The Bonhoefferian

Earlier this year Eerdmans published the late Heinz Eduard Tödt’s account Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics, Authentic Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics in Context. Eerdmans summarises the book as follows:

Since Heinz Eduard Tödt’s death in 1991, much effort has been put forth to comprehensively publish his important theological works. This volume collects a number of Tödt’s writings rising out of his decades-long study of Bonhoeffer. With that study comes an appreciation of and respect for Bonhoeffer, clearly seen in these pages.

Tödt first discusses Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics and then focuses on contemporary history. He especially concerns himself with the present tasks in theology and in the church, clearing a path for understanding our way of life through theology’s eyes.

One of the twentieth-century’s best theological ethicists, Tödt said that the further he went, the closer he got to Bonhoeffer. In Authentic Faith, he shows an understanding of Bonhoeffer’s spirit that makes this book a must for the shelves of any Bonhoeffer scholar and all students of social and theological ethics.

If you visit the link above you will also be able to find a table of contents. I have just received a copy today which I will post a review on in due course.

Over at the ever wonderful Faith and Theology, Ray Anderson has contributed a guest post on Bonhoeffer as theologian, much of which is right on track. Rather than repost the whole entry, you can go to the link here.

Review of Eberhard Bethge, Friendship and Resistance: Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eerdmans, (1995). ISBN: 0802841236.

In this collection of short essays Eberhard Bethge, former student, colleague and friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers an interesting and largely personal reflection on their years of friendship. Without Bethge’s efforts in popularising Bonhoeffer’s contributions (most notably through publishing his Letters and Papers) it is highly likely that Bonhoeffer would be a name relegated to the footnotes of academic monographs. Fortunately, this is just speculation and the reason for Bethge’s passion shines through.

The article begins with an interview with Bethge that was conducted by Clemens Vollnhalsin 1989. In it Bethge gives a fascinating account of the experience of training for the ministry within the context of the Confessing Church and the illegal seminaries they created. Whilst this is the only interview in this collection this personal feel is a consistent one throughout the remainder of the text. There are two essays in particular that I would like to briefly highlight, they are also the undoubted highlights of the book.

“Between Confession and Resistance” recounts the often tense relationship between confessing Christ and political resistance. In first person narrative Bethge offers a history of the confessing church movement from his perspective. In the process of which Bethge gives an account of how a group of seminary students had tried to persuade the seminary directors to place the seminary under the control of the newly established Confessing Church without avail. So it was that Bethge was among those who were given the following warning from the Brudderat: “We do not want to hide from you the fact that we cannot give any assurance that you will be employed, receive a salary or be recognized by any office. You may well face a difficult future …” (p. 16).

Bethge makes clear that in the ensuing months a difficult time was had in the Confessing Church’s rejection ( as demonstrated in the Barmen Theses) against a Nazified Pulpit, Nazified Christian Life, Nazified ecclesiology and nazified clergy. However, Bethge states that they naively did not perceive this approach to be political:

We did not interpret our decision as a choice between Christ and Hitler, between the cross and the swastika, and certainly not a decision between democracy and a totalitarian regime. Rather, we understood the issue as one between a biblical Christ and a Teutonic-heroic Christ, between the cross of the gospels and one formed by the the swastika (p. 19).

Barmen was perceived to be about “letting the church be the church”, not about politics. Confession, not resistance. However, this dividing line was soon seen to be arbitrary: it also became clear to us … that while our confessing synods had developed an excellent language to speak against Nazification, they had no language to speak for its victims” (p. 24). Hence Bethge recounts his experience of the difficult line to be drawn between confession and resistance. To speak for the victim is to resist those who victimised them. Bethge goes on to delineate his own thoughts on this difficult tension between confession and resistance.

The second notable essay, “How the Prison Letters Survived” is a narration of the means by which the letters that were to become Letters and Papers from Prison were smuggled. Like many people it was this book, which Bethge collated from Bonhoeffer’s prison correspondence, that was my first introduction to Bonhoeffer. Much like a behind the scenes DVD extra Bethge goes behind the text to present not only a view of the deep friendship that existed between these two men but also the trials that smuggling these letters posed. Perhaps most poignant of all is Bethge’s recollection of how he discovered that he was to be arrested and how he burnt some recent letters from Bonhoeffer there and then only to discover that these could have been hidden in time.

