Bonhoeffer's theology continues to prove richly fruitful in the 21st century. This book gathers together Stephen Plant's scholarly engagement with Bonhoeffer's life and theology over two decades. This collection makes accessible Plant's distinctive perspective on Bonhoeffer's theology, in particular on the key themes of biblical exegesis, ethics and the intimate connections Bonhoeffer discerns between them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in one of his last prison letters that he had come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. In Taking Hold of the Real, Barry Harvey engages in constructive conversation with Bonhoeffer, contending that the shallow and banal this-worldliness of modern society is ordered to a significant degree around the social technologies of religion, culture, and race. These mechanisms displace human beings from their traditional connections with particular locales, and relocate them in their proper places as determined by the nation-state and capitalist markets. Christians are called to participate in the profound this-worldliness that breaks into the world in the apocalyptic action of Jesus Christ, a form of life that requires discipline and an understanding of death and resurrection. The church is a sacrament of this new humanity, performing for all to hear the polyphony of life that was prefigured in the Old Testament and now is realised in Christ. Unable to find a faithful form of this-worldliness in wartime Germany, Bonhoeffer joined the conspiracy against Hitler, a decision aptly contrasted with a small French church that, prepared by its life together over manygenerations, saved thousands of Jewish lives.
What might it mean us to be formed as disciples not only by the church but also by the world? In Political Formation: Being Formed by the Spirit in Church and World, Jenny Leith argues that ethical and political formation of Christians takes place through the work of the Spirit both in the church and in civic life, and the church, too, has something to learn from wider political practices and movements. This account of formation places centre stage a reckoning with the forms of exclusion and marginalisation that mar the church, and yields an understanding of the church as not only ethically formative but also in constant need of being formed itself. Offering a fresh vision for ecclesiology, which grapples with the ethical failings of the church and takes seriously the need for the church to keep on recognising and repenting of its sins, the book offers a major new contribution to discussions around Christian formation and the relationship between discipleship and ethics.
A new comprehensive biography of this hugely important Christian martyr, 60 years after his execution at the hands of the Nazis Bonhoeffer has gained a position as one of the most prominent Christian martyrs of the last century. His influence is so widespread that even 60 years after his execution by the Nazis, Bonhoeffer's life and work are still the subject of fresh and lively discussion. As a pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer decided to resist the Nazis in Germany, but his resistance was not solely theological. He played a key leadership role in the Confessing Church, a major source of Christian opposition to Hitler and his anti-Semitism and was principal of the secret seminary at Finkenwalde in Pomerania. It was here that he developed his theological visions of radical discipleship and communal life. In 1938, he joined the Wehrmacht's "Abwehr", the German Military Intelligence Office, in order to seek international support for the plot against Hitler. Following his inner calling and conscience meant that Bonhoeffer was continually forced to make decisions that separated him from his family, friends, and colleagues, and which ultimately led to his martyrdom in Flossenbürg concentration camp, less than a month before the Second World War came to an end. His letters and papers from prison movingly express the development of some of the most provocative and fascinating ideas of 20th century theology. Sixty years after Bonhoeffer's death and forty years after the publication of Eberhard Bethge's ground breaking biography, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen offers a definitive new book on Bonhoeffer, for a new generation of readers. Schlingensiepen takes into account documents that have only been made accessible during the last few years - such as the letters between Bonhoeffer and his fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer. Schlingensiepen's careful narrative brings to life the historical events, as well as displaying the theological development of one of the most creative thinkers of the 20th century, who was to become one of its most tragic martyrs.
Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's birth in 1906, this book allows Bonhoeffer to speak to today's believer in knowing and doing the will of God, the importance and role of the Church, the call to witness, the role of suffering, and the path to hope.
The Bible is meant to be read in the church, by the church, as the church. Following the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Derek Taylor argues that we should regard the reading of Scripture as an inherently communal exercise of discipleship. In conversation with other theologians, Taylor shares how this approach to Scripture can engender a faithful hermeneutical community.
In Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, Martin Luther is ubiquitous. Too often, however, Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism has been set aside with much less argumentative work than is appropriate in light of his sustained engagement with Luther. As a result, Luther remains a largely untouched hermeneutic key in Bonhoeffer interpretation. In Bonhoeffer's Reception of Luther, Michael P. DeJonge presents Bonhoeffer's Lutheran theology of justification focused on the interpersonal presence of Christ in word, sacrament, and church. The bridge between this theology and Bonhoeffer's ethical-political reflections is his two-kingdoms thinking. Arguing that the widespread failure to connect Bonhoeffer with the Lutheran two-kingdoms tradition has presented a serious obstacle in interpretation, DeJonge shows how this tradition informs Bonhoeffer's reflections on war and peace, as well as his understanding of resistance to political authority. In all of this, DeJonge argues that an appreciation of Luther's ubiquity in Bonhoeffer's corpus sheds light on his thinking, lends it coherence, and makes sense of otherwise difficult interpretive problems. What might otherwise appear as disparate, even contradictory moments or themes in Bonhoeffer's theology can often be read in terms of a consistent commitment to a basic Lutheran theological framework deployed according to dramatically changing circumstances.
""Folksy, eclectic, disarmingly humble, and astonishingly wide-ranging, Hauerwas offers us a provocative reading of Bonhoeffer that, not surprisingly, assimilates him closely to John Howard Yoder. At the same time, Hauerwas replies to recent criticisms of his work by Jeffrey Stout. Contending that truth depends on performance far more than on theory, Hauerwas steps forward as a pacifist gadfly for a more truly faithful church and a more recognizably democratic society."" --George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary ""This book shows how lively and fecund Hauerwas's thought remains. A dazzling performance, capable of entertaining and instructing professional theologians as much as those who think the world might be a better place without theologians in it."" --Paul J. Griffiths, University of Illinois at Chicago ""Stan Hauerwas has done it again! He is able skillfully to blend into his book the passion for truth and justice of two of his greatest influences, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Howard Yoder. He takes these heroic advocates for peace into his own present-day struggle for the soul of the American nation. Hauerwas, an admirable Christian pacifist himself, dares Christians to be the 'Jesus people' they claim to be and to follow Jesus into the gospel path of nonviolence."" --Geffrey B. Kelly, author of Liberating Faith: Bonhoeffer's Message for Today ""Never totally predictable. Always a fresh perspective. And yet once again in these essays--on narrative, politics, Bonhoeffer, and the church--we hear the engaging, discerning, and brilliant voice we have come to know as Stanley Hauerwas."" --Mark Thiessen Nation, Eastern Mennonite Seminary ""Contending with and learning from the witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life is often thought to provide a Christian alternative to pacifism, Hauerwas deepens the account of Christian nonviolence he has been articulating for decades. His theology is strengthened and clarified by his encounter with the exemplary figure of Bonhoeffer."" --Alan Jacobs, Wheaton College ""Without loss of the provocative edge that has made him a vital and distinctive Christian voice, Hauerwas's Performing the Faith allows him to cast a retrospective eye on his work. At the same time, in a brilliant essay under the title of the book, he develops a profoundly important description of faithfulness."" --Dennis O'Brien, University of Rochester Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, Duke University.
Bonhoeffer's writings include a significant amount of biblical interpretation, but his potential contributions in the fields of biblical studies and theological exegesis of Scripture have not been sufficiently explored. This study reassesses some of his key exegetical writings in light of his theology of revelation and bibliology, unfolding the ways in which his reading of the Bible is determined by his theology of Scripture. Through this analysis, Joel Banman demonstrates that the uniting factor of Bonhoeffer's biblical interpretation is not methodological but bibliological: he reads Scripture as the living word of the present Christ.
An innovative study of the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which elucidates that his work teaches and represents a Christian humanism that is also present in the wider Christian tradition.
