Bonhoeffer Review - McGarry

Strange Glory is one of the most clear and meticulous accounts of the life and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer available today. It is a precise and eminently readable story of Bonhoeffer's life and work, and the way in which Charles Marsh weaves his narrative reveals the rich complexities laying behind Dietrich Bonhoeffer the man. This is not to say that Strange Glory lacks controversy, but this should not be allowed to detract from the book's substantial strengths. In fact, the work's controversial aspects highlight the uniqueness of biography as a literary genre, and this evokes conversation regarding the interpretive choices biographers make. 

We begin with biographies as a genre. They are unique texts because their authors must accomplish three tasks. They must first research their subject and discover the salient aspects of their subject's life. This research produces a landscape, a series of 'dots' which are the biography's raw material. Second, the biographer compiles these 'dots' together in the manner she or he believes to be the most faithful telling of the story, and connects them through narrative; like a children's dot-to-dot puzzle morphing into a picture of a fish undersea, the biography's portrait gains richness and depth as the author tells the story and connects the dots. Third, the biographer must present this portrait with prose that engages the reader and brings the image to life. They must write a compelling story. As a researcher, Charles Marsh has done a phenomenal job of carefully poring over the source material, and has discerned the significant in the midst of the mundane; he has done a tremendous job of both identifying the dots and connecting them in a beautifully written book. 

And yet, as intriguing as the research is, perhaps the most significant aspect of Strange Glory is the narrative course Marsh charts in his explanation of why Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived as he did. Though the text advances a reading of Bonhoeffer's personal life which is quite controversial--even within the most accomplished Bonhoeffer scholars, there is "enthusiastic disagreement" regarding this interpretation--Marsh's conclusions rest on a very careful reading of the original source material. And this raises intriguing issues regarding the interpretive choices one makes in constructing a biographical narrative. We know that Bonhoeffer said "A" and did "B", but why? Why do we give this explanation instead of that one? The legitimate controversy inherent in some of Marsh's interpretations should not be allowed to overshadow the monumental research which draws that interpretation forth. Rather, we should be encouraged to ask deeper questions regarding the relationship between the dots and the narrative, where competing explanations might exist, and why we choose to tell the story in the way we do. This book forces us to face these questions. Consequently, both as a piece of research on the life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and as a fine example of biography as genre, Strange Glory opens and provokes conversation along a number of avenues. And again, it has been done with wonderful prose that makes the book legitimately difficult to put down. 

I will begin with the research. Simply stated, Charles Marsh is a very careful reader of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life, work, and theology. He has not only meticulously read through the extant literature, but he has also widened his research into the lives and works of secondary characters that were influential in Bonhoeffer's life. He does a very good job of seamlessly weaving a number of disparate genres together (major theological works, fiction and poetry, personal and formal correspondence) in a way that previous biographers have not. In specific, Marsh does a very good job of availing himself to Bonhoeffer's fiction from Tegel prison. It has long been regarded that much of Bonhoeffer's fiction (Volume 7 in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works) was autobiographical, and Marsh does a very good job of incorporating the rich detail from Bonhoeffer's own pen into his narrative. Few biographers have availed themselves to this rich resource, and Strange Glory is all the more engaging for it. 

Another significant area where Marsh's care as a reader comes through is his accounting of Bonhoeffer's time at Union Seminary, particularly his experience with American theology and the American church. Recent texts have rightly noted Bonhoeffer's everpresent frustrations with most of the Christianity he encountered in New York. The general interpretation has been that--because Bonhoeffer was staying at a "theologically liberal" seminary and had attended some "theologically liberal" churches--his frustration was with the liberals he encountered (thereby revealing Bonhoeffer to be a conservative). Unfortunately, this is a very poor interpretation, and Marsh corrects it well. Taking into account both that Bonhoeffer was an equal opportunity critic, and that he had very rich relationships with bastions of German Protestant Liberalism (like Adolf von Harnack), Marsh reminds us that Bonhoeffer's problem wasn't with the American liberals in New York. Rather, his issue was that the liberals he met in New York were American. At Union, Bonhoeffer experienced a never-ending clash between his formal, German, mode of dogmatic theology, and the (for him) disorganized, haphazard, and pragmatic modes of American thought. As a classically trained German systematic theologian, Bonhoeffer simply did not feel that American theology was theological in any sense of the term. As Marsh himself puts it, "The problem with Union students was not that they were liberals, but that they were sloppy ones." (105) Strange Glory helps us understand Bonhoeffer's critique, in which he famously says "There is no theology here", as a clash of theological mode (German academic vs. American academic) instead of theological method (conservative vs. liberal). 

