The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint

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Who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Was he the tireless pastor who defended the church against state interference? Was he a "righteous Gentile" who championed the Jews when no one else would? Was he a religious visionary who foresaw the shape of Christian commitment in a post-Christian world? Was he a model Christian, or a theologian who betrayed his pacifism by becoming complicit in assassination? Stephen Haynes has probed both Bonhoeffer's work and the Bonhoeffer legacy to divine his cultural significance. He shows how difficult it is to separate myth from reality, since the "master narrative" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life and witness has sanctified and domesticated an extremely complex man. Haynes's provocative study articulates the many motives and agendas that Christian readers and even scholars have brought to their Bonhoeffer work, and how these have created a Protestant saint and made it more difficult to assess objectively the relationship of his political and religious commitments, the real meaning of his theology, and especially his words and actions on behalf of German Jews. Reading Haynes's book helps us learn not only what Bonhoeffer has to teach us but also what it is we most desire to learn.