(Headline USA) Angel Studios, the Utah-based Hollywood alternative that struck gold previously with 2023’s Sound of Freedom, may have another hit on its hands.

The studio—considered to be part of the MAGA-friendly parallel economy that emerged during the cancel-culture and ESG movements—has made the movie industry take note.

Following the success of Freedom, leftist media embarked on a George Soros-backed smear campaign to discredit the film’s subject, anti-sex-trafficking activist Tim Ballard.

But it faces a dilemma in doing so with the subject of Angel’s newest hit, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin, about a modern-day martyr who advocated for a militant resistance to Adolf Hitler using a utilitarian argument for pacifism to justify it.

The movie, which hit theaters at Thanksgiving, is slated to begin streaming in late January.

Yet, following a campaign rife with Hitler comparisons, panicmongering and assassination attempts against Republican leader Donald Trump, many leftist are hoping to appropriate the Christian scholar as one of their own—perhaps as justification for their own seditious schemes.

ANTI-NAZI POSTERBOY

Born in 1906 in Breslau, Germany, Bonhoeffer was a devout Lutheran from an early age and felt drawn to the ministry.

He completed his doctoral dissertation at 21 and continued his seminary studies in New York. There he worshipped at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where he was shaped by the deep faith and social conscience of the black church tradition.

As the Nazis took over Germany and hurtled it toward war and genocide, Bonhoeffer opposed their coopting of the Protestant churches—exemplified in the movie by a bishop who praises Adolf Hitler as a “true savior” sent by God to restore Germany.

During World War II, Bonhoeffer and other family members were part of a secret anti-Hitler conspiracy within the German intelligence service. Bonhoeffer carried messages to foreign contacts and helped arrange the passage of 14 Jews to safety in Switzerland.

Bonhoeffer knew of and supported an ultimately unsuccessful plan to assassinate Hitler. Contrary to the impression given by the Bonhoeffer movie poster, however, he wasn’t actively involved in its operations.

Bonhoeffer wrote that the church must not only aid victims of oppression but sometimes must grab the wheel of the state to stop it. He never morally sanctioned the assassination attempt on Hitler, but he saw no alternative, according to scholars.

The Nazis eventually uncovered his resistance work and executed him after two years’ imprisonment.

Shortly before he was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at age 39, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reportedly told a fellow prisoner: “This is the end—for me the beginning of life.”

It was—more than he knew.

AN INSPIRATION TO ALL

The ideological disputes over Bonhoeffer even took place within Bonhoeffer himself, who in his last years questioned whether he lived up to his reputation among fellow prisoners as confident and resolute.

“Am I really what others tell me?” he wrote in a poem. “Or am I only what I myself know of me?”

Yet, as the German theologian was anticipating eternal life in heaven, his death marked the beginning of his ever-growing reputation as a martyr and hero to the cause of anti-Nazi resistance.

Churches worldwide commemorate him in statues and stained glass. Readers have explored him in books about and by him, particularly his blunt calls to sacrificial discipleship.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” he famously wrote.

Since then, people across the ideological spectrum have claimed Bonhoeffer would support their side on issues ranging from the Vietnam War to post-9/11 militarism to same-sex marriage to the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol.

And the battle for Bonhoeffer is fiercer now than ever, nearly 80 years after his death.

“The desire to harness Bonhoeffer’s moral capital for partisan ends has intensified as knowledge of his life and witness has expanded, and as American society has grown more polarized,” wrote Rhodes College religious studies professor Stephen R. Haynes in his book The Battle for Bonhoeffer.

SEIZING THE MOMENT

Author and radio host Eric Metaxas wrote the best-selling 2010 biography on which the film is based. He is credited with boosting awareness of Bonhoeffer, particularly in evangelical circles.

Metaxas sought, in part, to show Bonhoeffer’s motivations in a deep Christian faith, offsetting claims that he had become liberal or secular.

“A lot of people, their lives are changed by the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and that’s why I wanted to write the book,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Metaxas, an outspoken supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, continues to convey his belief that the 2020 election was rigged on behalf of Democrat Joe Biden. He has helped popularize the phrase “Bonhoeffer moment”—a moral crisis forcing Christians to stand against their government.

In a 2024 book, Religionless Christianity, Metaxas contended that just as German Christians shouldn’t have trusted in Hitler’s promised benevolence, American Christians should have questioned official assurances about COVID-19 vaccines and the 2020 election.

On social media, he has compared Biden to Hitler.

So we can now finally clearly see that Biden is our Hitler. In 1933-34. See my Bonhoeffer book for details. The parallels are staggering and increasingly obvious. Pray for this nation. PRAY. https://t.co/qsbq3aHVp5

— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) June 7, 2024

INTOLERANCE FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE

Predictably, leftists who control many of the cultural institutions and information channels in America and Europe—much as the Nazis did during Bonhoeffer’s day—have lashed out at his ideas being used to support the opposition movement.

Leaders of the International Bonhoeffer Society attacked the Heritage Foundation for invoking Bonhoeffer in their “Project 2025” blueprint to support dismantling the corrupt U.S. deep state, which has subverted the will of the people through a permanent bureaucracy that increasingly looks like authoritarianism.

The Project 2025 document applied Bonhoeffer’s concept of “cheap grace” to leftists it claimed supported causes that didn’t cost them personally.

The woke gatekeepers in Bonhoeffer’s fan club retorted that using Bonhoeffer to “discredit protection of refugees and care for the environment … is a cheap trick” and that Metaxas had manipulated the theologian’s story “to support Christian Nationalism.”

Scholars, including evangelicals, have written recent essays saying Bonhoeffer’s views were too complex for any one Christian faction to claim him.

While Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer biography received some positive reviews, left-wing critics faulted it as lacking context and casting the German theologian in the mold of an American evangelical.

Some reviews have faulted the movie’s presentation of Bonhoeffer as a swashbuckling action hero, rather than the more conflicted theologian with pacifist leanings.

In broadcasts, Metaxas claimed the attacks reflected the “bitter jealousy” over the success of his book.

“We ought to all agree how wonderful it is that somebody made a film on Bonhoeffer,” Metaxas said. “Somebody who’s very politically liberal, I guarantee you they’ll love it.”

A FILM FOR ALL SEASONS

Those involved with the new biopic have likewise sought to distance themselves from becoming ensnared in a culture war waged by Christianity-bashing left-wingers.

Several key actors in the movie, including Bonhoeffer portrayer Jonas Dassler, published their own statement opposing “far-right” appropriations of him.

“The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer teaches us that it is necessary to speak up against any authoritarian, violent attempt to damage democracy and human rights,” they wrote.

Todd Komarnicki, who wrote, directed and produced the movie, said he opposed both the use of the word “Assassin” in the subtitle and the movie poster depicting Bonhoeffer with a gun.

“I was against both of those, vocally,” said Komarnicki. “You don’t get final say in marketing with any studio.”

He and Metaxas both said the latter had no role in the making of the film, despite the success of his book providing the inspiration for it. Komarnicki said the script was based on his own readings of Bonhoeffer’s writings and story.

“If you watch the movie without the agenda, it’s very clear what the movie is saying, that nationalism is not Christian,” Komarnicki said.

“What Christians are supposed to do is look after widows and orphans, serve the poor,” he added. “… I also think it’s a love story between Dietrich Bonhoeffer with God.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press