Tag: Eric Metaxas

Eric Metaxas Likes Christian Colleges, Blocks Christian College Profs

Today, Eric Metaxas published an article at CNSNews talking up Christian colleges. The major talking point is that Christian colleges are well rounded while secular schools are one-dimensional. Actually, in the article, he reported the views of NY Times columnist David Brooks. Speaking of Ivy League students, Brooks says:

“They’ve been raised in a culture,” Brooks says, “that encourages them to pay attention to the résumé virtues of how to have a great career but leaves by the wayside … time to think about the eulogy virtues: the things they’ll say about you after you’re dead. They go through their school with the mixture of complete self-confidence and utter terror, afraid of a single false step off the achievement machine.” It’s flat, lifeless, and soul-killing.
But Christian schools attempt to educate their charges in three dimensions. Brooks told Christian college leaders that Christian universities “are the avant-garde of 21st century culture.” Christian colleges “have a way of talking about and educating the human person in a way that integrates faith, emotion and intellect. [They] have a recipe to nurture human beings who have a devoted heart, a courageous mind and a purposeful soul. Almost no other set of institutions in American society has that, and everyone wants it.”

I can’t agree or disagree with Brooks about Ivy League students, but I can say he is close to the mark on the place where I teach.
It interests me that Metaxas resonates with Brooks observations. Recently on Twitter, Metaxas has blocked several Christian college professors who have publicly expressed concerns with his newest book, as well as his support for Donald Trump. To David Brooks observations, I would add that several of the Christian colleges that I know well are not intimidated by the celebrity culture which marks evangelical Christianity.  We encourage students to question the status quo both in and outside the church.
Over the past couple of months, Metaxas has blocked Messiah College history prof John Fea, Oklahoma Baptist University English prof Alan Noble (recently unblocked), Tyndale University College Philosophy prof Paul Franks and me. There are others but these are the ones who came to mind. It isn’t a major thing to be blocked and my point isn’t to gripe about that. My point is that in addition to the virtues identified by Brooks, many profs at Christian colleges seek the truth wherever it leads, even when that upsets a few big name apple carts.

Fact Free Fun Fact Courtesy of Eric Metaxas: A Vote for Johnson is a Vote for Clinton

Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer and Trump supporter Eric Metaxas goes fact free today. To wit:


In fact, a vote for Johnson is a vote for Johnson. Furthermore, according to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, Trump benefits when Johnson is thrown into polling preferences.

Overall, including third-party candidates takes about 1 percentage point away from Clinton’s margin, on average.

Even Trump’s megaphone Breitbart News headlined in June: Polls: Libertarian Gary Johnson Will Likely Hurt Hillary Clinton More Than Donald Trump
Metaxas didn’t get much support for his #funfact.


#funopinion – Evangelicals like Metaxas, David Barton, James Jeremiah, and Franklin Graham are being played. Trump still cozying up to Putin after Putin’s Russia imposed restrictions on religious liberty. Why aren’t evangelicals going ballistic over it? Instead of looking the other way or placating Trump, evangelical leaders should be denouncing Putin’s moves and should denounce Trump for his silence.

Todd Starnes: You Did Not Paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer When You Said Not to Vote is to Vote

Fox News columnist and pundit Todd Starnes is the latest religious right figure to claim Bonhoeffer said

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

In his speech to the Values Voter Summit yesterday, Starnes misattributed this quote to German pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Here are the relevant references in Starnes’ speech:

To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer – not to vote — is to vote.

and then down the page a bit:

Bonhoeffer once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
I believe this is a Bonhoeffer moment for ever Bible-believing Christian in America.
We can no longer be silent. We are to be civil but not silent. We must roar like lions.

The problem is these words cannot be found in Bonhoeffer’s works. The experts at the Bonhoeffer Society can’t find it in his writings, and no one who uses the quote (not even Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas) has been able to supply a source for it. I traced it back to a 1998 exhibit in Philadelphia’s Liberty Museum, but now the Museum staff cannot locate a source for the quote. There is no source for the quote in Bonhoeffer’s works and no evidence that he ever said it.
As I have pointed out before, “not to vote is to vote” is nonsense.  When someone doesn’t vote, nothing can be counted for either side. The only way not voting could be considered a vote is if the act of not voting is considered a statement of non-confidence in all candidates.
Whatever not voting is, the phrase “not to vote is to vote” is not a paraphrase of Bonhoeffer. Use the quote if you must, but pundits should stop attributing it to Bonhoeffer.

Freeing Bonhoeffer: Goodreads Corrects Attribution of Quote Formerly Attributed to Bonhoeffer

On August 25, I posted research into the attribution of the following quote:

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Commonly attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I traced the quote back to a now deceased researcher at the Liberty Museum in Philadelphia who added the quote to Bonhoeffer’s exhibit in the museum. The current director of the museum did not know the source and the quote does not appear in any of Bonhoeffer’s writings according to the foremost expert on those writings, Victoria Barnett. It cannot be found before a 1998 newsletter reporting on the opening of the Liberty Museum Bonhoeffer exhibit. Eric Metaxas, author of a biography on Bonhoeffer, has used the quote frequently attributed to Bonhoeffer but has not provided a source for the quote.
Quotes like this are also spread by websites which archive quotes for use on social media. One such website is Goodreads. Today, Goodreads let me know that they have changed the attribution of the quote to “anonymous.”
Before
silence goodreads before b
After
silence goodreads after
International Justice Mission and several others have also made similar changes in the use of the quote.
Good Timing
Thinking about this some more, I believe it is a good time to clear this up. So many people have enlisted Bonhoeffer through this quote for so many different and contradictory causes. Most recently, people for and against Donald Trump have tried to bring Bonhoeffer on their side. With Bonhoeffer’s aura and imprimatur, this quote is used frequently to make the justice of one’s cause seem self-evident.
Recently, Eric Metaxas used a part of it again to encourage a vote for Trump. He said “not to act is to act” and “not to vote is to vote.”


I really doubt Bonhoeffer would have agreed with the perversion of the quote. Not to vote is not to vote. One cannot vote and not vote at the same time. How is the not voting vote to be counted?
To illustrate the absurdity of just taking the form “not to ____ is to ____” and substituting one’s current cause or preoccupation, let’s take another recent blog topic: tithing. I really doubt Robert Morris would go along with “not to tithe is to tithe.” If one is hungry, it won’t fill your stomach to say, “not to eat is to eat.” Also, thinking about the silence from Metaxas on the attribution of this quote, I think it confuses things to say, “Not to take responsibility is to take responsibility,” right?
Freeing the quote from Bonhoeffer invites us to consider that it might not be as wise and universally applicable as it first seemed.