Bestselling Christian author Eric Metaxas is warning American believers in particular that they are running out of time to stand up against what he describes as “the rising evil” in their country, but his concern applies to Christians in most Western countries.
It’s the subject of his latest book titled Religionless Christianity: God’s Answer to Evil and echoes the dominant theme of the writer and broadcaster’s journalism over the past 15 years.
His 2010 biography of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer recounted how the pastor’s warnings about the evil of the Nazis fell on deaf ears. His new book’s title is a phrase Bonhoeffer used to describe how the Church in Germany failed to stand up against a demonic regime.
Mr. Metaxas explains that the Religionless Christianity for which Bonhoeffer advocated is defined as “a genuine faith stripped of the secularised impulse that relegates Christ to the merely theological” and argues it is the only means by which the American church can be restored.
His previous book Letter to the American Church was also about the similarities between the pre-war German Church and the Church of today. He stresses in these books that ‘the hour to act is extremely late’ for the American Church.
In his book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Mr. Metaxas revealed that while the German pastor did his best to resist the rise of Nazism, his warnings to his countrymen about the evils of National Socialism ultimately went unheard. Bonhoeffer was accused of being involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and ultimately martyred in April 1945 just weeks before the Germans surrendered.
The Christian Post writes about his latest book: “Citing Bonhoeffer’s legacy, Metaxas presents Germany as a cautionary tale for the church in the United States and other historically Christian countries that fail to realise how swiftly evil can overtake them if they fail to vigilantly resist it.”
The author told the Post that he felt compelled to write Religionless Christianity following the favourable reception to his previous book. “The premise that I put forth in Letter to the American Church is that it’s possible for the Church to get things dramatically wrong; to be merely religious, when God is calling us to a full-throated expression of our faith in the public square — politically, in every way, in the way the German church failed in the ’30s,” he expounded.
“I wanted to go back to how the German Christians got it wrong by enabling the Nazis and evil to take over, and I wanted to look at what are some of the religious idols they set up — and we’ve set up — in place of worshiping God,” he added. Mr. Metaxas devotes an entire chapter to pinpointing some of the “idols” that he warns are especially pernicious because they seem religious and are, therefore, better able to creep into the Christian heart.
He writes that the “idol of purity” convinces some Christians that they would be sullying themselves if they got involved in the political process while the “idol of fatalism” leads some Christians to believe that because God is sovereign, they need not do all in their power to resist the evil that often manifests in a political way.
He argues in the book’s first pages that the US is facing what he describes as “the third existential crisis of our history” after the revolutionary War of Independence from 1775 to 1785 and the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865. He said The Revolution determined whether the nation would exist at all and the Civil War decided if it would continue, while now the US faces a profound moral crisis that is “absolutely unprecedented in anybody’s lifetime.”
“None of us has ever faced anything like this, which is why I think so many are still asleep in the Church, because they don’t understand the evilness of evil,” Mr. Metaxas told The Christian Post. He added that many Americans mistakenly believe their society will continue more or less as it always has, not realising that catastrophe could fall on the United States just as it has in many other nations throughout history.
The author described such a complacent worldview as the belief that “things have pretty much always been the same, and things get better and worse; the pendulum swings back and forth, but we’ll be fine. That is precisely what the German Church believed, which caused them to sit on their hands just long enough for evil to totally take over that nation. That’s where we are today,” he declared.
Mr. Metaxas has previously observed how Germany was once “an amazingly civilised, wonderful society, tremendously Christian in many ways” until the Nazis gained power and destroyed it. The message of his new book reiterates the warning he believes Germany offers.
“The hour is extremely late. In 1933, when the Nazis took over, they moved with lightning speed. Bonhoeffer knew that by 1935, it was effectively over, because the Church did not stand up strongly enough against the evil of the Nazis in ’33 and ’34. They were effectively crushed.”
Another entire chapter in Religionless Christianity is devoted to the story of Martin Niemöller, a prominent German theologian and Lutheran pastor who was involved with the Confessing Church that resisted the Nazi regime. The author writes that Niemöller at first believed Hitler’s government could co-exist with the German Church, but during a personal encounter with the dictator, Niemöller ultimately realised that Hitler had no intention of cooperating with Christians who resisted his murderous agenda.
Niemoller narrowly avoided execution after being imprisoned in multiple concentration camps. “He woke up five minutes too late. By the time he woke up, there was very little that could be done,” Mr. Metaxas noted.
The author advised Christians to leave churches that are cowering from the currently raging cultural and political battles, and not to be cowed into silence themselves by those who would accuse them of Christian nationalism for caring about politics.
Mr. Metaxas believes that increasingly broadening references to Christian nationalism is a demonic attempt to silence Christians who endeavour to fulfil the political duties he believes they should embrace, especially at a time when the US faces ruinous levels of corruption, and the Left is pushing an atheistic, Marxist worldview with the force of federal and state and local governments.
“Christian nationalism is nothing but the devil’s term for actual Christians living out their faith. And so, it’s an attempt to demonise Christians living out their faith. That’s all it is,” he reiterated, observing: “That’s how little courage we have. We’ve been so spoiled in America that we haven’t had to fight.”
He advocated “laughing in the face” of those who would attempt to slap the Christian nationalist label on anyone who advocates for God’s purposes in the public square. “We need to understand that these are demonic forces that are trying to silence the voice of God’s people. It’s nothing less than that. And so anytime anybody refers to the boogeyman of Christian nationalism, just laugh at them and ignore them, because all they’re trying to do is create a term to silence God’s people.”
Mr. Metaxas, who also wrote a 2007 biography of British abolitionist William Wilberforce, said those who led the charge against slavery in the Western world faced similar pushback. “The forces of Hell came against him,” he said of Wilberforce, adding that even though what he advocated for is now universally accepted, the issue led to political upheaval in the British Empire and civil war in the US.
“Sometimes Christians are called to fight. Not in a military way today, but the fighting spirit, to say that we’re advocating God’s purposes in history. This is a sacred thing, and it is a great privilege that we get to do this, and we’re not going to let somebody calling us names silence us,” the author declared in conclusion.
