Bonhoeffer in Alabama/Niebuhr on W43

[Stephen Fox]

http://tinyurl.com/3xgcv7n

Charles Marsh's remarkable lecture in Berlin in March of this year,2010, has Dietrich traveling through Alabama on HWY 11. Marsh references the trip about the 40 minute mark of the lecture linked above.
If DB was on HWY 11 all the way through from Laurel, Miss through Meridian up to Chattanooga on return trip from out west, Mexico to Laredo to New Orleans then he did indeed pass with 20 yards of my Mother's front porch
Of the many divine sparks in my ancestry that is certainly of the highest eschelon if it turns out to in fact be the case.

Bonhoeffer returned through Alabama during the month of what what was to become the internationally famous case of the Scottsboro Boys.

But all that is small potatoes indeed in this magnificent, magisterial lecture by Charles Marsh whose biography of Bonhoeffer will be published by Knopf later this year.
The grand lecture linked above weaves Bonhoeffer's stay in America and his studies at Union and worship in Harlem into the Civil Rights movement that was to become of the lineage in many integral ways Bonhoeffer's visit.
Listen to part of the Testament of the Spirit of Jesus as it worked in the profoundest of ways in Bonhoeffer's life and might have actually passed the front door of my own Sainted Mother.

[Stephen Fox]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_11#Alabama

In his Berlin lecture, Charles Marsh says DB, traveled 11 from Meridian to W.Va. but is unclear if segments were by train. And there is some question about whether 11 was paved in NE Alabama, particularly Dekalb County by 30. And Marsh says large segments of the trip through the American south were by train; whether that was coming or going I don't know at this moment.
I have every intent to contact the Collinsville Historical Society about the status of 11 in 30 and through emissaries am seeking some clarification from Marsh who I understand is still in Berlin.
I don't think Marsh came to UVA until 2000, by which time the Collinsville contingent of John and Matthew Morgan, and Casey Mattox had left the building. Maybe Matthew overlapped by a year. If that were the case maybe we could have some closure on Bonhoeffer's route this fall.

[Blake]

Can someone explain why so many Bonhoeffer biographies are being published recently? Is there really a need for so many? Why didn't they just publish long articles critiquing whatever they felt lacked in in Bethge's?

[Ed Pettibone]

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5356/9/

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16508

I think it fair to say there is a sense in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer's spirit is carried on in Alabama by this Rabbi.

I was in a meeting with Rabbi Miller Jan 24, 2006; in the audience, he was on panel with Mike Shaw, Cliff Vaughn's sister, Wayne Flynt and his pastor; and I think Artur Davis was in the audience.

A moment full of promise even if there were other meetings in the state that same evening.

[Jim]

[Haruo]

[Stephen Fox]

Haruo, have you listened to Marsh lecturein Berlin at the top of this page.
I wish you would and get the word out in Seattle.
Also check on my letter to the Kagan/Boshevik post at religion dispactches dot org.

[Howard V]

Fox:

Have you read the fairly new biography of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy? I recently heard a interview of Metaxas which was very interesting. I've put this book on my "To Read List," along with his previous biography of William Wilberforce.

[Stephen Fox]

Save your money for Charles Marsh bio of DB. Interesting reviews of Metaxas in World Mag and Christianity Today and Bap Press has endorsed it.
Marsh is Fisher Humphreys nephew.
Spot read Metaxas from public library, but save your money for Marsh.

And by all means listen to the Marsh lecture on Bonhoeffer 1931 year in America where he drove HWy 11 across Alabama on way back from New Orleans up through WVA to NYC. March lecture in Berlin earlier this year.
When Marsh publishes fall of 2011 the the discussions in Wake of it all should lay waste among other things to Timothy George emphasis on the Barmen Declaration to scandalize SBTS proff Paul Simmons; but that will be a rabbit trailinthe bigger scheme of things.
Marsh should shake some SBC foundations for those who are paying attention, though his insight as promised by the Berlin lecture will have universal implications.