Friendship and Resistance is a theological book, but one told through the means of biography. This type of theological reminiscing is not something I have encountered before and is, I suspect, quite unique. As such this makes for a fascinating and challenging little book that has deepened my appreciation for Bonhoeffer as he was experienced by those around him .

I just thought I’d let you all know that the primary url for this website has been changed to www.dietrichbonhoeffer.com. There is no need to alter any existing links as the wordpress.com address will continue to work.

In other news I am hoping to add a contributors page to this blog as well as a link to some helpful online Bonhoeffer materials.

This information comes from the International Bonhoeffer Society website.

Call for Papers for the X.
International Bonhoeffer Congress in Prague,
July 22-27, 2008

The planning committee of the X. International Bonhoeffer Congress, to be held July 22-27, 2008, in Prague cordially invites you to propose papers.

The theme of the Congress will be:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theology in Today’s World.
A Way between Fundamentalism and Secularism?

The Conference will especially concentrate on Bonhoeffer’s prison theology, even though it does not want to exclude his other writings. It wants to find answers to the question: How can Bonhoeffer’s prison theology be helpful in a world confronted by fundamentalism as well as by secularism. How does it prevent the church from being a fundamentalist one or from becoming totally secular?

The three working days will have main speakers in the morning and seminar sessions in the afternoon. The three working days of the conference will have the following topics:

Wednesday, July 23rd
Topic of the day: Fundamentalism and Secularism

In the morning we will have speakers who will analyse the current phenomena of religious fundamentalism and secularism (the latter especially in Eastern Europe). In the afternoon we will have seminar session for which we invite proposals (see below).

Friday, July 25th
Topic of the day: The church – “in the middle of the village” ? (30.4.1944)

Subthemes:

• The shape of the church, the church’s liturgy and worship
• Education and teaching in today’s schools, churches, and universities
• Mission
• Social justice
• Spirituality

Saturday, July 26th
Topic of the day: The church – in “the open air of intellectual discussion” (3.8.1944)

Subthemes:

• Political discussions
• Interreligious dialogue
• Bioethics
• Ecoethics
• Peace Ethics

In regard to the first topic (Fundamentalism and Secularism), we ask for proposals dealing with the question: How could Bonhoeffer’s theology generally help to guide a path in the current situation of fundamentalism and secularism.

In regard to the second topic (The church – “in the middle of the village”?), we ask for papers that deal with the consequences of Bonhoeffer’s prison theology for the concrete life and work of the church in a society confronted both by fundamentalism and secularism (including the named subthemes: The shape of the church, the church’s liturgy and worship; Education and teaching in today’s schools, churches, and universities; Mission, Social Justice; Spirituality).

In regard to the third topic (The church – in “the open air of intellectual discussion”), we ask for papers that deal with the consequences of Bonhoeffer’s prison theology for how and with which contents the church should participate in the current discussions of our different societies which are confronted by fundamentalism and secularism (including the named subthemes: Political discussions, Intereligious dialogue, Bioethics, Ecoethics, Peace Ethics).

Proposals to topics not named above or related to other writings of Bonhoeffer are also welcome.

We especially invite younger scholars, e.g. PhD students, to propose papers. The proposals, which should explain topic, main arguments and conclusions of the paper, should have no more than 500 words. They can be written in German or English. The presentation at the conference can be held in Czech, English or German.

The proposals have to be submitted by June 30th, 2007, to christiane.tietz@uni-tuebingen.de, whom you could also contact for further questions.

The decisions, taken by a small committee, as to which proposals are accepted will be communicated via Email by end of August 2007. The afternoon where the accepted papers will be placed is not necessarily connected to the topic of the day.

November 2006

For the planning group:
PD Dr. Christiane Tietz,
Liebermeisterstr. 12, 72076
Tübingen, Germany

I have found out from my sources that the conference is being held at the Agricultural University in Sukhdol. It is being co-sponsored by the International Baptist Theological Seminary and the Hussite Faculty of Charles University

Readers of this blog may well know Stanley Hauerwas’ important book on Bonhoeffer, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004). For those who want to taste of its contents, and perhaps have never seen/heard Hauerwas you may want to spend some time with this Burke lecture that became chapter 2 ‘Bonhoeffer on Truth and Politics’.

