As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“In a statement issued Friday (Oct. 18) members of the International Bonhoeffer Society called on Metaxas and others to stop comparing the current election to the rise of the Nazis.” - RNS
“…Paul House’s little book, Bonhoeffer’s Seminary Vision: A Case for Costly Discipleship and Life Together. House’s burden is not hagiographic; rather his goal is to alert his readers to a hole growing in modern seminary studies.” - Mark Snoeberger
“Nazism is often depicted as some kind of extreme “conservatism” when, as history shows, it was essentially radical and destructive of traditional freedoms and faith.” - Acton
“The young Lutheran’s stand against Nazi idolatry and an oncoming catastrophe” - World
Misattributed to Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Patheos
From Faith Pulpit, Winter 2013. Used by permission. All rights reserved. See Part 1, Bonhoeffer: Approaching His Life and Work.
Bible-believing evangelical Christians hold a high view of the Scriptures. Many evangelicals also see Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a Bible-believing Christian. Bonhoeffer, however, accepted the prevailing historical-critical views of the Bible in his day. Therefore, we should be wary of calling Bonhoeffer a “Bible-believer.” The following three examples from his writings support this position.
In Creation and Fall (1932), an exegesis of Genesis 1-3, we find clear examples of Bonhoeffer espousing the historical-critical view of the Bible. In this work he referred to the Biblical author as the “Yahwist.”1 The “Yahwist” is a reference to the historical-critical reading of the text in Bonhoeffer’s day. John de Gruchy, who edited an edition of Creation and Fall, included an explanatory footnote at Genesis 2:4 to alert the reader that Bonhoeffer held Wellhausen’s documentary hypothesis view.2 For Bonhoeffer, the Bible was subject to the prevailing views of historical criticism.
Commenting on Genesis 1:6-10, Bonhoeffer pointed out that the Scriptures contain errors in regard to the creation account.
Here we have before us the ancient world picture in all its scientific naïveté. While it would not be advisable to be too mocking and self-assured, in view of the rapid changes in our own knowledge of nature, undoubtedly in this passage the biblical author stands exposed with all the limitations caused by the age in which he lived. The heavens and the seas were not formed in the way he says: we would not escape a very bad conscience if we committed ourselves to any such statement.3
Notice that Bonhoeffer defined “scientific naïveté” as believing that God spoke the heavens into existence as Genesis 1 describes. Bonhoeffer then asserted, “The idea of verbal inspiration will not do. The writer of the first chapter of Genesis is behaving in a very human way.”4
From Faith Pulpit, Winter 2013. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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