Wow.
Now this was a true tome.
I had honestly never heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer before this book was suggested to me. Now, I could probably tell you anything you want to know, from his childhood to his untimely death at the hands of the Third Reich only days before their surrender. (That's how well written this biography is.) This man, this “pastor, martyr, prophet, spy” was a man before his time and another casualty of a horrendous violation of humanity. His quest to bring the church to the proper place in the minds and hearts of his fellow Germans, one could argue even the world, was truly inspiring.
The author does an incredible job of making Bonhoeffer someone you feel you actually knew, and, as a Christian, proved he was someone that truly understood what the Church should stand for. After this book, I think his image of Christianity has still yet to be realized, which is, sadly enough, part of what he died for.
This book is a 624 page biography (it’s synopsis is here) that goes into incredible detail about not only Bonhoeffer, but of many of the leaders of the church of Germany at the time, its history, German history…it’s mind boggling, really, the amount of information that the author, Eric Metaxas, squeezes into this book!
For that reason, I do not recommend this to anyone that isn’t specifically interested in the time period, this man, or a new perspective of a war of atrocities that touched places and institutions that many would not necessarily think of. It's a hefty undertaking for someone just looking for Christian inspiration.
I learned so much that I hadn’t known about the infiltration of the Nazi terror into its own German churches; more proof of the chaos in the minds of the German people who did not recognize the threat to their own religion until it was too late, and obviously Hitler’s delusions of grandeur and insanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw it all coming from the very beginning and was desperate to stop it...and paid the ultimate price for his efforts, as many did during that time.
I learned so much that I hadn’t known about the infiltration of the Nazi terror into its own German churches; more proof of the chaos in the minds of the German people who did not recognize the threat to their own religion until it was too late, and obviously Hitler’s delusions of grandeur and insanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw it all coming from the very beginning and was desperate to stop it...and paid the ultimate price for his efforts, as many did during that time.
Onward and Forward to Book #11
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