The Bonhoefferian

At long last, I put the final touches (and blows) to the thesis today, and it is ready to be shipped off for grading. Quite a relief to have this monkey off my back and to be on to other projects. Below I’ve posted the abstract to the thesis; if you are interested in a copy of the whole thing then drop me an email.

Knowing the difference between good and evil seems central to any account of ethical thought. Yet Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that Christian ethics’ “first task” is to supercede this knowledge. Rejecting the knowledge of good and evil, Bonhoeffer regards modern ethics as continuous with Adam and Eve’s illegitimate meal in the garden of Eden. Grasping at wisdom apart from God, the earliest humans brought death and division into the world. Bonhoeffer’s account of Christian ethics is inimical to the self-justification, judgment of others, and autonomous notions of individual freedom that the knowledge of good and evil provides. Human beings employ their knowledge of good and evil in efforts to unify their lives and communities, but Bonhoeffer sees that these actions spring from the divided state of fallen humanity. Yet if Christian ethics really involves “un-knowing” good and evil, on what basis can Christians confront the complex and difficult decisions that they face daily? How are Christians to respond to violence, destruction, and immorality—both in their own lives and in the acts of people around them? How are Christians (and others) to teach their children how to behave without recourse to some conception of good and evil? This thesis explores the knowledge of good and evil in Bonhoeffer’s writings and traces the development of his ethics as an alternative account of moral knowledge. The ethics of the church, in Bonhoeffer’s understanding, is grounded in the knowledge gained through being incorporated into the body of Jesus Christ, through extending his mission, and through proclaiming his gospel.

Originally posted at: a few words.

Halden announced yesterday the beginning of what is sure to become a long and illustrious tradition—a Bonhoeffer blog conference. The profundity of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics lies in its insistence on pushing theological meditations toward the most concrete expression possible. Unlike many, his drive toward concreteness was not the result of an insipid focus on the “practical,” falsely contrasted to the abstract and theoretical; rather, he saw that proper theological work underlay the faith that leads to action. He is a tremendously attractive figure to so many of us because we have a sense that his life held together with a unity and integrity that most of us only strive to imagine.

In the last couple of years we have witnessed a substantial rise in collaborative theological scholarship via the blogosphere. The recurring Karl Barth Blog Conference promises to be an excellent staple among theo-bloggers, as does the forthcoming Balthasar Blog Conference. In the spirit of fostering further substantial theological scholarship in the blogosphere, I am happy to announce the First Annual Bonhoeffer Blog Conference. The topic for this conference will be: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics and Contemporary Theology. The aim of this conference is to foster sustained reflections on Bonhoeffer’
s last major theological work, Ethicsand to explore its implications within contemporary theological, ecclesial, and political contexts. While some spots are already filled (which will be announced later), there is plenty of room for submissions and proposals. Any submission related to this general focus would be open to consideration. Creative approaches to the work of Bonhoeffer is encouraged.

This conference will likely take place in early November, 2008. Submissions can be emailed to Halden at halden-at-wipfandstock-dot-com. Halden encourages you to promote this event on your own blog, if you are so inclined.

Union Theological Seminary’s podcast includes Larry Rasmussen’s August 6 lecture on Bonhoeffer offered in two parts. I downloaded it and found it to be an excellent addition to Rasmussen’s book Reality and Resistance. His stories from Bonhoeffer’s brother at the end of part two are particularly interesting.

I have just added a new “Recommended Reading” page to this blog with the deatails of recommended secondary literature on Bonhoeffer. This is no means an exhaustive list (intentionally so) but if you feel there are important books omitted that you can vouch for as being very good then please feel free to let us know.

C.S. Lewis makes several impassioned pleas for the universality of moral instinct in his writings. I’m most familiar with his appeal to the sense of “fairness” in an argument for God’s existence in Mere Christianity, along with his defence of what he calls the “Tao” in The Abolition of Man. At any rate, in both locations, Lewis is appealing to something like conscience or intuition as the ground of ethics. Ethics are built-in. Right and wrong find their foundation in some innate sense within us. That sense is God’s gift, and is ultimately grounded in God’s own moral character.

