Book Report: Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

A young German theologian by the name of Diedrich Bonhoeffer was given a teaching position at a famous New York seminary just as the situation in Nazi germany became very dangerous for a man who preached Christ. In New York, at the Union Theological Seminary he would be safe, would have ample time for further theological studies, and would be given a handsome salary and a prestigious position. In other words, he would be a perfectly suitable man of high Christian ideas, a philosopher, writer, and pastor.
Instead, Bonhoeffer declined the generous offers and safety of the U.S. and boarded a ship returning to Europe, to Germany, and into direct personal danger.
This fantastic book by Eric Metaxes aptly and beautifully tells the story of a man whose principles and faith led him to go beyond the world of ideas and peripheral religion in order to follow the narrow path of action, even in the face of mortal danger. Bonhoeffer's faith in God led him directly into the lion's den, out of which he would never leave with his life. And yet the actions of this man have left us with the quintessential legacy of a true twentieth century hero. The world might yet look on Nazi Germany as a collectively hopeless, dark and twisted, cruel and insane epoch-- yet Bonhoeffer shows us that from the heart of such a hell, a light was shining for God's kingdom. And though he lost his life, his light has continued to shine, and the world is better for it.
Metaxes uses eye-witness accounts, letters, interviews, and Bonhoeffer's own writings to show that Bonhoeffer's ultimate decision to become a part of a conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler was not a departure from his Christian life, but rather a difficult, agonizing decision that was born from his faith. Bonhoeffer was himself a pacifist, but he began to see in Adolph Hitler and the whole terrible German predicament a dark desperation which called for something beyond his own capacities. As he saw it, he felt like a Jeremiah, who "was not eager to become a prophet of God. When the call came to him...he shrank back, he resisted, he tried to get away." Perhaps Bonhoeffer's trip to New York was a last attempt to avoid the terrible fate that he probably suspected awaited him. And we might have had a great theologian grow old and write many things, but we wouldn't have had a Bonhoeffer as we know him today. 

One of the themes that arises in the book is the vast difference between "playing Church"-- being "religious", a good church-goer, and generally moderate in faith-- and true Christianity, as in the true following of Christ. The church situation in Nazi Germany shows exactly how a negligent theology could lead people over the edge of a cliff.
Metaxes provides in this biography a glimpse into the spiritual implications of the Nazi situation. The state church was overrun by the Third Reich and the message from the pulpit became anything but Christian. For a pastor such as Bonhoeffer, who continued to preach the Gospel, the entire political struggle in Germany was reinforced by the spiritually bankrupt theology of the Reich Church. Bonhoeffer was part of a split that became The Confessing Church, whose aim it was to continue preaching about Jesus when it was no longer safe to do so.  Bonhoeffer, who had many Jewish friends and a Jewish brother-in- law, also fought against Nazi Anti-Semitism long before the world was made to witness the atrocities of the holocaust, arguing that the Church must step in and protect Jewish citizens ("The Church and the Jewish Question", 1933). 
Those who truly follow Christ know that suffering will attend such a following (Matthew 16:24, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."). Who can truly escape and resist the danger of evil-- whether that evil be explicit or in turning a blind eye? A lukewarm faith is one that follows the "wide path to destruction (Matthew 7:13)." Bonhoeffer was compelled by faith to choose the narrow path, one that went against the reasonable persuasion of those who told him to just go with the flow, that Hitler wouldn't last long, and Germany would be fine.

Bonheoffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is an important book for the church to read, for it paints us a vivid picture of a twentieth century human choosing Christ and the suffering that such a choice (Bonhoeffer speaks of it not as a choice, but as a submission to God) will incur; but it also shows the ultimate triumph of God and a Church that is faithful to Him. Are we richer because of Diedrich Bonhoeffer's writings? Yes. Are we, too, richer because of the records of his sermons? Sure. But we are made vastly richer in his example to follow Christ all the way to the cross. 

