Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Challenged by Bonhoeffer

Alan Wolfe has written for The New Republic a very fine review of Eric Metaxas' new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.  While he is certainly not alone in his praise both for the book and for the man whose life it chronicles, his review goes further than most.  Toward the end of it, Wolfe wrestles very seriously with the challenge of ethical excellence presented by Bonhoeffer's life and death witness, and thereby forces his readers to do the same.  You really must read this review.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for recommending this....

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  2. My pleasure. You know him, don't you, from BC?

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  3. I know of him but don't know him. He's the bete noire of the Straussians at BC.

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  4. I attended his NEH summer seminar on morality and politics at BU back in the summer of 1996. He was more moderate back then, but rejected natural law, preferred Douglas over Lincoln, etc. He has some center for the study of religion but is not at all religious.

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  5. Fr. Neuhaus was always taking potshots at Wolfe in "First Things." He was the perfect choice for Boston College, being the epicenter of half-baked Catholicism.

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