See tiny url link above for the Marsh Berlin lecture; click and listen, the last 10 minutes sublime.

[Stephen Fox]

Apparently is reading the Metaxas bio ofDB. I hope someone will get word to him to listen to Marsh's sublime lecture from Berlin.

[Stephen Fox]

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfai ... pages.html

[Stephen Fox]

Metaxas on Bonhoeffer on BookTV. President Bush 43 has read the book and Gus Niebuhr has commented on his reading.
I maintain The Upcoming Charles marsh effort on DB will be better; but Metaxas has some strong points in this presentation. Q and A starts about minute 50
I hope a good many of you have heard Marsh's lecture on DB March of 2010 from Berlin:

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12032/Bonho ... t+Spy.aspx

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-ar ... zVlMTRkYWU

[Stephen Fox]

http://networkedblogs.com/dLITQ

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

Had a serendipitous conversation with Neil this morning by cell. He was doing missions in nearby Williams.

Shared the testimonial John Grammer Review with him from the March 2001 John Grisham publication Oxford American Magazine of Charles Marsh's the Last Days. Here is a paraphrase of the operative concluding sentence: Marsh's less climactic tale is truer history while White South didn't so much solve the Civil Rights issue as fret uncomfortably while others solved it.

Pretty much the exercise now of the Alabama Southern Baptist Convention and Alabama's immigration law; very consequential though milder version of the dilemma; even though the last three days of the NY Times front page and elsewhere--see reports from albertville, Alabama in the comments numbering 730 on some versions of the story.

Marsh's Knopf published biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer A Strange Glory will come out in 2012.

I expect every church library and local public library in Alabama to have a copy immediately as Marsh promises to have a strong Alabama tale. Given Bama's track record these last months, at least libraries can do better than one in particular in regard the Oxford American.

BTW, Ron Rash had a great poem in same issue: The Request . And check online current issue. Hal Crowther swings strong, and great collection of Creative Teachers at University level across the Region.

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

Miscegenation.

"In 1965, my parents broke two laws of Mississippi.
They went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.

They crossed the river into Cincinnati,
a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong,
miss in Mississippi.

A year later they moved to Canada,
followed a route the same as slaves,
the train slicing the white glaze of winter leaving Mississippi.

Faulkner's Joe Christmas was born in winter like Jesus,
give his name for the day he was left at the orphanage,
his race unknown in Mississippi.

My father was reading 'War and Peace' when he gave me my name.
I was born near Easter, 1966 in Mississippi.
When I turned 33 my father said, it's your Jesus year.
You're the same age he was when he died.

It was spring. The hills green in Mississippi.
I know more than Joe Christmas did.
Natasha is a Russian name though I'm not.
It means Christmas child even in Mississippi."

By the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the United States

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013- ... transcript

[Haruo]

Just out of curiosity, did Ohio have anti-miscegenation laws on the books when her parents married, and were those laws still in force when she was born? I know Mississippi did, but the Wikipedia article on her says her parents were "married illegally", which seems ambiguous unless Ohio had such laws.

The only Ohio law on the subject I can find refers to a $100 fine for a person of "pure white blood" who marries or has sex with a person with "a distinct and visible admixture of African blood". Since African blood does not visibly differ from the blood of white folks, and since no human beings of any race have "pure white blood", it would seem moot.

Washington repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1887, the year Esperanto was born and two years before statehood.

Thanks for the poem, and the heads-up about the new PL, Fox.

[Stephen Fox]

And concerrns on Charles Marsh facebook wall, that Metaxas is fanning flames of" tyrannicide"

EM has a ready-made audience out there. Join you, CM, in wishing he'd stop fanning.

about an hour ago · Like · 1..

Diana Butler Bass Thank you, Charles. A number of my academic friends think his Bonhoeffer book is actually dangerous.

about an hour ago · Like · 1..

Charles Twombly Some people are legends in their own mind. Not referring to Bonhoeffer.