W reads (about) Bonhoeffer

Gustav Niebuhr notes that George W. Bush is reading a very recent 600-page biography of famous Christian Nazi-resister, and prophet of the "cost of discipleship," Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A complicated character in a hellishly harrowing time, Bonhoeffer offers us different aspects that can be taken for the whole man. [ . . . ] On his first stay in the United States, in 1930, he found the Social Gospel preached at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem so profoundly affecting that he retained a lifelong belief in partnering with God to help the poor and oppressed. There was Bonhoeffer the Christian man of action, who did not absolve himself of guilt in his political activities. And there was the theologian who found the world's realities in the image of Jesus on the cross. [ . . . ]

Which Bonhoeffer is George W. Bush encountering? As noted, with his dedicated focus on Christ, Bonhoeffer has long appealed to people who lean toward the theologically conservative, especially American evangelicals. His commitment to social ministry inspires many ranks of more liberal admirers. And Bonhoeffer's clear status of an a man of action, who put all at risk to defy Hitler--well, who doesn't find that moving?

Like Niebuhr, I wonder what exactly the former president is getting out of his reading about Bonhoeffer, but I also suppose that if this news means more people go read Bonhoeffer's work, that would be a good thing, regardless of what effect it has on Bush himself.