full knowledge of good and evil, that we clearly see right and wrong, then we never have to question the moral purity of our actions.” Kristopher Norris emphasizes this point in the essay, “The strange grace of struggling with Bonhoeffer on what it means to be a ‘good’ person," that he wrote in response to the movie’s release. Norris writes, “In one film scene, Bonhoeffer defiantly tells his friend, Eberhard Bethge, ‘Dirty hands are all I have to offer.’ The actor [portraying Bonhoeffer] offers this reply as a confidant, almost triumphant justification to join the conspiracy…. The actual Dietrich would have expressed this as lament, not justification.”

In the days and weeks that followed the release of the scholars’ statement warning against misuses of Bonhoeffer, several important things happened: 1) Eighty-six members of the extended Bonhoeffer family (nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews of Dietrich) also issued a statement warning against distorted uses of Bonhoeffer’s legacy. It is the first family statement issued since Bonhoeffer’s death in 1945. 2) The scholars’ statement garnered support from more than fifty prominent church leaders, bishops, and additional scholars from around the world as well as nearly 4500 additional signatures. 3) The lead actors in the Bonhoeffer movie issued a statement expressing their concerns about the possible misuse of their film and Bonhoeffer’s legacy. 4) And, board members and staff of the Bonhoeffer Haus in Berlin issued their own statement of concern.

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The power of the statements, collectively, to counter the grievous misuses of Bonhoeffer’s legacy is notable. But the strength of the statements also lies in their ability to point to the reasons that Bonhoeffer’s work and witness continue to inspire people eighty years after his death. The authors are cognizant, collectively, of Bonhoeffer’s long and abiding concern with the neighbor and with marginalized communities that now stand in the very crosshairs of those who seek to weaponize his words for their own ends. As already indicated above, Bonhoeffer (famously) insisted that followers of Christ adopt a “view from below” that calls them “to see the great events of world history… from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works in English [DBWE] 8: 52).

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Bonhoeffer scholars from around the world began the year, 2024, at the XIV International Bonhoeffer Congress in Sydney, Australia, organized beautifully by Dianne Rayson and Michael Mawson. The theme of the conference—“Crisis and Hope: Reading Bonhoeffer for Today”—was punctuated by Bonhoeffer’s declaration: “We should have so much love for this contemporary world of ours, for our fellow human beings, that we should declare our solidarity with it in its crisis and hope” (DBWE 10: 326). The entire event was a masterclass—a sustained and constructive conversation—about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s commitment to life together, capaciously understood, with that view from below serving as a hermeneutical starting point.

The speakers at the congress did not shy away from naming the conditions—the crises—that point to disrupted and broken lives together: colonialism, nationalisms, patriarchy, xenophobia, consumerism, carceral practices, climate emergencies, war, authoritarianism, white supremacy, and racism. And, they spoke with poignancy and insight about the ways Bonhoeffer’s work and their readings of that work offer hope. They put Bonhoeffer in conversation with voices from below—Indigenous voices, women’s voices, migrants’ and climate refugees’ voices—to imagine a new life together. This life together takes seriously Bonhoeffer’s idea that an encounter with the other requires an ethical response. It is a life together that takes seriously Bonhoeffer’s idea that “the transcendent is not the infinite, unattainable task, but the neighbor.” (DBWE 8: 501). It is a life together that rejects hate and division, foundations of nationalisms. “You have brothers and sisters in our people and in every people, do not forget that. Come what may,” Bonhoeffer preached in New York in 1930, “let us never more forget, that our Christian people is the people of God, that if we are in accord, no nationalism, no hate of races or classes can execute its designs, and then the world will have its peace for ever and ever” (DBWE 10:581, 584).

“Any attempt to invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his resistance against Hitler as a reason to engage in political violence [or the dehumanizing of others]... must be strongly opposed…. Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not ask, ‘how far will you go?’ He did not ask, ‘Is this a Bonhoeffer moment?’ Bonhoeffer’s life was defined by the question, ‘Who is Christ for us today?’ With this question, Bonhoeffer teaches us that Christ is to be found in the presence and suffering of the neighbor, whether across the street or across the border. With this question, he has inspired Christians and non-Christians around the world to work for a society based on solidarity and humanity.”

Lori Brandt Hale, PhD

President, International Bonhoeffer Society—English Language Section

Director, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Augsburg University

Professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Augsburg University

The International Bonhoeffer Society—English Language Section has created a resource page with the statements, insightful movie reviews, and thoughtful essays prompted by the heightened interest in Bonhoeffer this fall. Each resource is posted with a link and as a pdf, for easiest access. Check the website regularly for event announcements and updated resources.

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