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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel, by Renate Wind
Eerdmans, 2002.
Reviewed by Chris Rice

Renate Wind, a teacher of theology, biblical studies, and church history has written the most approachable biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer available today. Leave it to a woman to make an early twentieth century German scholar fresh, vibrant, and alive for this generation! In this little paperback we are introduced to our hero as if for the first time. We learn of what it was like to grow up in the home of Karl Bonhoeffer, a father “both sensitive and detached,” and what effect this had on Dietrich’s desire to know God.
Diary entries of his visit to Rome in April of 1924 provide a window into his first encounter with the church in a Catholic mass. “The whole thing was so fresh, and made an unprecedented impression of the deepest piety. . . I believe I am beginning to understand the concept of the ‘church.’” (p. 29)

Another of my favorite moments in the book takes place in “The Prophet’s Chamber” at Union Theological Seminary occupied successively by four theologians whose nations were getting ready for war. (Japan, Canada, the US, and Germany) “The German was Dietrich Bonhoeffer: he spent the most difficult and most tormenting weeks of his life in the Prophet’s Chamber. In June 1939 he was admitted and given a teaching post for the coming semester. At the beginning of July he packed his bag again and went back to Germany on the last ship before the outbreak of war. In the Prophet’s Chamber his successor found piles of cigarette butts and illegible notes. A diary has also been preserved from these weeks which indicates how much Dietrich fought with himself and his conflicting ideas and feelings.”(p. 127)</p>
In an earlier letter he had written “We ought to be found only where He is. We can non longer, in fact, be anywhere else than where He is. Whether it is you working over there or I working in America, we are all only where He is. He takes us with him. Or have I, after all avoided the place where He is? The place where He is for me?” (p. 137)

Each of the chapters in this book are short enough to make the story easy to follow. The writing provides a special sense of involvement that transcends the period. It would seem that Renate is taking liberties with her subject with the way his story becomes so personable, but all her references are verifiable with notes. She is bringing us close to Bonhoeffer with her prose and this is a real gift. A book of this type can’t really be compared with Eberhard Bethge’s larger biography except to say that somehow she has successfully brought those of us less willing to wade through the enormity of the available material into closer relation with the man himself.

Performing the Faith : Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence

by Stanley Hauerwas
Brazos Press, 2004

Reviewed by Chris L. Rice

(Cross posted on A Desperate Kind of Faithful)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer represents a life of lived theology. His personal commitment to a way of doing theology that involved the whole person in a community of faith as witness to the confrontation of the Gospel can still inspire us today. Stanley Hauerwas leads us through his approach to truth-telling. To set the record straight, only the first two chapters of this book deal specifically with Bonhoeffer’s thought, but in those two chapters we find a blue print for understanding Bonhoeffer’s method of dealing with and speaking the truth, and the importance of the truth for a truly just society. The first chapter aims at understanding Bonhoeffer’s political ethics, which was not fully realized at the time of his execution. This is done by working with Bonhoeffer’s writings in Sanctorum Communio, Act and Being, Ethics, and letters surrounding his first trip to America found in No Rusty Swords.
The second chapter appropriates Bonhoeffer’s writings on truth to our conversations in public life. Again he uses letters but also the monumental work Ethics, which it must be admitted, has not been given its due.

Its clear that a big part of Stanley Hauerwas’ work is in the ebb and flow of language. In the introduction to Performing the Faith he dialogues with critics, tries to clarify his intentions, and even confesses when he uses some words wrongly. (p. 22 “metaphors, maybe, but certainly not symbols”) This book gives me hope that politics, theology, and ethics can be both academic and practical. Hauerwas is hopelessly academic—he is far too well read not to be—but he desires practicality above all and to be of service to the Church and our country. He almost makes pacifism attractive and believable. When he writes,

“pacifism is just too “passive” and nonviolence too dependent on being “not violence.”” We can only begin to understand the violence that grips our lives by being embedded in more determinative practices of peace—practices as common and as extraordinary as prayer and the singing of hymns”

I am ready to sign on, albeit as a self-proclaimed non-aggressionist. Whatever that means.

Stanley Hauerwas is no doubt one of America’s most controversial theologians. I must confess I was skeptical that he would try to make Bonhoeffer into his own image. Instead I found that Hauerwas has introduced some of the more complex aspects of Bonhoeffer’s theology into a very vibrant conversation about today’s political and ecclesial climate. He is one of the founding members of Ekklesia Project, which I’ve personally found to be a very stimulating ecumenical gathering of friends who bear witness to a Christian way of life that critiques and separates from the lust for violence and war within our culture.

