Reading Bonhoeffer

For the first time the essential theological writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have been drawn together in a helpful one-volume format. The Bonhoeffer Reader brings the best English translation to students, and provides a ready-made introduction to the thought of this essential thinker.

An astonishing historical novel in the tradition of Schindler's List--evoking powerfully the danger and heroism of the Nazi resistance. What is the price of acting morally in a time of great evil, when sin and necessity seem twinned? Saints and Villains is a strikingly resonant novel that dramatizes this painful dilemma through the fictional re-creation of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This emblematic figure risked his life--and finally lost it--through his participation in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler and topple the Nazi regime. In a gripping and sweeping narrative that moves from Berlin to London to New York City, encompassing shattering historical events, clandestine meetings, perilous missions abroad, and eventual imprisonments and death, Denise Giardina brings to life an instance of shining courage in the charnel house that was Europe in the Second World War. A novel that is bold in conception and utterly convincing in its powers of fictional re-creation--a literary event.

The youth ministry focus of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life is often forgotten or overlooked, even though he did much work with young people and wrote a number of papers, sermons, and addresses about or for the youth of the church. However, youth ministry expert Andrew Root explains that this focus is central to Bonhoeffer's story and thought. Root presents Bonhoeffer as the forefather and model of the growing theological turn in youth ministry. By linking contemporary youth workers with this epic theologian, the author shows the depth of youth ministry work and underscores its importance in the church. He also shows how Bonhoeffer's life and thought impact present-day youth ministry practice.

Dorothee Soelle once wrote, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the one German theologian who will lead us into the third millennium." As we near the end of the first decade of this third millennium, Bonhoeffer continues to inspire new generations as a spiritual guide for their actions on behalf of peace and social justice. This book by Geffrey Kelly provides a critical analysis and reading guide to two of the spiritual classics that are now available in new translations through Fortress Press. Reading Bonhoeffer offers a running commentary of each segment of these popular texts along with discussion questions suitable for the university and seminary classroom as well as parish adult education programs. In a final section of the book, Kelly excerpts and analyzes three significant texts by Bonhoeffer on the need for world peace against the rising militarism and continued glorification of war in Germany and other European nations.

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.

Since Dietrich Bonhoeffers death in 1945, he has continued to fascinate and compel readers as a theologian, witness, and martyr. In this new biography, Christiane Tietz masterfully portrays the interconnectedness of Bonhoeffers life and thought, theology and politics, discipleship, witness, and resistance, tracing the path from his childhood to his imprisonment and execution. Brief, lucid, and accessible, Tietzs new account brings Bonhoeffers story and work to life in a vivid retelling, unfolding his important and widely read texts in the process. The volume also includes previously unseen pictures.

The Bible is meant to be read in the church, by the church, as the church. Although the practice of reading Scripture has often become separated from its ecclesial context, theologian Derek Taylor argues that it rightly belongs to the disciplines of the community of faith. He finds a leading example of this approach in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who regarded the reading of Scripture as an inherently communal exercise of discipleship. In conversation with other theologians, including John Webster, Robert Jenson, and Stanley Hauerwas, Taylor contends that Bonhoeffer's approach to Scripture can engender the practices and habits of a faithful hermeneutical community. Today, as in Bonhoeffer's time, the church is called to take up and read. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.