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go- Hymn Stories

George Matheson was a Scottish theologian and preacher in the 19th century, at a moment when it seems his blessings were at their height, suffered a loss most of us cannot imagine. He graduated first in his class, was headed towards a fruitful and respected career in ministry, and was engaged to be married. A doctor's visit changed all of this: he learned that by the age of 20, he would completely lose his sight. His fiancée broke off the marriage because she could not commit to living with a blind man. Despite these two crushing events, Matheson was resolute on his future in ministry, and in 1866, at the age of 22, he became an assistant pastor. Over the next 16 years, with the steady help of his sister at home, he became a pastor and wrote several well-recieved volumes on Christian history and theology.

In 1882 his sister would leave him to become married and start her own life. On the evening before the marriage, Matheson was deeply depressed: losing his sister triggered the deep sorrow associated with the memory of his own failed engagement. 

It was in the depths of this melancholy and dejection that Matheson uttered a desperate prayer, and the lyrics O Love That Will Not Let Me Go came to him. He later wrote of this process, 

I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high"  (http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/l/t/oltwnlmg.htm).

O Love is a testimony of the encounter with undying love, that we may find, perhaps most clearly, in times of trial. The third stanza, I feel, expresses this truth perfectly: 

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.

I trace the rainbow through the rain. In Genesis we are told of God giving the rainbow as a symbol of his promise, that no matter how wicked the world may again become, it will not be destroyed. The rainbow represents a bow, as one used in hunting or war, turned away from the earth and humanity. It is turned towards heaven, and represents that the sacrifice for sin will not come from us, but that God himself will take that radical step for us, in the person of Jesus Christ. If we add the cross to this symbol, we are given a picture of a bow and arrow, aimed not at sinful humanity, but at the very seat of Mercy and Love. With such a promise, and such a friend as Jesus is to us, our view of reality must be saturated and completely shaped by hope-- that no matter what may befall us, we may know, "That morn shall tearless be."

O Love that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,

I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
 I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.

Here is my favorite version:

I'm going to assume that this would be Pastor Rick's favorite version :P:

And, If you are so inclined, here is a more indie-rocker approach (complete with beard)

The Trinity and Relationships

Most of us are familiar with the concept of the Trinity. We sing about a Triune God, we read about a Triune God, and we pray to a Triune God. But what does it mean, exactly? The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. All equal. All part of the Godhead. Yet distinct in their relation to one another. Is the idea of the Trinity important for Christians? Historically, there have been divisions among believers on this very subject, and yet it must leave some people wondering what the big deal is. God is God, right?

The word “Trinity” never actually appears in the Bible* (there is plenty of evidence for the Trinity, but the word had not yet been coined), but was used first in the year 170 by Theophilus of Antioch, although he didn’t use the term for the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. (He used it to describe God, his Word, and His wisdom). The first to use it for its current meaning was Tertullian who explained that the Trinity represents the triune God as one in “essence, but not one in Person” (http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/beliefs/trinity.htm#3). The doctrine of the Trinity was established by the church at the council of Nicea as orthodoxy in the face of other beliefs about this curious relationship. I won’t go into detail here, but one of the theologies that was opposed was that of Arius, who said that Jesus was God’s “first creation” (ibid). The Council of Nicea in 325 set forth in making sure that this was rejected in favor of the doctrine that Christ was begotten, not created. You might, like me, be wondering why this really matters. Is this just one for the theologians to argue about, like angels on the head of a pin; or are we dealing with a more important question, one more fundamental about our faith and what we know about God?

Begotten­- Why is it important?

Recently I was listening to a sermon by Timothy Keller which provides an amazing amount of insight into the subject of the Trinity (Keller, “Imitating the Incarnation”, July 2, 1995). While listening I had one of those eureka moments that changes and deepens my faith and understanding of who God is.  The doctrine of the Triune God is the idea that there was never a time “before” when God was alone. This is important, because some of the criticism about the Gospel is the idea that God created out of some deep need for love. The idea is that God was incomplete, and so he created Jesus to fill a void. It also implies that He created us in order to meet a need. This is not the case.
The Trinity implies that each "Person" of the Triune God is begotten of God. While this is still mind boggling, it does tell us something very striking: that God has always been in relationship. God doesn’t need or demand love; rather He gives love, and conversely, receives it. Within God Himself is the very definition of what relationship is and everything it should be. And so it follows that God created the world in order to love it and be in relationship with us.