Bonhoeffer as Martyr: Social Responsibility and Modern Christian Commitment by Craig J. Slane, Brazos Press, 2004.
Reviewed by Chris Rice

(Cross Posted on A Desperate Kind of Faithful)

The notion of Martyrdom is a foreign one in our post-modern world. It certainly has more negative connotations when understood as someone willing to off themselves for a political cause. We think of religious martyrdom in the news in terms of fiery blasts and falling buildings in the headlines. How could death for a cause be inspirational in this day and age? Craig Slane guides us through the Christian history of witness from its earliest days to the present, demonstrating how the change in our own times have blurred the lines between dogmatic and ideological witness.

Perhaps just when we need it most Slane introduces us to the faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as follower of Jesus unto death. Martyrdom, he points out, for the Christian is not recognized or claimed for one’s self prior to death, rather it is bestowed by the believer’s faith community. This separates Bonhoeffer and all believers from those who would off themselves purposely as a suicidal act. Still, is it true that we are called to identify our faith with death as much as life? Can our faith be a death affirming activity–and why would you want to read a book about that? In an age and for a country wherein Christianity has become more about our best, victorious, and most successful living the witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us of a costly Christianity that daily identifies with a humiliated and hidden Savior. He reminds us of the Church as a radical community wherein we practice individual confession and repentance, and relationships with Christ as mediator. These things, of course, are all a part of a life well lived following Jesus—to the Cross.

I haven’t had a reading experience like this one since I can remember. Those with abstract thought handicaps beware, and if you develop a skin rash at the mention of Heidegger or A.N. Whitehead consider yourself warned. This work is not for the academic faint of heart. But if you’ve got guts and curiosity I dare you to read this book. It is intended as a step forward for Bonhoeffer studies, but also as an interpretation of martyrdom. Bonhoeffer’s final works, Discipleship, Life Together, and Ethics are set in the light of his decision to join the Abwehr and be hung along with Hitler’s conspirators. So reading this book has set my readings of these books in a whole new light. There are many selections from rather obscure letters and texts that help set the right context. As I point out in my review of Stephen Haynes’ The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon, Bonhoeffer is used constantly out of his context. Its only in setting the scene that we can fully appreciate his witness, and then appropriate his example to our own setting.

by Andreas Pangritz, Eerdmans, (2000). ISBN: 080284281x.

Reviewed by Richard Gillingham

If the commentators are to be believed Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth had an ambiguous theological relationship. After initially being firmly in Barth’s camp particularly in their mutual roles in the Confessing Church. However, in his letter work, especially Letters and Papers it has been asserted that a fissure opened up over Barth’s positivism of revelation. The applicable passage from Bonhoeffer’s prison letters is from the letter dated 30 April 1944 immediately following a discussion of ‘religionless Christianity’:

Barth, who is the only one to have started along this line of thought, did not carry it to completion, but arrived at a positivism of revelation, which in the last analysis is essentially a restoration. For the religionless working man (or any other man) nothing decisive is gained here. The questions to be answered wouldsurely be: What do a church, a community, a sermon, a liturgy, a Christian life mean in a religionless world? How do we speak of God -without religion, i.e. without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness, and so on? How do we speak(or perhaps we cannot now even “speak” as we used to) in a “secular”way about “God?” In what way are we “religionless-secular” Christians,in what way are we the ek-klisia, those who are called forth,not regarding ourselves from a religious point of view as specially favored, but rather as belonging wholly to the world? In that case Christ is no longer an object of religion, but something quitedifferent, really the Lord of the world. (text copied from online version here).

Throughout this text Pangritz asserts that the criticisms of Barth, which were present as early as his Act and Being, are more specifically related to some of Barth’s more conservative followers (such as Hans Asmussen). Pangritz rather argues that the lines of similarity between Barth and Bonhoeffer are more substantive than is sometimes supposed. In particular, Pangritz in a study of Barth’s theology after Bonhoeffer’s death shows that some of the ambiguity that caused some concern for Bonhoeffer is made more explicit. That is not to say that there are no differences. Most notable according to Pangritz is the Bonhoeffer who wrote Letters and Papers was less opposed to some aspects of liberal theology than Barth, a legacy that he seems to have suppressed in the Confessing Church period.

By Stephen R Haynes. Fortress, (2006). ISBN: 0800638158.

Reviewed by Richard

The Bonhoeffer Legacy is a follow up to Haynes’ 2004 The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon (reviewed here). Like this earlier work the strength of this work is its survey of the secondary literature. The focus in this case is to relate the variety of interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s relation to Judaism and specifically the anti-semitic sentiments that has plagued the history to theological thought.