Of course, acknowledging the lingering wastes of sin in humanity, Lewis argues that our consciences, as well as our inclination to listen to them, are “bent.” We are not whole and healthy, but twisted and shadowy representations of what we were meant to be.

Working on Bonhoeffer’s moral epistemology, it struck me how different the picture that he describes is. For Bonhoeffer, conscience is only the voice of self-defence. Conscience is the tool by which we usurp God’s judgment, and employ it against ourselves and others. With our consciences–our personal knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3)–we alternately declare ourselves righteous and then cast ourselves on to the dung pile. Either way, this is an attempt to shield ourselves from God’s voice rather than God’s voice itself. The natural knowledge of good and evil, is nothing less than captivity to death in Bonhoeffer’s estimation.

For Bonhoeffer, the root of legitimate ethical thought is spoken rather than implanted. Ethical life is obedience to God’s command, and God’s command comes to us as fallen creatures. God’s voice is not innately present to creatures in any reliable way, it requires a reorientation of our being. Ethics is obedience, following Jesus. The command of God is to be found in Christ, not in each of us. Only in Christ is the command of God to be found unsullied in the world.

Bonhoeffer encountered Lewis’ argument in a twisted form in the settled liberal theologians who were his professors at the University of Berlin. Further twisted and coupled with Lutheran theology gone haywire, it was part of the worldview that enabled the majority of German Christians to dutifully serve Hitler. Bonhoeffer regarded the notion of an innate ethic to be theologically naive–and subject to disasterous perversion.

But, four years after writing the hyper-rigorous Discipleship (originally “Cost of…” in English), Bonhoeffer found room for “noble pagans,” and argued that the church must work together–for Christ’s sake–with all the promoters of peace, security, and well-being. This was not based on any re-evaluation and more positive assesment of natural knowledge of good and evil. Rather, Bonhoeffer expected to see Christ in strange places, at work for the good of the cosmos he joined himself to in love. Working side by side with atheists in the conspiracy, he found the project viable not on his own estimation of good and evil, but out of a theological intuition that this was where he might be most likely to find Jesus.

The ground of ethics is a crucial question. Locating the origin of our sense of right and wrong is a difficult and contentious task. The choice to legitimate it as it stands or distrust it and look to another model determines the entire shape of our ethical discussions, the shape of our culture, and the way we treat one another. While Lewis’ account is apologetically attractive, and very compelling, I wonder if it is grounded concretely enough in God’s self-revelation in Christ to avoid the kinds of abberations that the National Socialists and thier sympathizers were able to foist on Germany.

I’d be very interested to hear someone take the other side.

Originally posted at: a few words I want to thank the administrator of this illustrious blog for a generous invitation to leave a reflection here every now and then.

Review of J Deotis Roberts, Bonhoeffer & King: Speaking Truth to Power, Westminster John Knox, (2005). ISBN: 0664226523.

Cross-posted on Sub Ratione Dei.

At the age of thirty nine both Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr were murdered on account of the fact that both spoke (and acted out this speech) to power. Bonhoeffer was murdered by in a Nazi concentration camp in April 1945; Martin Luther King, Jr, like Bonhoeffer, also murdered in April, this time April 1968 whilst campaigning for fair wages for Blacks.

The author of this book, J Deotis Roberts, is himself a significant Black and Liberation theologian and hence a joint study of both of these theologians makes a certain sense. While I am not well-read in Black Theology (although I have read Cone) but I find it hard to imagine Black Theology would be anything like the same as it is today were it not for the efforts of MLK, even if some motifs of Black Power thought are developed against MLK’s nonviolent method. Likewise, it is clear that early Liberation Theology, as a reading of Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation will make apparent, has used Bonhoeffer’s theology as an important resource in early Liberation Theology, particularly in regards to theological methodology.

