[Oe List ...] more on that Bonhoeffer movie

[W. J.]

I still haven't seen the movie, but a few of us have. Here's my response to a private email from one colleague:Marshall
D**, I'm guessing from your description that the screenplay was not the result of any in-depth study of Bonhoeffer's life or his theology. I bet the screenwriter didn't even bother to read Eberhard Bethge's biography.What I think he did is to create a cartoon Bonhoeffer character by superimposing the skeletal outline of Bonhoeffer's life onto a thriller movie framework.Leaving out the nuances and agonizing complexities of Bonhoeffer's ethical dilemmas as a pacifist.I'm not shocked that this cartoon version of Bonhoeffer has him wishing to "tear down the institutional church." I think the real Bonhoeffer's life was more profoundly nuanced than that kind of statement. His Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship were written while he supervised the underground seminary at Finkenwalde for students who were preparing to serve the dissenting Confessing Church that opposed the official German Church coalition that embraced Hitler. His focus on a "religionless Christianity" is a rejection of the 'smells and bells' and medieval belief system Luther inherited from Catholicism in favor of a radical immersion in the secular life of the world.And also a radical following of Jesus rather than middle class cultural norms.Something like the monastic life of seminary students at Finkenwalde. Or maybe the O:E.
Although Bonhoeffer never abandoned his upper-class entitlement to a rich, privileged life. I believe that the real Dietrich was in love with his young student Eberhard, who was the beneficiary of his will.
Dietrich reluctantly became engaged to marry the much younger Maria Von Wedemeyer only after her grandmother relentlessly pushed her on him and only after Eberhard got engaged to Dietrich's niece Renate.I don't get the sense that he was ever hot to make love with Maria. Perhaps their experience of 'true love' was always from an emotional distance, especially after Dietrich's arrest just three months after their announcement. There were letters and supervised visits. That's all.After both became engaged, Dietrich wrote to Eberhard, imagining that 
Now, we can resume our partnership, and we can travel together in those places where we found so much joy, and we can leave our wives back in Germany, in Berlin, or some place.
In other words, they both acquired beards, and Dietrich longed to renew and pursue their spiritual friendship as 'soul mates' or whatever they decided to call it. But Eberhard was never willing to venture below the belt (as far as we can tell).I'm not at all sure that Dietrich was ever willing to go there, much as he may have longed to do just that. He wrote in prison that he would die a virgin.But since Eberhard's whole life was about Dietrich--especially as his martyred mentor and forever lost lover--how hard is it to understand the depth of his love in return?At least that's my version of Bonhoeffer. Now I'll have to see the damn movie!Marshall
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay-- Deal With It
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