Bonhoeffer And Interpretive Theory

In view of Bonhoeffer's contemporary readers, these essays focus on the task of articulating and clarifying a hermeneutically self-conscious approach to interpreting and ultimately understanding Bonhoeffer. Methods and approaches examined include themes such as gender, religion, race, ecology, politics, philosophy, literature among others.

This book critically examines Bonhoeffer’s social theology in Sanctorum Communio from the perspective of Žižek’s theological materialism. Specifically, it refers to Žižek’s struggling universality of abandonment and its ethic of indifference in consideration of Bonhoeffer’s transcendental personalist community of saints and its ethic of universal love. As such, it represents an attempt to reflect on the content, act, and implication of theological thought without presuppositions and an argument for the necessity of such an approach—a radical approach that is true to theology’s critical character of challenging narratives and revealing exceptions in search of truth.

How are we to understand Bonhoeffer? In these essays, Peter Frick attempts to answer this question by examining different aspects of Bonhoeffer's thought, thus illuminating the hermeneutical, philosophical, theological, and social dimensions of his writings. All sixteen essays collected here were written between 2007 and 2014; some of them address the question of methodology, others contribute to Bonhoeffer's intellectual formation, and still others seek to connect with contemporary questions. The aim of the volume is to present Bonhoeffer's key theological and philosophical ideas, and to emphasize their contemporary relevance.

"This handbook provides a comprehensive resource for those wishing to understand the German theologian, pastor, and resistance conspirator Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and his writings. It contains sections on Bonhoeffer's life and context, his contributions to all areas of systematic theology and ethics, constructive uses of Bonhoeffer for engaging contemporary issues, and resources for studying Bonhoeffer today. Contributors include leading Bonhoeffer scholars, historians, theologians, and ethicists"--

While in prison during the Third Reich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer raised several “core questions” in his correspondence with his close friend Eberhard Bethge: How shall future generations live? Who is Jesus Christ actually, for us, today? What does it mean to be truly human? And who am I? In Bonhoeffer’s Questions, John W. de Gruchy explores the development of each question in the course of Bonhoeffer’s life, how he attempted to answer them, and how each prompted further questions in an ongoing conversation with himself, with others, and now with us today. De Gruchy does this within the framework of his own life-long and life-changing conversation with Bonhoeffer in the context of South Africa from the beginning of the apartheid era to the present day. He also describes how he has come to know Bonhoeffer as a theological witness to Christ, a prophet of God’s justice, and a Christian humanist before proceeding with a series of questions addressed to Bonhoeffer with the reader in mind. These range from the debate about God and the future of Christianity to the involvement of Christians and the church in political struggles today.

Engaging Bonhoeffer documents the extraordinary impact of Dietrich Bonhoeffers life and writing on later thought. Despite his lasting legacy, little substantial scholarship has been conducted in this area. In this magisterial collection, leading international scholars fill this striking gap and critically demonstrate the ways in which Bonhoeffer has been one of the most original, inspirational, and provocative writers of the twentieth century. Bonhoeffers work has proved foundational for a wide variety of thinkers and movements across such areas as ecclesiology, Christology, spirituality, ethics, hermeneutics, phenomenology, epistemology, and systematic theology more generally. Whether one considers his writings to have been faithfully interpreted, critically adopted or justifiably rejected, Engaging Bonhoeffer describes those who have engaged with Bonhoeffers work, been inspired by his actions, and found a way to express and explain their own ideas through interacting with his life and thought. In addition to shedding light on the different theological trajectories that Bonhoeffers work may forge, this challenging volume offers a critical window through which to view and appreciate the ideas of many leading voices of modern theology.

Engaging with the many debates about the meaning and character of Bonhoeffer's late resistance theology and action, particularly as it relates to his participation in the attempted coup d'état against Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception attends to Bonhoeffer's understanding of the exception. Resisting the common reduction of the exception to a political or ethical concept, O'Farrell argues that the exception for Bonhoeffer is an extraordinary moment in history that disarms persons, impinging on one's understanding of politics and ethics. Through a wide engagement with the Bonhoeffer corpus, this book claims that this leads to distinctive narrations of key concepts in Bonhoeffer's corpus: responsibility, the free venture, simple obedience, and action beyond the law. It also offers a different portrait of Bonhoeffer to contemporary narrations. The Bonhoeffer that emerges is neither a Niebuhrian realist, a pacifist, or a religious fanatic, but one who is impelled to act apart from the law without this action becoming arbitrary. This Bonhoeffer provides a hopeful political witness that seeks a world beyond the conflicts and divisions of this age.

In Dietrich Bonhoefferâs writings, Martin Luther is ubiquitous. Too often, however, Bonhoefferâs 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 Bonhoefferâs 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.