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.

Bonhoeffer's Reception of Luther

Religion & Spirituality

DeJonge, Michael P.

Christian Books & Bibles

Oxford University Press

Bonhoeffer thought and wrote a great deal about political life, but he did so neither as a political theorist nor a political activist but rather as a Christian pastor and theologian. Most of what he said about political resistance was said as a theologian, as one speaking on behalf of the church. For this reason, his thinking about political resistance can only be understood in the broader context of his theology. Bonhoeffer on Resistance provides an account of Bonhoeffer's resistance thinking as a whole. This involves placing his thinking about violent political resistance in the context of his thinking about resistance of all kinds; placing his thinking about political resistance of all kinds into the context of his thinking about political life in general; and, ultimately, placing his thinking about political life in the broader context of his theology, his thinking about the whole world and God's relationship to it. To establish the conceptual background necessary for understanding Bonhoeffer's resistance thinking, Michael P. DeJonge begins with a brief account of the theological story in which Bonhoeffer imbeds his account of political life: the story of God's creation of the world, the fall of that world into sin, and the redemption of that world in Christ. He introduces some specifically Lutheran accents to Bonhoeffer's theology that are essential for understanding his political vision, such as the doctrine of justification and the distinction between law and gospel. DeJonge then transitions from Bonhoeffer's theology into his political thinking by presenting the basic conceptual structures he employs when thinking through most political issues. Two important agents or institutions in political life are church and state, and DeJonge presents Bonhoeffer's account of these in light of the material presented in the previous chapters. The volume then presents Bonhoeffer's resistance thinking and activity, which can be considered from two overlapping perspectives, one chronological and the other systematic. This study shows that Bonhoeffer has a systematic, differentiated, and well-developed vision of political activity and resistance.

Bonhoeffer on Resistance: The Word Against the Wheel

History

World

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's dramatic biography, a son of privilege who suffered imprisonment and execution after involving himself in a conspiracy to kill Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich, has helped make him one of the most influential Christian figures of the twentieth century. But before he was known as a martyr or a hero, he was a student and teacher of theology. This book examines the academic formation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, arguing that the young Bonhoeffer reinterpreted for a modern intellectual context the Lutheran understanding of the 'person' of Jesus Christ. In the process, Bonhoeffer not only distinguished himself from both Karl Barth and Karl Holl, whose dialectical theology and Luther interpretation respectively were two of the most important post-World War I theological movements, but also established the basic character of his own 'person-theology.' Barth convinces Bonhoeffer that theology must understand revelation as originating outside the human self in God's freedom. But whereas Barth understands revelation as the act of an eternal divine subject, Bonhoeffer treats revelation as the act and being of the historical person of Jesus Christ. On the basis of this person-concept of revelation, Bonhoeffer rejects Barth's dialectical thought, designed to respect the distinction between God and world, for a hermeneutical way of thinking that begins with the reconciliation of God and world in the person of Christ. Here Bonhoeffer mines a Lutheran understanding of the incarnation as God's unreserved entry into history, and the person of Christ as the resulting historical reconciliation of opposites. This also distinguishes Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism from that of Karl Holl, one of Bonhoeffer's teachers in Berlin, whose location of justification in the conscience renders the presence of Christ superfluous. Against this, Bonhoeffer emphasizes the present person of Christ as the precondition of justification. Through these critical conversations, Bonhoeffer develops the features of his person-theology --- a person-concept of revelation and a hermeneutical way of thinking --- which remain constant despite the sometimes radical changes in his thought.

Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth, and Protestant Theology

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

For the first time, a representative collection of all Bonhoeffer's theological works is available in a single volume, edited by Bonhoeffer scholars Clifford J. Green and Michael P. DeJonge. The Bonhoeffer Reader follows on the heels of the newly completed 16-volume Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition (DBWE), a major 25-year translation project supported by the International Bonhoeffer Society and published by Fortress Press. From this massive collection of books, lectures, articles, letters and sermons, about 800 pages of all Bonhoeffer's key theological writing have been chosen to reveal his central theological ideas and their development. The Reader is formatted so that students can easily go back to the original DBWE volumes and all the additional resources included in them, making it easier than ever to pursue a more comprehensive study of Bonhoeffer's brilliant theological career.

The Bonhoeffer Reader

Green, Clifford J.

Fortress Press

This volume contains the addresses delivered at the sixth annual theological conference, now named the Braaten-Benne lectures, held and sponsored by the North American Lutheran Church, on August 11-12, 2015. In an age when the word "martyr" is increasingly confused with suicide terrorism and savage attacks on innocent civilians, Christians need to understand and accurately reclaim the term. Those who die killing innocent victims in acts of suicide are not martyrs but murderers. Those who die willingly rather than renounce the name of Jesus are martyrs, not apostates or infidels. The lectures in this volume illuminate the reality of martyrdom in our modern world and rightly identify a Christian's stance in understanding and responding to such attacks upon God's people.

Martyrdom and the Suffering of the Righteous

Hinlicky, Paul R.

Ibrahim, Raymond

Schifrin, Amy C.

Stack-Nelson, Judy

Wiersma, Hans

Gudina, Lensa

American Lutheran Publicity Bureau

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