The Bonhoeffers: Portrait of a Family
by Sabine Leibholz-Bonhoeffer
Covenant Publications, Chicago, 1994.
188 pages
ISBN 910452-78-4

Reviewed by Chris L. Rice 

Frits Delange writes in Waiting for the Word that “the significance of family relations for Bonhoeffer’s theology cannot be overestimated.” This beautiful little book of reflections from Bonhoeffer’s twin sister Sabine really helps to lend color to the mosaic painted by Eberhard Bethge’s biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For example, one should take note that Dietrich spent time with Sabine and her family before and after his second trip to the United States in 1939. Bonhoeffer’s family relationships were much tighter than is normally expected of a modern family, his formed and deepened his education, his understanding of community, and really served as a touchstone for his love for humanity. Alongside books like I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Zimmerman and Gregor Smith, Sabine’s book is a must-have for anyone wanting to know Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Introduction to His Thought
by Sabine Dramm
Translated by Thomas Rice
Hendrickson, 2007
258 pages

Reviewed by Chris L. Rice

If you invest enough time in the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and by these I mean Eberhard Bethge’s biography and the letters and writings from the Gesammelte Schriften (which are soon to be fully released in English), you get rather frustrated by the popular attention for Bonhoeffer (which is maybe six inches deep) compared with the enormity of what he really has to say for the whole human Christian life in this age. When I was handed this new introduction by Sabine Dramm by a friend I thought, “Who needs another introduction? Aren’t there enough of those?”

Was I ever wrong! Upon further investigation, I found a book worthy of high recommendation for anyone wanting a real taste of the seemingly daunting Bonhoeffer corpus. Sabine Dramm carefully and deliberately expounds on all of the Gesammelte Schriften in a delightfully open, philosophical and yet biographical manner. My only explanation for her style is that, rather than presenting the material didactically, in a fashion designed for undergraduates, she presents Bonhoeffer from the position one who has fully traversed his story and concerns and is a faithful guide to the terrain.

Here is one example from her chapter titled “The Book of his life: Ethics”

“According to Bonhoeffer, it cannot be the intention and task of ethics to produce a compendium of ethical values and universal direc­tives for action; nor is it the intention and task of an ethicist to burst forth as an authoritative source of theological truth. The limits of both the ethicist and a set of ethics are clearly defined. He emphasizes how easy it is to say what does not constitute an ethics and an ethicist:

“Ethics cannot be a book that defines what everything in the world by rights should be, but unfortunately is not; and an ethicist cannot be one who invariably knows better than others what and how things are to be done; … an ethics cannot be a laboratory beaker in which ideal ethical behavior and Christian human beings are produced, and the ethicist cannot be the embodiment or ideal representative of a basically moral life” (DBW 6, 372).

These words indirectly describe his own Ethics. They also contain a warning by Bonhoeffer against overestimating oneself and others— ­a warning we too should hear clearly with respect to his person. Bon­hoeffer himself intended with his Ethics nothing more than to help us “learn to live with others” in a world he loved (DBW 6,372), and this in spite of and in that world’s atrocities, in spite of and in the shortcomings of its inhabitants.” (pgs. 104-105)

I don’t recommend shortcuts to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I’m willing to face the fact that he’s just going to be beyond what most folks are willing to invest. I don’t mean to sound arrogant in saying that, let’s face it, in the same way I won’t be venturing into the worlds Kierkeggard, Heidegger, Foucault, or Camus anytime soon. But if I had to start again for the first time, I would want someone to recommend this book by Sabine Dramm. Immensely helpful stuff!

The following is the text of a sermon George Hunsinger preached in 2006. This was forst posted on the Generous Orthodoxy weblog but I have just come across it via Sean the Baptist.

Hunsinger’s Sermon:

Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me (Matt. 25:40).

The question that Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself, his students, and his readers remains as urgent now as when he first raised it: Who is Jesus Christ for us today? Bonhoeffer by no means intended to challenge the authoritative biblical answer. What he confessed with the prophets and the apostles, he attested at the cost of his life. He affirmed that Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord who had become incarnate for our sakes in order to die for our sins and liberate us from the power of death. That was the answer presupposed in every other possible answer to his question. It was the one answer that contained all others within itself.

