Evangelicals are excited. There's a new Bonhoeffer movie coming out from Angel Studios, the same people who produced The Sound of Freedom - based on Tim Ballard, a Mormon QAnon advocate and liar. And from everything I've read, this Bonhoeffer movie is basically another example of twisted history and propaganda. But this is nothing new. Bonhoeffer was hijacked by the Evangelicals years ago.
I remember back in the 1990's he was a controversial figure that generated mixed feelings at best. But all that changed in the 2000's and especially with the biography produced by Eric Metaxas in 2011 - during the height of the Tea Party movement and Evangelical tension with the Obama administration. There were many critical of Metaxas and the way in which he hijacked Bonhoeffer and attempted to re-frame him as an American Evangelical resisting forces coincidentally similar to the struggles of the Christian Right against its opponents on the American Left. It was an absurd re-framing of the context of 1930's Germany and Bonhoeffer's theology, and many pointed this out at the time, but their voices were drowned out, lost in the excitement surrounding the ear-tickling book. The unspoken implication was of course that Bonhoeffer was right to participate in the plot to assassinate Hitler and we would do well to follow his example. And if Obama is like Hitler... well, you can figure out the rest.
This movie (it would seem) represents more of the same and yet undoubtedly (given that it's a roughly two-hour film) is a much more simplified (and thus likely misleading) telling of the tale.
I'm glad to see there are more critical voices of such Bonhoeffer revisionism and appropriation - and specifically from within Christian circles. This should concern all Christians regardless of whether or not 'the message' of the film resonates with their own political views. Manipulating history is lying and that's what Metaxas and Angel Studios are engaged in. Bonhoeffer is interesting enough but it seems that some only find value in his story if there's a way they can market it or leverage it into some kind of contemporary political action.
As stated before, the great incongruity with Metaxas is that he has set himself up as an expert on fascism and how to resist it, and yet (irony of ironies) he has proven himself to be exactly like those German Christians who fell for it in the 1930's. He's sold out for Trump and has completely embraced the vile fascistic ethos of the movement. His blindness is staggering to say the least, matched only by those who would listen to him, express admiration for him, and invite him to speak at their events.
The RNS and Baptist News Global stories are worth reading but predictable - the outlet is informative but not known for theologically soundness. I wish more conservatives would have the courage to come forward to call out this Evangelical appropriation of Bonhoeffer and its dangerous implications.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2015/03/metaxas-on-bonhoeffer-dangerous.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2021/04/metaxas-bonhoeffer-and-trumpism.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2024/07/20-july-1944-franklin-graham-and.html
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