UPDATE (7/30/16) – Now it appears that Metaxas is making fun of the fact that his fans trusted his Bonhoeffer quotes. Instead of addressing the concerns of those who checked the quotes, today he offered up a Freddie Mercury lyric as a Bonhoeffer quote.
"We are the champions, my friends! And we'll keep on fighting, till the end!" — D.Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, Augsburg Fortress Press
— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) July 30, 2016
Hilarious.
UPDATE (7/29/16): Barry Harvey, a professor of theology at Baylor University and member of the content team for the Bonhoeffer Center told me via email: “Not only do I know of no place that Bonhoeffer says this, it doesn’t sound like him at all.” He added, “The German index to the collected works also contains no such reference.”
Because the tweet resembles another, more famous quote falsely attributed to Bonhoeffer, I also asked Harvey if there is any evidence that 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.
Many people incorrectly attribute this to Bonhoeffer and Metaxas has the quote in bold print on his website.
However, again Harvey told me “I know of no place where he [Bonhoeffer] says this.” (see also Clifford Green’s book on interpreting Bonhoeffer).
Several people have tweeted Metaxas for an explanation without response. Metaxas has advanced the “Not to speak…” quote on at least two occasions (here, and here attributed to Bonhoeffer. He also included it in a study guide for his biography of Bonhoeffer.
Finally, I just heard from Bonhoeffer expert Victoria Barnett (with the Holocaust Museum) who also said neither quote is found in Bonhoeffer’s work. She told me:
You’re correct that the quotation (“Not to cast a vote for the two majors IS to cast a vote for one of them”) doesn’t appear in Bonhoeffer’s writings. It may be a variation of another “quotation” that has been circulated and is supposedly on the Metaxas website: “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’ve gotten a few inquiries on the source of that one, but it doesn’t appear anywhere in DB’s [Bonhoeffer’s] writings either.
………………………………………………….. (original post)
Today, Eric Metaxas was asked on Twitter where to find the following quote in Bonhoeffer’s writings.
As Bonhoeffer said “Not to cast a vote for the two majors IS to cast a vote for one of them.” — Ethics, pp. 265-6 https://t.co/cPet30d8Ys
— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) May 22, 2016
If you read through the comments, Metaxas was criticized severely for his support for Donald Trump (see this post).
What is also puzzling about this quote is that I can’t find it in Bonhoeffer’s book on ethics. Metaxas cites pages 265-266 but in the two Google versions at those pages, I can’t find it. Actually, a search of both version turns up nothing for the quote. I can’t find it anywhere except in Metaxas’ tweet.
For those who know Bonhoeffer well, help me crowd source this. Is this a real Bonhoeffer quote?