Several years ago, I read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I absolutely loved that book. It introduced me to the details of the life of one of my favorite authors and theologians.
So when Charles Marsh’s biography, Strange Glory: A Life Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was released, I was excited to read it, to see what else I could add to my knowledge of Bonhoeffer’s life and times.
Right off the bat, I noticed that Metaxas and Marsh examined Bonhoeffer’s life differently. Where Metaxas looked at the events and circumstances of his life, Marsh dug into the theological and philosophical aspects of Bonhoeffer’s thinking. There were several interesting insights that I gathered from this different perspective.
But that’s the only positive I took from this biography. The more I read it, the more I sensed that Marsh wrote, imposing his twenty-first century views and thoughts on a life and time from nearly a hundred years ago. Marsh is unable to see Bonhoeffer in light of his own era and culture, and he interprets Bonhoeffer’s life in light of current American culture, particularly in light of Bonhoeffer’s sexuality.
Though Marsh never come out and explicitly states that Bonhoeffer experienced same sex attraction, he implies heavily that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was romantically in love with his friend, Eberhard Bethge.
This idea is absolutely ridiculous.
