“Reflecting on the American church scene, [Bonhoeffer] was fascinated that tolerance trumped truth. His analysis was remarkably similar to the report he wrote in the summer of 1931, trying to make sense of his year at Union:

‘I now often wonder whether it is true that America is the country without a reformation. If reformation means the God-given knowledge of the failure of all ways of building up a kingdom of God on earth, then it is probably true. . . . The voice of Lutheranism is there in America, but it is one among others; it has never been able to confront the other denominations. There hardly ever seem to be ‘encounters’ in this great country, in which one can always avoid the other. But where there is no encounter, where liberty is the only unifying factor, one naturally knows nothing of the community which is created through encounter.’”

_Eric Metaxas, (Bonhoeffer)