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Yikes- this was a real disappointment, or, as Metaxas might say, a hemorrhoidal bummer. I was excited when I read reviews when it came out. Then I was wary when I learned that Metaxas is the 'founder and host' of a philosophy reading group for crazy-rich, conservative New Yorkers. Then when I saw that the blurbs for his book, rather than being by biographers or scholars, were by CEOs, ex-CEOs, former General Partners of Goldman Sachs, Kirkus journalists or people who feel the need to put PhD at the end of their names, I was really put off.

Then I started reading, and I went back to excitement. Metaxas writes very clear, Hemingway-gone-effeminate sentences for the most part. It's very soothing... and then suddenly you realize that he's just lulling you so he can smack you over the head with a patented word-couple like 'hemorrhoidal isometrics' or 'vampiric homonculus.' In one sentence he describes Hitler as having both 'canine sensitivity' and 'lupine ruthlessness.' In *one sentence*. Theologians are accused of building 'diminutive Ziggurats.' It reads like a high-school student trying to impress her teacher.

And then there's the big problem with the book: despite the fact that almost everyone in Germany refused to take a stand as firm as Bonhoeffer's, Metaxas is unwilling to consider that anyone then alive wasn't either a black-hatted varmant or a white-hatted hero. Once Hitler takes the stage, the book becomes a morality-tale rather than a biography. *Real* Christians never supported Hitler, and Bonhoeffer can do no wrong- but even *he* admitted that he rubbed people the wrong way and had a knack for making enemies. True, true, Metaxas admits, Bonhoeffer could get a bit too high-brow in the pulpit. But such a criticism is doubly ironic: first, because Metaxas' primary complaint about 'Bishop' Mueller is that he's an 'uneducated Navy chaplain' of lower-class origins (this is particularly jarring when you realize how privileged Bonhoeffer was, and that Metaxas doesn't seem to care). Second, despite its sneering at the uneducated, this book is determinedly middle-brow. I imagine Bonhoeffer and Barth sharing a smirk about it before they got back to reading something incomprehensible.

I should have been tipped off by the sub-title, of course, that there wouldn't be much attention paid Bonhoeffer's ideas here: it's not called 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Theologian.' But I still found the lack of intellectual analysis disappointing, especially given that Metaxas has his own theological axes to grind, primarily against those who are attracted to the idea of religion-less Christianity. Who are they? We're never told. What should we put in place of their (as he sees it) flawed interpretation? We're never told.

It's a shame, because this is a great subject for a biography, and he obviously did a great deal of research and excellent synthesis.