Bonhoeffer Movie Opens Amid Controversy Over Role of Eric Metaxas

Director of Bonhoeffer opposed Metaxas screening

Angel Studios’ movie Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin opens tomorrow in theatres amid questions about fidelity to history and relationship to MAGA author Eric Metaxas. In the run up to the release, Bonhoeffer experts and Bonhoeffer’s family criticized depictions of Bonhoeffer generated by the movie and Metaxas’ 2010 book about the German theologian.

In my first post on this subject, I mistakenly said that the movie was based on Metaxas’ book. However, last week movie director Todd Komarnicki denied that association. Komarnicki told podcaster Tripp Fuller that the movie was not based on Metaxas’ work. In fact, he seemed offended by that idea.

While that seemed like a plus for the movie, I had a hard time reconciling what the director said with a screening held by the production company at the Museum of the Bible on October 30.

Besides the exclusive screening, Metaxas was the main attraction. His description of the event made that clear:

I’m thrilled to announce an exclusive screening of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin on October 30th in D.C., nearly a month before the movie’s official release! Following the screening, I'll be discussing Bonhoeffer’s enduring legacy and the lessons we can draw from his life today.

Plus, there will be a private dinner with me before the screening, offering a chance for deeper conversation and connection.

Don’t miss out—sign up now at socratesinthecity.com/events!

In a video displayed on his Instagram page, he showed an image of his book along side movie clips. While it wasn’t directly stated, the event and promotion gave the appearance of a relationship between his work and the movie.

So, when I asked Todd Komarnicki about it, he candidly said in an email, “I had nothing to do with that screening and aggressively tried to keep it from happening. Sadly, I did not prevail.”

About Metaxas’ book, he added, “My movie has nothing to do with Eric, it has been painful to watch the conflation taking place to say the least.”

While painful for the director, it may be mutually beneficial for Angel Studios and Metaxas. While there are some people who won’t see the film because they think Metaxas is involved, others on the MAGA side of town will take it all in because he is aggressively promoting it. And, for Metaxas, Bonhoeffer is the gift that keeps on giving.

Christian Hero

While Komarnicki cleared up the Metaxas situation, the movie isn’t out of the woods with Bonhoeffer experts. I asked Victoria Barnett, the editor of Bonhoeffer’s collected works, her thoughts on the movie, and she described it as, “as a very romanticized ‘Christian hero’ fantasy.”

Regarding historical accuracy, she said, “It doesn't have much grounding in the actual history.” However, her main problem with the film is “the one that the Bonhoeffer family stressed in their statement (and which the Bonhoeffer Society statement also emphasized): that it misrepresents his theology.”

Christianity Today reviewer Myles Werntz was similarly unimpressed. The Abilene Christian University professor wrote:

The ultimate failure of Bonhoeffer is not just that it gets the history wrong. It also misunderstands how Bonhoeffer’s life was already an extraordinary example of Christian courage.

In my view, it is good that the movie is triggering discussion about how to respond to a totalitarian regime. We are now living in the shadow of that possibility. This is new ground for American Christians and we need to deal with it.

What I also hope is that the conversation over the movie will move people into reading Bonhoeffer and those who know him best. Some suggestions for that are below:

Victoria Barnett, "After Ten Years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Our Times

Eberhard Bethge and Victoria J. Barnett, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography

Stephen Haynes, Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the age of Trump

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship (This is from his collected works and not the version with Eric Metaxas’ foreword.)