J Deotis Roberts begins his study with a brief synopsis of his “biography as theology” approach by which he analyses the biography of both MLK and DB. As a brief historical introduction to these two figures then this is helpful, however, I do not think that Deotis Roberts really offers anything revealing as regards to the relationship between these two theologians. In fact, this comment probably applies to the the rest of the book. As a brief introduction to the different theologies of DB and MLK then this is probably going to be a useful book. However, there is little in the DB sections, which is more my specialism that is particularly new, it is instead a summary of Bonhoeffer from the secondary literature. As a Black theologian who was at least peripherally active in the Civil Rights movement it is possible that Deotis Robert’s discussion of MLK is more interesting, although my impression is that the same applies to these sections. Similarly, this book is weak the relation of the respective theologians to the wider theological context.

That said, I do not think Bonhoeffer and King is a bad book. While it may not be an original contribution to theology it is a good introduction to the social theology of both of these theologians and with it to some of the central themes of political theology. Where J Deotis excels is in two of the main issues on which the theological visions of DB and MLK coalesce, namely in the issues of religion and the influence of Gandhi. It is not surprising that Deotis Roberts places significance on Bonhoeffer’s observation of the racist treatment of Blacks while he was a student in America. It is with the Church’s complicity in the anti-Jewish racism in Germany that the links between DB and MLK’s struggle in America are apparent and Deotis Roberts does a very good job of delineating these. Similarly, both of these theologians had a a profound respect and learned a great deal from the mission of Gandhi, although with DB’s involvement in the anti-Hitler conspiracy it is perhaps questionable whether this influence continued to the end of his life, something which the author does not adequately address.

Here is a link outline for my Blogging through Bethge Series. In looking over these again it occurs to me that at some point I got really serious with this, having started out just as an experiment. I had no idea how much time I’d really have to accomplish it. Then my job changed almost overnight and I had so much more time than I thought. Then I became really invested in it, considering it one of the more monumental things I’ve done with my life. I do plan to review the book after the series. If you notice some glaring errors or just want to help with some insights, please post comments. I haven’t had many of those. My hope is that this, in some small way, will spark new interest in this book, beyond it’s use as a reference within the academic community. This can be a very difficult book for those outside the theological world. I hope musings from an armchair dilettante like me will open new doors.

—Chris L. Rice

The “Blogging Bethge” series: A journey through Eberhard Bethge’s monumental biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Part One: The Lure of Theology

1. Childhood and Youth: 1906-1923 pg. 3

2. Student Years: 1923-1927 pg. 45

3. Assistant Pastor in Barcelona: 1928 pg. 97

4. Assistant Lecturer in Berlin: 1929-1930 pg. 125

5. America 1930-1931 p. 147

Part Two: The Cost of Being A Christian

6. Lecturer and Pastor: 1931-1932, pg. 173

7. Berlin: 1933, pg. 257

8. London: 1933-1935, pg. 325

9. Preacher’s Seminary: 1935, pg. 419

10. Finkenwalde: 1936-1937, pg. 493

11. The Collective Pastorates: 1938-1940, pg. 587

Part Three: Sharing Germany’s Destiny

12. Travels: 1940-1943, pg. 681

13. Tegel: 1943-1944, pg. 799

14. In the Custody of the State: 1944-1945, pg. 893

Review of John W Matthews, Anxious Souls Will Ask … The Christ-Centered Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eerdmans, (2005). ISBN: 0802828418.

Bonhoeffer’s prison diary Letters and Papers from Prison was the first writing of his that I had read. More than anything else what first attracted me to his thought was its honesty; the faith that was so important to him was also for Bonhoeffer a source of much doubt and questioning. However, no doubt because of the honesty with which Letters and Papers was written it was also, for me at least, a profoundly unsettling experience. How is one to read Bonhoeffer’s call for a religion-less Christianity in a world come of age, for example.