Getting married and having our first child together has let me see a tiny fraction of how the Trinity works. When we had our boy, it wasn’t a decision made in order to receive love. We wanted a baby in order that the overflowing love of our marriage could be given directly to our child. In other words, we didn’t have a baby because we needed a baby to fill our lives with love. Rather, we had love, and we had a baby so that love could go out to the baby. The baby does fill a purpose in our lives, but not in order to fill something in us that was empty before. It is the opposite—he is here because of the fullness of our marriage (in all of its earthly shortcomings and imperfections!).

The Trinity cannot be adequately described by marriage, but marriage (and all relationships) should be a reflection of the Trinity. What is God like, we ask? Well, for one, He is, all by Himself, a love relationship. It is an expression so often heard that it is cliché- “God is Love.” But it is true, and it is only true in the Trinity.

This explanation may not go very far to dispel the utter mysteriousness of the Trinity, for it goes without saying that the Lord, in the fullness of His character, transcends our understanding—but it does point to the type of relationship He wants with us. If He loves us as His children, then of course it would please Him for us to love Him, His ways, and His family. God wants us in relationship with Him. Furthermore, when we understand how the Trinity works in our own lives, we know that God wants us to have this kind of relationship with each other.

Keller points out in the same sermon that the Trinity represents this kind of relationship up against the kind of relationship that we may have a tendency to have.  He says, “It is extremely seductive and an absolute temptation to move out into other people’s lives more to meet your needs than it is to meet theirs.” That is, we may wrongfully approach friendships, work relationships, and even romance as a sort of consumer looking for what we can get out of it, how it can add to our lives, and how it makes us better.  As Keller says, this is seductive, but also be aware that we may be unconsciously doing this all the time! Instead of the pro-active love relationship of the Triune God, in which it is all about how we love others, the consumer relationship is all about how we are loved. In the former, relationships may last because we actively love; in the latter, relationships continually fail because we persistently feel we aren’t being loved enough, or that we are not having our needs met by other people. This type of relationship nearly always will lead to strife, pain, anger, bitterness, and loss. One needn’t look further than the soaring divorce rates in many parts of the world for an example of how a consumer approach to relationship leads to a falling-out, and naturally so.

How can we know if we are moving out to other people more for ourselves than for them? Keller says that if we are constantly getting our feelings hurt, feeling snubbed, feeling like we don’t get love in return, feeling like things never go our way or people don’t do what we want them to, then we are moving into relationships more for ourselves than for others!

Wow. Have you ever felt like this? I know I have.

Other people cannot give us what we already truly have in God—his love. Jesus loved us with this kind of love. He was snubbed, spat upon, and murdered, and yet He still loved.  And with His love as our ultimate, first source of love, we can love, albeit imperfectly for now, others; and we can allow ourselves to be loved imperfectly by them.

It is perfectly natural and good for us to want to receive love; yet if the central mission of our hearts to get love rather than to give it, then we will always be disappointed.

How, exactly, do we move into relationships that reflect the truth of the Trinity? Remember the greatest commandment that Jesus gives in Mark 29-31: “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” That is how we approach others, by first going to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for he is One, he is the fountain of relational love. You will notice that Jesus, who is quoting scripture (Dueteronomy 6:4-5), does not say love God with a portion of yourself and then love others with what is left over. No. He says love God with everything- all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength. How then, can we have anything left over if we give it all to God? Because of the relational God that can only be described by God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The relationship inherent in God produces an outpouring of love and never merely consumes. Imagine if we move out into all of our relationships first from our relationship with God. Imagine if we give everything to the Triune God, and in turn we are filled with the power to love, truly love our neighbor. It would change everything.  

To hear Timothy Keller’s podcast and to access many, many other great resources from Redeemer, follow this link:

http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sermons/imitating-incarnation

* While scripture doesn't use the word "Trinity", it repeatedly talks about God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Here is a concise collection of verses that support the Trinity:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Trinity-Bible.html