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Stone Choir

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: False Teacher, Traitor, Damned

Stone Choir

Stone Choir

Education, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2023

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hosts

Corey J. Mahler

coreyjmahler.com

@CoreyJMahler

    Woe

    aka Eschatologuy

    @treblewoe

      Like MLK, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a false teacher. Also like MLK, Dietrich Bonhoeffer studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Unlike MLK, Bonhoeffer is a deeply dangerous theologian, because where MLK lacked subtlety and cunning, Bonhoeffer most certainly did not.

      When Bonhoeffer writes or speaks, he may very well sound Christian — may very well even be Christian (in his comments) here and there in his writings —, but he uses Christian terms with anti-Christian definitions= (for instance, he calls the Crucifixion and the Resurrection myths). Scripture commands the Christian to be on his guard against false teachers — to be as wise as a serpent and the judge the spirits. Bonhoeffer denies almost every core tenet of the Christian religion at some point in his writing.

      And yet Bonhoeffer is held up as a towering figure by many supposed Christian leaders. He is called a theologian, a pastor, a teacher, and a martyr. In this episode, we examine those claims by looking at what Bonhoeffer actually wrote — what he actually believed and taught. You will be left with a very different image of this man than the one so very many pastors — to their discredit and to the misfortune of their sheep — have had instilled in them.

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      Show Notes

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      Transcript

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      Transcript

      Click on a timestamp to play from that location

      0:00.0

      The

      0:07.0

      The Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast. I am Corey J. Mahler.

      0:41.7

      And I'm still, whoa.

      0:44.9

      On today's episode of Stone Quire, we're going to be discussing the famous 20th century

      0:50.2

      theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

      0:53.1

      It's interesting when you call Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's interesting when you call Dietrich Bonhofer

      0:55.6

      famous because he wasn't really famous as a the theologian until the 21st century. That's

      1:01.3

      something we'll get into a little bit, but it's just this is one of the episodes that we're doing

      1:06.4

      because yet again, he is a sacred cow. He's really, in fact, a golden calf of 20th century global religion.

      1:15.6

      And that is consistent with many of the themes that we've hit in the past year. A couple brief notes up front before we get into this particular subject.

      1:25.3

      One, this is a continuation of a number of previous episodes.

      1:29.2

      So if you happen to be listening to Stonequire for the very first time with this particular

      1:33.3

      episode, we would actually recommend that you go back to a couple of earlier ones.

      1:38.5

      In particular, the Martin Luther King, R Charatech episode, part one of about MLK, is really part one of this episode as well.

      1:47.8

      One of the points that we're going to be making in this episode is that MLK and Bonhoffer effectively had the same spiritual fathers.

      1:56.8

      They had the same teachers, the same readings, and they had the same message.

      2:02.3

      The difference between them was really just about 50 IQ points.

      2:06.0

      So the things that MLK was too stupid not to say out loud, Bonhoeffer was perfectly content to say them.

      2:13.1

      The difference is that Bonhoffer would say him in a subtle way so that if you already think he's a decent

      2:17.7

      Christian guy, you're going to be able to baptize what it is he says without too much trouble.

      2:23.5

      Another episode that this ties into is one of the early ones on the clarity of scripture and some of

      2:28.6

      the World War II stuff. We're not really going to get into it beyond just a couple superficial

      ...

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