John W Matthews, a Lutheran Minister in Minnesota, attempts in this short book (it only runs to 80 pages). Matthews argument is that Bonhoeffer theology has strong continuities with his earlier work and that Bonhoeffer’s prison reflections are an important resource in spurring contemporary Christianity to a more authentic faith. In the prison writings of Bonhoeffer Matthews identifies 5 “pillars” which, if appropriated by the contemporary church, will enhance its witness and mission. I will not outline each of these here (the book’s short enough for you to pick these up in one sitting, in any case) other than to say that a key theme that runs through all is the need to the Church to take a ‘reality-check’ and be honest about its own context and vision and, mirroring the mission of God as incarnated in Jesus, take an approach in which suffering and vulnerability are to, if not welcomed then accepted so that, like Jesus, the church may become authentically human.

In the her endorsement printed on the back cover Jean Bethke Elshtain writes that this book is “a powerful and poignant companion to Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. Newcomers to Bonhoeffer’s text and Bonhoeffer scholars alike will benefit from the fruits of John Matthews’s pilgrimage alongside Bonhoeffer”. There is no doubt that Anxious Souls will Ask … does have some merit but I am afraid that, contrary to Elshtain’s opinion, it is not anything like a “must-read”.

I am not at all sure anyone ho has read even a moderate amount of Bonhoeffer (whether in primary or secondary literature) will find anything of real value. However, for the genuinely beginning reader, particularly one in the immediate cunsettling aftermath of reading the Letters and Papers, then the albeit brief forays into Bonhoeffer’s other theological work will be of assistance even if Matthews is more confident than me of the clear line of continuity that exist between, for example, Life Together and Discipleship with Letters and Papers.

I’d like to call your attention to the latest book available in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series, VOLUME 13, from Fortress Press. The following is from the publisher’s press release:

 

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s pastoral sojourn in England from October 1933 to April 1935, which he initially viewed as a withdrawal from the church clashes in Germany, marked instead a new phase in his intensive participation in that struggle. Newly released by Fortress Press, London, 1933-1935: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 13 provides an almost daily documentation of this deepening engagement against the placid backdrop of his two London pastorates.

Detailing Bonhoeffer’s extensive contacts with German expatriates, ecumenical partners and allies, and friends and family, London, 1933-1935 impressively records both Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the rapidly developing clash with the deutsche Christen and the means by which he pursued it.

The bulk of the material consists of his wide correspondence but also includes records and minutes of his congregational meetings, excerpts from the diaries of Bonhoeffer’s friend and London colleague Julius Rieger, reports from international conferences from 1934, and more than twenty sermons he preached to his London congregations. The wealth of this material, says editor Keith Clements, allows us to experience a dramatic slice of this history and see the many and complex facets of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s personality.

“Beautifully translated, the letters and sermons give us new insights into Bonhoeffer himself.”

—Victoria J. Barnett, General Editor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition and Director, Church Relations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

“Taking its place in what has become a definitive series, this splendid new volume captures Dietrich Bonhoeffer busily at work in a lively new landscape. More than this, it yields a vivid glimpse of that bustling, wider realm of opinion, friendship and endeavour which the crisis of National Socialism provoked beyond the borders of Germany itself. It is surely indispensable.”

—Andrew Chandler, Director, the George Bell Institute at the University of Chichester

Editor:

Keith C. Clements served Baptist congregations for ten years before becoming secretary for international affairs in the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, Geneva from 1997 to 2005.

London, 1993-1935

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 13

Edited by Keith C. Clements

Translated by Isabel Best

Format: 6” x 9”, hardcover with jacket, 452 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0-8006-8313-9

Price: $50.00/ CAN $60.00

Publisher: Fortress Press

So here’s a rundown on what’s in print and yet to be made available. The ones with links are available, the others have yet to be released. If I’m not mistaken, Volume 8 will be the last to be published. The Fall 2005 newsletter of the International Bonhoeffer Society reported that:

“The English Edition will also feature a volume 17 as a searchable CD-ROM to include a master index for all volumes, a comprehensive series bibliography, additional glossaries, and searchable texts of all 16 volumes.”

