Bonhoeffer on evil, according to Carlson and Beck
You may have read that Tucker Carlson recently criticized Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an odd sort of way. Here’s the clip, so you can understand what it’s about:
I then came across this – which takes it a bit further, shall we say:
But seriously – the first clip was taken from a discussion of Bonhoeffer’s life, by Glenn Beck. Now, Beck is not my favorite pundit, but in this case I think he does a good job of explaining how Bonhoeffer wrestled with the dilemma of what a Christian decides to do in the face of manifest evil. Here’s the entire clip, which is about fifteen minutes long:
In 2015 I read the Metaxas’ book on Bonhoeffer that Beck references. It was outstanding. Though I had read a lot of books on this subject over the years, I never knew the Christian Church in Germany was a state-run institution and that one of the 1st things Hitler did was declare that Jews could not worship in the Christian Church. Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law was an ethnic Jew. Bonhoeffer had a “get out of jail free card” in that some wealthy Protestant Christians in NY brought him over, provided a wonderful apartment and wanted him as Pastor of their church. He gave it up and returned to Germany. The entire life-story is so amazing, including how his mother overcame depression following the loss of her son in the Great War. Historically enlightening. The account of Bonhoeffer’s death in the book is different from what Beck tells here. What Bonhoeffer and the people he was with those last couple weeks endured at the hands of the Nazis truly shines a light on how unacceptable it is to cast the accusation “Nazi” so capriciously. It is an insult to every person who suffered at the hands of that evil.
https://instapundit.com/757750/#disqus_thread
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Lynne Cheney planned an invitation-only funeral for her husband. Why not just put ‘services at the convenience of the family’ in the death notice? You can arrange things privately with relatives and actual friends later. And if you would not have been inclined to attend if his name had been Richard Jones, why attend? Had J.D. Vance ever been in the same room with Richard Cheney?
yeah I don’t get the argument, niemoller knew hitler had to die, of course the failure of the Wolfschanze plot, as related in Valkyrie was catastrophic, some of the members of the transition regime were problematic, he worked with the abwehr which was perhaps the most civil branch of the government to relay information to
western governments, as noble as one could imagine,
in a similar capacity to wallenberg, who was the black sheep of the family,unlike his family who saved the jews, did trade with the nazis
Speaking of
evilsheer, malicious stupidity……the Reparations Racket(TM) sure brings out the best of ‘em—out of the woodwork, that is….
“Jasmine Crockett Shares List Of Republicans Who Took Money From Epstein – Only Problem – It Was A Different Epstein”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jasmine-crockett-shares-list-republicans-who-took-money-epstein-only-problem-it-was
File under: What a Crocket
My wife and I both read Metaxas’ book Bonhoeffer as part of a class on him at our Lutheran Church here in Montana. In Nazi Germany you did what you were told or they imprisoned you, they tortured you or they executed you. Or you fled.
So, Bonhoeffer, like Sophie Scholl and others were very courageous to oppose Hitler, as were people in the USSR from 1922 onwards. It was almost a sure way to die.
I used to live in Germany in Oberpfalz/Niederbayern on the Czech border. In the famous November1932 election of Adolf Hitler – that area voted 47% for the Catholic Center Party. The Nazis didn’t make much of a dent there. That was the last free election.
I was a spy for a division of NSA against the Soviets almost 60 years ago in Oberpfalz and I visited Dachau, but The Flossenburg Camp where Bonhoeffer was executed was only a short drive away. I visited there as well.
Hitler had Bonhoeffer executed only a few days before the end of the war there. How pointless, really.
Tucker Carlson’s treatment of Bonhoeffer was crass, shallow and disgusting. He really has turned into a P.O.S. I detest him.
Eric Metaxas’ work, “Bonhoeffer”, is subtitled “Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy”, and is the product of a most diligent biographer digging for details. A superb work, which I learned about from a Wall Street Journal book review in 2014. Yes, that Journal!
Bonhoeffer felt it his Christian duty to leave America in 1938 and confront the Nazis and maintain the true Christian Church, which became the Confessing Church under his leadership while the Nazis Christians [sic] favored the creation of a competing church, named, if I remember correctly, the German Christian Church.