This is very helpful. It allows Bonhoeffer to resist being marshalled to promote a certain type of socio-political agenda. Once again we find Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be a very square peg, one reluctant to fit into our conveniently round holes. This, in turn, plays into a second key reason Marsh's insights are helpful: increasingly, Bonhoeffer's time in New York--both at Union Seminary and at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem--is being regarded as an absolutely crucial season in his biographical and theological development. The difficult thing is, there is not a substantial amount of definitive evidence regarding how and why this is true. Or more appropriately, the evidence we have is circumstantial. We see Bonhoeffer's theological priorities before Union, and then after Union, but we have very little self-reflective commentary from Bonhoeffer himself through this time regarding how and why his thought develops in the trajectory it does. The dots are there, but heretofore they have been very difficult to connect well. 

Strange Glory solves that issue, and Marsh's insight is in the community surrounding Bonhoeffer. People like Frank Fischer, Paul Lehmann, Jean Lasserre, Erwin Sutz, Reinhold Niebuhr, Harry Ward, Charles Webber, and Myles Horton. Strange Glory looks at the theological and practical priorities of these compatriots, and convincingly argues that their influence--both personal and academic--left an indelible mark upon Bonhoeffer. By rooting his account not only in Bonhoeffer's corpus, but also in a firm command of the work of his Union contemporaries, Marsh has finally connected the dots in a way that makes this relationship very clear indeed. 

Marsh's care as a reader also comes to the fore in Bonhoeffer's personal correspondence. Specifically, in Strange Glory we find a very human Bonhoeffer. Decades ago, Clifford Green helpfully asked Bonhoeffer readers to see the internal psychological struggles present in Bonhoeffer's writings. The isolated ego, for whom community becomes so important, is consistently present in Bonhoeffer's work, and Green argues that this reality is as significant biographically as it is theologically. Marsh continues developing this portrait, and does so through a careful reading of Bonhoeffer's personal writings. He shows us an exceptionally intense, emotionally needy man who was in the same moment fiercely independent and yet remarkably clingy. 

It is quite important for us to see this side of Bonhoeffer, particularly because many biographical accounts border on the hagiographic. Marsh, however, does not take his readers down that path. Rather, by reading Bonhoeffer very carefully, we are introduced to a hyper-intelligent man, born into German aristocracy, who had a difficult time relating and building deep friendships outside his family. It is important for us to see this latent relational dynamic --this intensity of personality combined with the loneliness of relational isolation--because of the foundational role Bonhoeffer's friendship with Eberhard Bethge would play later in life, and the controversial narrative Marsh uses to connect these dots . The controversy, of course, lies in Strange Glory's argument that Dietrich Bonhoeffers was romantically in love with Eberhard Bethge. 

It is helpful here to have a few words regarding the Bonhoeffer/Bethge friendship. Marsh always states that this affection was unidirectional from Bonhoeffer to Bethge, and was always unrequited. Secondly, though English speaking audiences are relatively new to this interpretation, within European studies, the plausibility of Bonhoeffer's attraction to Bethge has been discussed for a number of years. That is to say, Marsh does not simply conjure this interpretation from nowhere; within European Bonhoeffer scholarship, this has been a manner of connecting the dots for some time now. Perhaps most importantly, it is important to recognize that Marsh does not argue this in order to advance a socio-political agenda, but because he genuinely believes it to be true.  

And he believes it to be true based on a very careful reading of the source material, specifically Bonhoeffer's letters to Bethge. As someone who has also read the entirety of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, I was amazed at the details Marsh noticed in Bonhoeffer's letters. Details that I had overlooked in the course of my own readings. To be honest, Marsh's attention to Bonhoeffer's words illumined a side of him that was quite surprising to me, and was quite literally under my nose the entire time. In specific, he pays very careful attention to the tenor and character of Bonhoeffer's letters. They are often emotionally intense, deep, and can sometimes appear quite desperate. Furthermore, because we have a number of Bethge's responses back, we can see a disparity between the two. The emotional intensity in Bonhoeffer's letters often overreaches those within Bethge's replies.  Bonhoeffer writes Bethge daily--sometimes twice a day--and he laments Bethge only writing once or twice a week. 

As but one example of this type of dynamic, Marsh draws our attention to a letter Bonhoeffer wrote to Bethge on his birthday--4 February 1941. After mentioning how good it was to speak directly with Bethge on the phone, Dietrich recalls their time in Finkenwalde and says this: "This [phone call] made my memory of other birthdays especially vivid again and also my awareness that without a morning hymn outside my door, as you have arranged for me over the course of years, and without morning and evening devotions together and personal intercession, a day like this is actually without meaning and substance."  Without Eberhard present, without spending it with him, without their morning and evening devotions, and without praying together, Bonhoeffer's day is empty. 