Haynes begins with a survey of Bonhoeffer in the popular (primarily Christian) memory. With the gravity of the murderous scope of the holocaust and the Church’s acquiescence there is a need for moral heroes and, in the mind of many, Bonhoeffer fits the bill excellently. It enables us to see that in spite of all its failings the Church “did something” to say no to the persecution of Jews. Bonhoeffer’s involvement in “Operation 7″ is cited in support of this assertion. In contrast, in his second chapter Haynes focuses on the response of Jewish scholars to Bonhoeffer’s thought and actions. This Jewish reading is never the wholehearted elevation of Bonhoeffer as moral paradigm the Christian (and primarily evangelical) popular memory; the most benevolent position was to consider Bonhoeffer “the best of a bad lot”. Why? Bonhoeffer’s writings early on, particularly in the 1933 essay “The Church and Jewish Question” displayed not only a supercessionism but also echoed themes of anti-Jewish rhetoric common in the Nazi and pre-Nazi era. For example, Bonhoeffer repeats the “witness people” myth that affirms the charge of deicide on the Jewish people and their historic sufferings as retribution for this sin. Hayne’s study is an attempt to steer a middle course between the rejection of Bonhoeffer by some Jewish Scholars and the Christian ’spin control’ of his defenders.

Fundamentally, The Bonhoeffer Legacy while certainly meeting a lacuna in Bonhoeffer Studies fails to really satisfy focusing too much on context and Bonhoefferian historiography over the work and rescue-work of Bonhoeffer. I consider this to be a disappointment because as his previous publication Prospects for Post-Holocaust Theology makes clear Haynes has the expertise to have made this the definitive account of Bonhoeffer’s theological relationship to Judaism and the holocaust.

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by Larry L Rasmussen. Westminster John Knox Press, (2005). ISBN: 0664230113.

Reviewed by Richard

I purchased this book on the recommendation of Chris who stated that this was the premier work on understanding Bonhoeffer’s entry into both the work of resistance but also tyrannicide. Having read it I think he is right.

Larry Rasmussen who is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary writes with the stated aim to answer the question “what led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his momentous decision to be involved in the plot to be involved in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944?” In seeking to answer this question Rasmussen offers a superb, if occasionally tough-going, theological exposition of the whole corpus of Bonhoeffer’s work.

In order to address this question Rasmussen begins by analysing the theme of resistance and it develops and demonstrates the exclusively christological character this takes in Bonhoeffer’s thought, particularly in the conception of Christ-for other and the idea of Christian responsibility. In particular, Rasmussen highlights the continuity but also marked development between The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics; a development that was to form the “wedge” that opened up tyrannicide as a viable theological option.

In the second section of the book Rasmussen turn his directly to Bonhoeffer’s direct theology of violence. Rasmussen begins by assessing whether Bonhoeffer can rightly be considered a pacifist. His conclusion is probably best described as “almost, but not quite” although even here Rasmussen notes that Bonhoeffer can oscillate between a ’sectarian’ pacifism and a just war position. This just war tendency also informed Bonhoeffer’s move towards tyrannicide although again in the context of christological justification.

Are there weaknesses in this Book? If there are they are few in number. I would perhaps suggest the differences between Bonhoeffer’s move to active resistance to the majority of the Confessing Church as well as the wider legacy of Lutheran ethical dualism would be one. Nonetheless it is not often that having read through a quarter of the book I have already decided that it will not be too long before I return to reread the same book, this is what happened reading this. It is in my opinion the best account of Bonhoeffer’s political ethic (resistance and conspiracy) that I have to date come across.

For anyone interested in Bonhoeffer’s theology then they should have this book in their library. enough said?

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by Frits De Lange, Eerdmans, (1995).

Reviewed by Richard

Frits De Lange’s slim volume is as the book’s subtitle indicates is a study of Bonhoeffer’s approach to theology understood in its basic form of God-talk. From the start while this is a short book I never really got into it and am not sure if i was just not in the mood or because I found the text difficult to read (it is a translated text from Dutch), The main argument of this book is that Bonhoeffer’s theology while becoming more radicalised (and arguably less ecclesiocentric) over time still maintained a strong degree of continuity with his earlier work. Therefore, De Lange claims that the Bonhoeffer of the Letters and Papers are a different Bonhoeffer to Life Together and the earlier Act and Being are wide off the mark. In arguing his case de Lange makes some interesting excursions into Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Barth, the influence of his upper middle class upbringing and especially the influence of his father Karl Bonhoeffer on his understanding of the silence of the Word as well as the relation of modern literary theory to Bonhoeffer’s doctrine of the word. I am not sure the book is worth the cover price but it is a interesting read if you ever discover it going cheaply second hand.

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