Bonhoeffer was imprisoned, starved, abused, and was murdered just days before V-E day. That pointless murder symbolizes Nazi evil precisely.
In addition to the well said statements of the above, I would note that any possible qualms one might have about killing someone – no matter how odious their beliefs – took a backseat when Hitler acted on those beliefs lethally. He cemented the idea that it was legal to kill leading Nazis (even murder if one wishes to say) himself. What he ordered during the Night if the Long Knives lacks the justifications Bonhoeffer had to want to kill Hitler (after all Hitler had done), and was at its heart the Godfather like “finishing all the family business” mass murder of those Hitler believed were opposed to him or even Possibly opposed to him, including Nazi party leaders like the Strassee brothers (he missed one) and Ernst Roehm, his old friend and strong arm and one of the few people Hitler actually showed hesitation or remorse for murdering. But yet he did in cold blood, kidnapping him and having him there for hours with flagrant disregard for the law. These actions were accepted both by the NSDAP as a whole and by the phantasms ghost of the government under Hindenburg, alternatively terrified by the Nazis murdering several other people including members of his camp and glad that at least they crushed the Roehmites and Strasseeites, and by appointing Hitler as Kanzler they essentially ratified the state’s acceptance of large scale political murders at Hitler’s behest. At some point you have to open your eyes and realize what the time is, and pretending this is comparable to some asswipes at Skokie or Charlottesville and thus Bonhoeffer was wrong to try and kill Hitler as it would be wrong to try and murder the Skokie Nazi Protestors is moral bankruptcy.
Tucker Carlson does not get to complain about Bonhoeffer trying to assassinate the Nazi leader for his crimes or try to draw a dishonest comparison to AntifA goons punching or murdering “Nazis” and those advocating violence against those merely speaking or protesting lawfully. The absolute worst that could be honestly said of Bonhoeffer as far as law or principles go on the issue is that he was trying to follow Hitler’s lead that it was permissible to kill Nazi Leaders, like Hitler himself had done for far less justifiable reasons.
I do not claim to be the same denomination as Bonhoeffer, nor to not have criticism for some of his leanings, but he is my brother in Christ, or at least I hope I am worthy of being called as such to him, because the only doubt is on my end. He lived and died valiantly in the Great Commisson as a martyr to save innocent lives and the souls of his people. In the end that is what truly matters.
Stresser brothers, not “Strassee”.
Carlson needs to remember Ehud in the book of Judges and Judith in her deuterocanonical book.
Tucker Carlson’s Bible Study
The podcaster offers a puzzling exegesis whose purpose he won’t or can’t explain
https://archive.fo/CDnm6
From the Houses of Worship column in today’s WSJ. Written by Barton Swaim
Carlson appears to be adopting a pacifist view of Christianity– in line with Quakers or Mennonites. Of course Quaker teaching does not allow killing even in self-defense and we don’t know Carlson’s position on that issue.
I think Carlson has formed most of his positions accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide from statements made by two leaders of small hardline parties in the governing coalition of Netanyahu’s government– Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The folks at Triggernometry interviewed Prime Minister Netanyahu several months ago and raised the issue of how these politicians have given Israel critics the opportunity to conflate their views with the policy of the Israel government, which Netanyahu disavowed. In the parliamentary system, these two splinter parties were necessary to form a government and have a legitimacy greater than their acceptance in Israel policy.
I wonder if you could say they represent the Fuentes wing of the conservative movement? Progressives have claimed for decades the Republican party is controlled by white supremacists/nationalists to smear our policies.
When asked about this Netanyahu responded, “Jews have been losing the propaganda war for 2500 years,” signaling, IMO, that Oct. 7 was a defining event that gave Israel no choice but to completely defeat their enemies of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, in addition to the assorted minor enemies funded by Iran.