Let this sit for a moment: without Eberhard, Dietrich's birthday means nothing and is hollow. 

That's a fairly odd--or at least highly dramatic--thing for an emotionally secure 35 year old man to say to his best friend. And though such intense desperation need not necessarily imply a romantic affection for Bethge, we do need to admit that we are more likely to hear this type of sentiment from adolescent lovers than middle aged platonic friends. Marsh's very careful reading forces us to ask why this is so, and I believe we need to give a well reasoned answer that comports to the evidence. 

By paying very careful attention to Bonhoeffer's words, Marsh highlights an emotional neediness for Eberhard Bethge that is unique in Bonhoeffer's relationships, and remarkably clingy. These dots are unmistakable and are there. But how do we connect them? Marsh's answer is that Bonhoeffer was in love with him, that what we read in the letters is Bonhoeffer's love for his friend (Strange Glory also points out a curious disparity between Bonhoeffer's emotional vulnerability in letters to Bethge vs his emotional vulnerability in letters to his fiancé), and that romantic attraction is the best way for us to connect the dots.

Though there is broad agreement within Bonhoeffer scholarship regarding the fact that Bonhoeffer's affection for Bethge was intense, the disagreement comes as scholars diverge in answering why. And I believe we are well served by two important considerations. In the first instance, we should consider the explanatory power of a competing narrative, one which might also explain these relational dynamics without raising secondary issues (not least of which being that a number of current prominent Bonhoeffer scholars were personal friends with Bethge for decades before his death in 2000, and Marsh's narrative does not comport with aspects of Bethge's personal witness regarding their relationship). One competing explanation could simply be that Eberhard Bethge was the first person to understand Bonhoeffer and genuinely befriend him. 

Put bluntly: Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an odd person sometimes. He was very intense. He was remarkably smart, quite arrogant, and strong willed. He was sensitive, highly competitive, born into economic privilege that most people simply cannot relate to (in the era of German hyper-inflation, he was still sending letters back home for money), and was raised in a home where idle chit-chat was not tolerated. He possessed the all-too-common combination of a highly sensitive individual with a brilliant, arrogant, and sometimes prickly personality. He had a rambunctious sense of humor that never left him; he lived in a world of philosophical, theological, and artistic high culture--which is very difficult to grasp in our current context--and was downright condescending to those who tended toward low culture. Though he was remarkably skilled with children, he had difficulty relating to peers outside his family; he had no lifelong childhood friends outside his family, and even through his undergraduate university studies and a year in Barcelona, he developed only one lasting friendship (Helmut Roβler). In fact, Bonhoeffer writes Roβler at the end of his fall semester at Union and says that he is disappointed because he thought he would have found "a great cloud of witnesses" (i.e. friends) to study with.  

At 25 years old he has only one close friend outside his family. 

It would not be until the second half of his year in New York that Bonhoeffer really begins to develop peer friendships that would remain through the rest of his life. However, it would not be until he was 29 that Dietrich Bonhoeffer would finally meet someone who "got" him. Eberhard was his first deep and genuine non-familial friendship, and Dietrich latches onto him with all of the intensity that a lifetime of isolation and loneliness could contain. An attachment that is sometimes unbalanced and borders on the desperate....and yet still possesses the warmth of a man who was kind and sensitive whilst--at times--also relationally inept. These factors are all present as well, and could present a competing narrative which connects the same dots. Such a portrait could still result in the curiously intense emotional relationship we read in his letters, and yet come from a different source than romantic love. It could simply be the remarkably clingy affection of a relationally needy but stunted genius who never knew deep friendship before he was 30. 

And that's the issue, isn't it? How do we connect the dots? Why would we choose this narrative structure instead of that one? What is gained? What is lost? What type of portrait have we revealed? The fact that Strange Glory makes us authentically wrestle with these deeper questions reveals just what a monumental work the text is.

At the end of the day, Strange Glory is an excellent book. Beyond the remarkably clear presentation of Bonhoeffer's life and theology without being simplistic--a very difficult task--the book is peppered with effortlessly dispensed interpretive gems (for instance, his two page summary of protestant liberalism from Kant to Barth's critique of it [177-178] is one of the best summaries I've read). Is the text problematic? I don't know. If it is, it is only problematic insofar as it raises a provocative issue in a way that refuses to be waved off with simplistic rock throwing. Rather, Marsh's careful research requires a thoughtful response, and demands it be rooted in an equally careful reading of the source material. I do believe such a response is possible, and the ensuing dialogue surely would do nothing but enrich the depth, nuance, and character of our portrait of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.