BradTaylor

Bonhoeffer: Chapter 11

The eleventh chapter, which covered Nazi theology, was a great reminder of what a gifted writer Eric Metaxas is. Bonhoeffer’s name isn’t even mentioned until the last page of the chapter, but Metaxas still keeps you rapt with his attention to detail and fantastic writing style. Here is a sentence that particularly jumped off the page:

Chamberlain…is another baffling character in a baffling story, a kind of satanic Simeon warbling an inverted Nunc Dimittis.

The Nunc Dimittis may be better known to you simply as Simeon’s Song. Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a spiritual leader of the Third Reich, and he prophesied that Hitler was literally a German Messiah. Considering the prophecy God gave Simeon, you can see how well Metaxas spun his words with this sentence.

I knew far too little about Hitler and the Third Reich before reading this book, and I’ve been astonished at how some of the German people viewed Hitler as another Christ. Hitler was anti-Christian, but he began his political career pretending to be pro-Christian, because he knew he needed the support of the churches. Over the course of his career, he incrementally chipped away at their doctrine and theology, until he had created a Jesus who was “our greatest Aryan hero,” simply the most absurd thought imaginable. He required that churches place Mein Kampf on their altars, that the Bible stop being published in German, and that churches remove all crosses and pictures of saints.

The new German leaders began burning the Old Testament because of the favor shown the Israelites. They were establishing their place as God’s chosen people, at least in their own eyes.