Asking Benjamin Netanyahu The Tough Questions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I56MjHDl5k
I think Carlson has formed most of his positions accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide from statements made by two leaders of small hardline parties in the governing coalition of Netanyahu’s government– Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
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When Carlson landed his 1st position at CNN, one of these men was 20 and the other 24. Neither held a ministerial position in Israel’s government until 2019; neither held one which had anything to do with internal security or local government until 2022, about four months before the 53 year old Carlson got the axe at Fox News.
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I’ve been hearing blather about ‘ethnic cleansing’ and worse on Steve Sailer’s boards for a dozen years or more One of the regulars on these boards used to publish a magazine with a postman in Ohio. The magazine ceased publication thirty years ago. They revived it as a blog around about 2006. One of the things which distorted and disfigured the enterprise was the insensate rage with which Mr. Postman regarded the State of Israel. Neither Mr. Postman nor Sailer’s clown car denizens required the presence of Smotrich or Ben-Gvir to rattle on this way. Neither did the two jack-wagons neo banned from these boards for the Jew hate. The ‘genocide’ nonsense has indubitably been around in Arab revanchist circles for a long time. Now the senescent bint elected President of Ireland is flogging it. This level of mendacity does not require any real-world referents.
In his conversation with Megan Kelley, following his Fuentes interview, Carlson said this:
I’m trying to figure out how and why Carlson’s views on Israel have become so anti-Israel. It’s around 2019 his criticism of AIPAC might have some influence that has turned him so critical.
But Carlson himself has pointed out these politicians, who are part of the Netanyahu government as reasons for his anti-Israel position.
I think his view of AIPAC as a foreign lobby has definitely is part of it. AIPAC has been investigated over the decades as potentially a foreign lobby and has never been required to file as such. Carlson discounts that.
Carlson says the fact Israel urged non-combatants to leave Gaza City as proof of ethnic cleansing despite a logical rationale of just trying to minimize civilian casualties. He justifies his claim of genocide on the general destruction of Gaza, despite the rationale that Hamas utilizes it’s civilian population as shields and a tactic of placing IED’s in buildings that can be remotely detonated when IDF soldiers enter the building– giving the IDF no other option but to bomb/destroy the building.
The fact that Carlson ignores the reality of the actions of the IDF as actually trying to minimize unnecessary deaths and instead assumes the worst possible motives is puzzling, because it isn’t necessary if he is merely trying to have a coherent philosophy on war based on Christian principles.
Is his criticism of Bonhoeffer just the conclusion of his views on violence/war where all violence is to be rejected from a Christian viewpoint– or just an attempt to hide the logical incoherence of his views that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide in the conduct of the war?
This could all be cleared up if Carlson interviewed someone like Hanson or D’Souza, where he would have to defend his position. Until he does that, it’s understandable that people would assume the worst of Carlson’s motives.
thats not actually what smotrich said, he did suggest reasonably why should we feed to those who will kill us, he was a critic of the peace deal for this reason,
including the lopsided number of future fighters, that were traded for the few remaining hostages, we saw what relatively minor released figure, sinwar, did along with other allies,
no these people are not related to terrorists, they are part of a given kataib battalion et al, of hamas, or merely like the ones who held hostages on their property, of course the cair isna, msa, et and other appendages of the brotherhood, all cry out in unison,
having read Christina Lamb’s overview of the Afghan and Iraq expeditions, which stopped in 2014, one can see the cynicism that set in, about our putative allies like the warlords, and some of karzai’s own associates, our relatively mild attention to Pakistan’s role, which began long before the invasion, with their support of officers like Colonel Imam a US trained officer of the ISI who was ultimately devoured by his own creation the Taliban, as well as Hamid Gul, the wolf that the Company refused to consider seriously,
the Haqquani clan which now largely rules Afghanistan
then there was at once too much loose money allocated to some parts of the government, and too little with regards to the education and administrative parts, the reliance of problematic partners like the Da’wa and SCIRI, whose leadership was picked by Suleimani, like Maliki,a client of Liz Cheney, not to mention our on again off again foe
Muqtada Sadr, and his Mahdi Army,
some of the actions in Iraq, were also problematic, from the timing of the intervention, which stripped resources from the afghan operation, the debaathification efforts, as carried out, that created more problems then it solved
the heartbreaking losses and recovery of Fallujah and their collapse to Islamic State,
miss Lamb, is a little too trusting of the ‘innocent’
Gitmo detainees that
prove to be less true thanadvertised,
but when systems are very opaque,
this is the overlay to the non interventionist tableau that hangs over events from Fordow to the Caribbean,
Brian E:
Carlson has made it clear that he believes, among other things, that his Christianity justifies his beliefs about Israel. He recently read the entire Bible, you see (for the first time) and he was shocked!! at the violence in it that he lays at the feet of Jewish vindictiveness.
