Bonhoeffer

I've been listening to the audiobook Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich for a while now (it is broken into three approximately eight hour segments).  I've studied quite a bit about World War II, but I've still learned some things, especially about the German perspective.  I've just started the third segment (of the audiobook--I don't remember what chapter I'm on) and things are getting quite interesting.  In the narrative timeline WWII has just started and Bonhoeffer is getting drawn deeper into the anti-Hitler conspiracy after the fall of France and the low countries.  I thought that this book was especially relevant today as the sermon at church included a couple quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  The book I've been listening to has quite extensively covered his theology as well as his interaction with the German church and the church in Europe and America along with the books that he wrote.  He was quite astute and stood firm against many elements of compromise in the church (especially Germany's liberal theologians).  Both quotes below are from his book Life Together, about Christian community, written in 1938 (just after his twin sister, married to a Jew, escaped Germany) and published the next year:

"Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream.  The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it.  But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams.  Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.  By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world.  He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream.  God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.  Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it."  [pp 26-27] 

"When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament...  The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it."  [pp 29-30]

I remember hearing something about Bonhoeffer when I was younger, I think it was a Focus on the Family radio drama.  I don't remember many details from the production, however.  I'd definitely like to learn more about Bonhoeffer.  His father and many family members were not Christians (though some influential ones were) and yet he turned into one of the greatest theologians of his day.  He learned from some liberal theologians in college (the 18th century Germany tradition of theology was quite liberal), yet developed quite solid views of Scripture and the nature of God (from what I've heard thus far).  As most of what I've studied about WWII focused on the war itself, or more of the geopolitical nature of the conflict and the steps leading to it I'm quite enjoying this journey through the war.  It is also a good reminder that many of the German populace didn't know everything that Hitler was doing "behind the scenes," however, they did love him because he was a demagogue that soothed their worries and avenged their national slights.

~Matt

PS I found an interview with the author of the book I'm listening to, Eric Metaxas, while searching for the old Focus on the Family drama.  I might take the time to listen to it sometime soon.