But Bonhoeffer knew that other answers were indeed included within that one answer. He knew that in dying for our sins, Jesus Christ had made the sufferings of the world his own. He knew that discipleship to Christ meant participating in Christ’s sufferings in the present time. “The hungry need bread,” he once wrote, “and the homeless need a roof; the oppressed need justice and the lonely need fellowship; the undisciplined need order and the slave needs freedom.” Because Jesus had entered into our world of sorrows, and because he had taken up the cause of those in need, making their cause to be his own, Bonhoeffer could continue: “To allow the hungry to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one’s neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor” (Ethics, p. 137).

That was Bonhoeffer’s great insight. “What is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor.” On this profound basis he saw that it made no sense to choose between evangelism and social action. He saw that evangelism without social action was empty, and that social action without evangelism was blind. Both were key to the church’s mission, since both were ways of bearing witness in the world to God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ. Social action against crying injustice was an indirect form of evangelism, while evangelism that led unbelievers to know and love Jesus remained an indirect goal of social action. In different ways they both proclaimed that God’s love extends to the whole person at every level of human need. Feeding the hungry, as Bonhoeffer once said, prepared the way for the coming of grace.

“What is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor.” This statement provides a real clue to how Bonhoeffer answered his own question. The Risen Lord, he believed, confronts us here and now precisely as the neighbor in need. That is who Jesus Christ is for us today: he comes to us in the form of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the prisoner locked away. The neighbor in need is revealed as an incognito form of Christ’s presence. This epiphany does not mean that Christ and the needy are simply identical, but it does mean that by divine grace they are inseparably one. It is impossible to serve Christ here and now without serving one’s neighbor in need. As you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me (Matt. 25:40).

Since what is nearest to God is the need of one’s neighbor, and since Christ has made himself to be one with those in dire need, Bonhoeffer drew the right conclusion. He recognized that Christians have a special obligation to those in any society who are being persecuted, humiliated and abused. “Only those who cry out for the Jews,” he wrote, “have the right to sing Gregorian chants.” For the church in the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer perceived, the presence of Jesus Christ could not be separated from the plight of persecuted Jews. Whoever would serve Christ had to enter into solidarity with that despised and mistreated group, crying out by word and deed.

But that was then, and this is now. Who is Jesus Christ for us today? Who are those who are being persecuted, humiliated and abused in our particular society? Sadly there are many contenders, and too many to be mentioned here, yet chief among them, I would suggest, are the victims around the world today of U.S. sponsored torture.

April 2006 marks the second anniversary since shocking photos were released from Abu Ghraib. These photos are difficult to look at yet impossible to forget. How can we view them without thinking of Christ? How can we view the wrenching scenes of nude male bodies stacked in postures of sexual humiliation without remembering the saying: I was naked and you clothed me? How can we gaze on the shackled man kneeling in an orange jumpsuit with terror in his eyes as a ferocious German shepherd strains at the leash only inches from his face without recalling: I was in prison and you visited me. Where is the outcry? Why the silence of the churches? Can we learn what Dietrich Bonhoeffer has to teach us? Or will we be “good Germans” all over again? Who is Jesus Christ for us today?

“The thought of Jesus being stripped, beaten and derided until his final agony on the cross,” wrote Pope John Paul II, “should always prompt a Christian to protest against similar treatment of their fellow beings. Of their own accord, disciples of Christ will reject torture, which nothing can justify, which causes humiliation and suffering to the victim and degrades the tormentor.”

The torture-abuse scandal, as first revealed by the photos from Abu Ghraib, has by no means gone away. According to recent human rights reports:

· Detainee deaths at the hands of U.S. soldiers continue around the world.

· Aggressive, painful force-feeding has been instituted at Guantanamo where prisoners are so desperate that many would prefer to commit suicide.

· Secret CIA prisons, rife with torture situations, remain scattered across the globe.

· Thousands of persons have been subjected to what is called “extraordinary rendition,” whereby suspects are essentially kidnapped and sent to countries that use torture as a means of interrogation. Yet who can deny that outsourcing torture to other regimes is the moral equivalent of practicing it ourselves?

