Ironic Picture of Year ... so far ...

What a contrast ... President Obama, whose administration is doing a bangup job of crushing religious freedom in America on an unprecedented scale, holding up an image of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and martyr who is an iconic figure of religious resistance to tyranny. The president received a copy of the book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy from author Eric Metaxas, the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, we can certainly pray that Obama will read this book and learn a thing or two about freedom of religion (as opposed to mere "freedom of worship" he and his co-religionist mouthpieces spout, where religious beliefs, practice and expression stay safely confined in the home or church building while we're forced to worship the "almighty" state).

And here's a Bonhoeffer quote our president can look up, from a radio speech Bonhoeffer gave two days after Hitler came to power in Germany: "Should the leader allow himself to succumb to the wishes of those he leads, who will always seek to turn him into an idol, then the image of the leader will gradually become the image of the misleader. This is the leader who makes an idol of himself and who thus mocks God."

Best books I read last year

Books that I read this past year that I recommend:

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas: An outstanding work on the German pastor and theologian who stood up to Hitler and paid with his life. Metaxas shows Bonhoeffer's deep faith in Jesus and the Bible and how, trying to save the Jews in Nazi Germany, he put his faith into action.

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent: Burpo's four-year-old son Colby, during a near-death experience, is shown heaven, later describing what he saw to his family in a way only a child could relate details. A book that is sure to encourage your faith.

The Shack by William P. Young: A novel about a man who endures a gruesome tragedy in his family, who is invited by God to revisit the place of his daughter's apparent murder. The meeting transforms the man's life--and will transform your thinking about God's overwhelming love and grace.

Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna: Notwithstanding Viola's simplistic "solutions" to returning to true early church worship, and fuzziness about a few historic facts, this book is still an eye-opener about common church practices that are accepted as "Christian"--but which are not rooted in the New Testament at all. A clarion call for discerning what church practices and teachings are mere adaptations from non-Christian culture.

More adventures in reading--Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

I just finished Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Metaxas paints a picture of the influences over Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s early life, and his progress from a stellar theologian (his first dissertation, written at age 21, was called a “theological miracle” by Karl Barth) to a true follower of Jesus who stayed faithful to his savior through his country’s trials under the Nazis, all the way to his martyrdom in April 1945 for his part in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.

The book is enjoyable to read, and gives some not-well known facts about Bonhoeffer. His diary entries are especially interesting, especially those in which he reflects on whether he should leave the safety of America, to return to Germany in 1939 (after his friends went through great troubles to get him to the U.S.). One I found humorous was an entry on his take on a sermon by the great liberal preaching lion Fosdick (which, by the way, was based not on a Bible text, but on some poem): “Quite dreadful.”

And it is these shots at liberalism that has probably had a hand in Metaxas drawing fire from “expert” academics who whine about the book “creating” an “evangelical” Bonhoeffer, instead of the “liberal activist” Bonhoeffer we've been subjected to for half a century (When one blogger claimed he was troubled by the scholarly criticisms, I thought of the words of the late Chicago Mayor Richard Daley: “The experts, whadda they know?”).

(As a side note, an acquaintance who was “grieved” that I would dare quote “that heretic” Bonhoeffer sent me a link to a Fundamentalist web page, with all sorts of “proof” about Bonhoeffer’s “false teachings.” When I pointed out that an alleged Bonhoeffer statement against the Virgin Birth in The Cost of Discipleship, of which I have a copy, did not exist anywhere in that book, he replied that, golly gee, because he lives in South America, he doesn’t have access to his works. Intellectually, this is akin to “the dog ate my homework.” He then continued to blast Bonhoeffer as a heretic, in the face of the fact that this Fundamentalist “scholar” was WRONG, and in the absence of any first-hand proof about Bonhoeffer’s alleged heresies).

It’s certain Bonhoeffer was not an “American evangelical” brand of Christian; neither was he the proto-John Lennon being propped up by the likes of Frank Weickart and Victoria Barnett (who theologically, as we might say in Kentucky, may have a dog in this fight). Ultimately, did Bonhoeffer follow Jesus with all his heart? Absolutely—and Metaxas’ book gave me all the more reason to continue regarding him as one of my heroes of the Christian faith.