Volume 1 Sactorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church, translation of Sanctorum Communio: Eine dogmatische Untersuchung zur Soziologie der Kirche

Volume 2 Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, translation of Akt und Sein: Transzendentalphilosophie und Ontologie in der systematischen Theologie

Volume 3 Creation and Fall, translation of Schöpfung und Fall

Volume 4 Discipleship, translation of Nachfolge

Volume 5 Life Together, translation of Gemeinsames Leben
and The Prayerbook of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms, translation of Das Gebetbuch der Bibel

Volume 6 Ethics, translation of Ethik

Volume 7 Fiction from Tegel Prison, translation of Fragmente aus Tegel

Volume 8 Letters and Papers from Prison, translation of Widerstand und Ergebung

Volume 9 The Young Bonhoeffer: 1918-1927, translation of Jugend und Studium: 1918-1927

Volume 10 Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931, translation of Barcelona, Berlin, Amerika: 1928-1931

Volume 11 Ecumenical, Academic and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932, translation of Ökumene, Universität, Pfarramt: 1931-1932

Volume 12 Berlin: 1933, translation of Berlin: 1933

Volume 13 London: 1933-1935, translation of London: 1933-1935

Volume 14 Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935-1937, translation of Illegale Theologenausbildung: 1935-1937

Volume 15 Theological Education Underground: 1937-1940, translation of Illegale Theologenausbildung: 1937-1940

Volume 16 Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940-1945, translation of Konspiration und Haft: 1940-1945

Review of David H Hopper, A Dissent on Bonhoeffer, Westminster Press, (1975). ISBN: 0664208029.

In the 1960s the Bonhoeffer’s thought had been (mis)applied to the then current theological fad, namely the Death of God theology of Andrew Hamilton and particularly Thomas Altizer (a movement related to and similar in outlook to the Sea of Faith Network which grew out of the philosophy of Don Cupitt).At around the same time John Robinson’s Honest to God, Paul Van Buren’s The Secular Meaning of the Gospel and Harvey Cox’s The Secular City all explicitly used Bonhoeffer’s prison letters for their on theological formulations of the new world come of age. Hopper notes that many early Bonhoeffer scholars complained about such appropriations of Bonhoeffer’s thought such as Paul Lehmann’s comment about concerning the use of Bonhoeffer in Death of God theology as “careless dissemination of half-truth” (p. 19). Hopper goes on to note that this emphasis on the later Bonhoeffer was resisted by many of the key Bonhoeffer scholars because it separated Letters and Papers from Prison from Bonhoeffer’s other writings. There are, these scholars argue, a continuity in Bonhoeffer’s theology that runs through many of Bonhoeffer’s theology.

For the majority of the book Hopper proceeds to take each of these alleged unifying themes of Bonhoeffer’s theology separately and therefore offers discussion on Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology, christology and theology of reality and in the course highlights the discontinuities in these approaches as Bonhoeffer’s thought developed.

So, what prescisely is the Hopper’s dissent on Bonhoeffer? It is difficult to say as, truth be told, Hopper is decidedly imprecise on this point. However, the main point of issue for Hopper seems to be that Bonhoeffer is simply not a systematic thinker. There is no doubt that over the course of his theological career Bonhoeffer’s theology did evolve and, sometimes in areas that I am not so keen one. But what Hopper makes no reference to which seems to me to be a crucial observation is the extent to which Bonhoeffer’s theology is consciously contextual.

At the time of its publication maybe this book offered more, but I struggle to really say too much positive about this now other than as a window into the dominant scholarly of Bonhhoeffer of a previous generation. Unless you are specifically researching this issue then I think it best advised that you give this book a miss.