· Finally, the department of defense has admitted to the Red Cross that “70-90 percent” of the Abu Ghraib prisoners were entirely innocent. Similar if somewhat lower figures have been estimated for other U.S. detention centers, including Guantanamo.

Not a single major human rights organization in the world believes that these abuses can be explained merely as the actions of a few bad apples at the bottom of the barrel. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, has stated that top officials — up to and including the president — have given a green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. “You don’t have this kind of pervasive attitude out there,” he observed, “unless you’ve condoned it.” Yet no officials at the higher levels have seriously been been brought to account.

The photos from Abu Ghraib make one thing clear. Working against torture as sponsored by our government must begin at the local and congregational level. As dismaying as it may seem, polls show that at least 73 percent of the American people believe that torture may be used at least rarely, and 15 percent say it is “often” permissible. The figures for Christians in particular are, sadly, no exception.

The terrible stain of torture — which is not only morally wrong but has many harmful consequences even from the standpoint of self-interest — will not be removed from our nation until we learn to act from higher motivations than blinding fear, narrow self-regard, and ugly resentment — to say nothing of cultural racism. If torture is not evil, then nothing is evil, for torture is the very essence of evil. Only those who cry out today for the detained Muslims and Arabs have a right to sing Gregorian chants.

Let me close with these words from Holy Scripture.

Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured (Heb. 13:3).

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen (I John 4:20).

This verse might be glossed to read: Those who say, “I love God,” and torture their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who torture a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen — and the same holds true for those who turn a blind eye to torture or otherwise condone it.

Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me (Matt. 25:40).

Bonhoeffer’s searching question thereby remains: Who is Jesus Christ for us today?

                                                 by Geffrey B Kelly, Augsburg, (1984).

First published by Augsburg Press (the copy I read) Liberating Faith was republished in 2002 by Wipf and Stock. Whilst in the conclusion Kelly offers a brief argument for Bonhoeffer’s applicability to the contemporary (1984) Church situation this is not the book’s primary benefit. Instead, Liberating Faith remains an effective introduction to the theology and spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Kelly begins with a brief biographical portrait detailing Bonhoeffer’s adult life. In the second chapter Kelly begins a thematic introduction to Bonhoeffer’s theology with an account of the importance of Christology to Bonhoeffer’s whole theology. Kelly argues that a theme that runs throughout Bonhoeffer’s Christology is the idea of the sociality of Christ. Early on this had a more distinctly ecclesiological emphasis although the Jesus, who is man for others who is present in the early theology becomes in Bonhoeffer’s later thought the sign of the unity of humanity. Subsequent chapters focus on the “liberation of faith” which is essentially Bonhoeffer’s theology of revelation which in large part arises from his own existential crisis regarding his own faith and an examination of his theology of the Church which follows directly on from his Christology. Perhaps the most edifying aspect of Kelly’s work is his next chapter on Bonhoeffer’s spirituality. I note that Kelly has written about this further in the 2002 book The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer which, if this chapter is indicative of the content will be an excellent resource. Grounding his spirituality in the work of Christ and the psalms, along with the reciprocal commitment to fellow believers Kelly superbly shows how Bonhoeffer’s spirituality was far from an individualistic act but was part of the very worship and prayers of the Church.

In the introduction Kelly admits that the book “is not a quarrel with Bonhoeffer and his critics, so much as an attempt to stress the positive challenge to Christianity which we discover in his life and writings” (11). Whilst a critical commentary would not be in order given the books purpose as an introduction I do consider this lack of a critical edge (or pointing towards those who have criticised aspects of Bonhoeffer’s thought) to be a weakness of the text. In a related way the Bonhoeffer we have presented is, in the main, the later Bonhoeffer. Given the gravity of the times in which the later Bonhoeffer wrote this is of course understandable. However, notwithstanding the good Christological survey the vast majority of Kelly’s book concentrates on the The Cost of Discipleship, Ethics, and especially Letters and Papers from Prison. Consequently as a definitive introduction Liberating Faith must be judged as incomplete. For those who have read a fair amount of secondary literature then this contribution will add little, if anything at all. However, as an introduction and thumbnail sketch of Bonhoeffer’s overall theology Liberating Faith is probably the most helpful book I have come across, in spite of its partial presentation.