In other words, he’s an anti-Semite in the old tradition. Israel is just the present-day manifestation of those terrible Old Testament Jews, according to Carlson. See this.
I’m not saying that’s his whole reason; I’ve explained the whole “hating neocons” part of it in another post.
Saints walk among us we rarely know it.
That link to Barton Swaim’s column on Carlson is worth reading, for anyone interested in Carlson’s religious statements. (I think commenter sdferr posted it as well somewhere on another thread.) Carlson’s statement that he read the whole Bible through for the first time, and now he knows how it should be interpreted, is pure hubris. The rejection of the Hebrew scriptures was a very early heresy, soundly condemned by the early church fathers. And, as Swaim points out, Jesus and his apostles cited the Hebrew scriptures often.
Plus, Carlson failed to notice that God repeatedly forgave the Hebrews. Over and over they strayed, and God called them back, and forgave. To claim that the God of the Old Testament is one of retribution and not of forgiveness is wrong.
Neo, my position is you don’t have to criticize Carlson’s theology to find ample reasons to criticize Carlson’s position on Israel.
If I understand your position, you think he’s saying the violence in the Old Testament is from Jewish vindictiveness which is expressed by his criticism of present day Jewish attitudes towards what he identifies as group guilt. He accuses Israel policy as a willingness to punish innocent Palestinians because of the guilt of the terrorists you carried out the barbarous attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.
I’ve been trying to understand how he has come to this position. He has said the statements by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are evidence of that. Without knowing more about Jewish sentiments in the country, they are members of the Nentenyahu government and represent a certain percentage of the population (they are the leaders of their parties), but there is no evidence it’s the government’s policy.
What’s up with Beck’s deeply tanned face and his pasty white hands?
BrainE is trying to polish a turd.
Hamas started a war. They fought that war from positions in densely settled urban zones. They made absurd demands in negotiations over a cease fire. They would not abide by the terms of the first cease fire they negotiated. They’re behaving badly during this one. That a great deal of physical plant has been leveled and a great many people killed is unsurprising in these circumstances. It bothers Israel’s detractors (among them Carlson) because they begin with the assumption that Jews waging war on voluntary aggressors is an act of effrontery, because Jews are less than human.
“BrainE is trying to polish a turd.”
om, there you go again!
No. There is no need to attack Carlson’s understanding of scriptures and the theology that follows. I suspect that some of the commenters on this blog attend churches that teach replacement theology or fulfillment theology– which will affect how the Old Testament is interpreted.
Here’s what Carlson believes:
And this:
And this:
At the core, Carlson’s arguments aren’t based on any theology. It some vague human notion of compassion.
1. Carlson’s insistence that AIPAC is a foreign lobby and should register under FARA. Jews have too much influence in American politics.
2. Accusations that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing.
3. Accusations that Israel is engaged in genocide.
IMO, none of these falsehoods/misunderstandings/lies has to do with Carlson’s mistaken theology.
Israel is just a convenient punching bag, appealing to an undercurrent of anti-semitism (being generous in my characterization. This is a spiritual problem at it’s core.) This is about the future of MAGA. To what extent will MAGA transform to America First— which by the way is owned by Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes established the America First Foundation around 2020– which is fully isolationist, among other distortions of what MAGA, as President Trump has demonstrated through actions what it is.
I wasn’t aware of this. Every time we use the term America First, it’s playing into Fuentes’ narrative of what America First stands for.
Brian E:
What the turd has done and does is far more important than what you try to cipher out about what the turd believes.
Bring “too clever by half,” again, Brian.