How the Christian right is twisting the legacy of an anti-Nazi hero
Source: The Guardian
“In the long run, experts worry that the push to liken American liberal democracy to Nazi Germany could spur political violence, citing past examples of Christian extremists who invoked Bonhoeffer to justify bombing and shooting up abortion clinics.
“We’re worried about post-election political violence, and this is a way of inspiring that,” said Victoria Barnett, a theologian and eminent scholar of Bonhoeffer and the Holocaust who has advocated for a nuanced understanding of Bonhoeffer and has cautioned against depicting Bonhoeffer as a kind of evangelical “Lone Ranger”.
According to documents obtained by the Guardian and Documented, the production and distribution of the movie, called Letter to the American Church, was coordinated by the rightwing group Turning Point USA and American Letter Productions – the film division of Metaxas Media, an entertainment business founded by Eric Metaxas.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/eric-metaxas-christian-right-dietrich-bonhoeffer
I have never heard of Metaxas and his effort to paint liberals as Nazis. I wish US media would report on groups like this and include facts instead of misleading claims because it’s really difficult to stay informed about all the right-wing groups trying to undo democracy.
= new reply since forum marked as read
this country could use some type of anti-fascism bureau/department to go after all the Fascists who
seem to be popping up in repug circles before they gain too much power and destroy this country.
Especially if they succeed and we find ourselves with a dictator instead of a President. 
When, in fact, for anyone with a functioning brain, the opposite is true. Pretty goddamn disgusting that the religo-fascists would sully the memory of Bonhoeffer. What's next? Coopting The White Rose into their demented, authoritarian bullshit? 
As though I couldn't hate those mf'rs more. 
eg
December 7, 2020 at 5:25 p.m. EST
President Trump’s naked attempt to overturn a fair election — with key elements of Joe Biden’s victory vouchsafed by Republican state officials, Republican-appointed judges and even the Justice Department — has driven some Trump evangelicals to the edge of blasphemous lunacy.
“I’d be happy to die in this fight,” radio talk-show host Eric Metaxas assured Trump during a recent interview. “This is a fight for everything. God is with us. Jesus is with us in this fight for liberty.”
Elsewhere Metaxas predicted, “Trump will be inaugurated. For the high crimes of trying to throw a U.S. presidential election, many will go to jail. The swamp will be drained. And Lincoln’s prophetic words of ‘a new birth of freedom’ will be fulfilled. Pray.”
Just to be clear, Metaxas has publicly committed his life to Donald Trump, claimed that at least two members of the Trinity favor a coup against the constitutional order, endorsed the widespread jailing of Trump’s political enemies for imaginary crimes, claimed Abraham Lincoln’s blessing for the advance of authoritarianism and urged Christians to pray to God for the effective death of American democracy. This is seditious and sacrilegious in equal measure.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/prominent-evangelicals-are-directing-trumps-sinking-ship-that-feeds-doubts-about-religion/2020/12/07/5ad8eb0c-38c3-11eb-9276-ae0ca72729be_story.html
Or the ridiculous book he wrote a foreword to:
Back in 2019, he was starting to rave against "Cultural Marxism", and reckoned Bonhoeffer would be against it (fairly hard, since it's not a real thing), but at least allowed that Bonhoeffer wouldn't be a Trump fan. You'd think the Jan 6th attempted coup would have made him less loving of Trump, but by then he was all in on his Trump worship, and can't back out now without admitting to himself both his stupidity and fascism.
