The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon

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This engaging text asks who was 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 pacificism by becoming complicit in assassination? Stephen Haynes has probed both the work of Bonhoeffer and the Bonhoeffer legacy to divine his cultural significance. He shows how difficult it is to separate myth from reality, since his life and works have been sanctified and domesticated over time. Haynes' 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 the reader learn not only what Bonhoeffer had to teach, but also what it is one wishes to learn.