Developing a Theologia Crucis: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Harlem Renaissance

Abstract

In 1928–29, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an assistant pastor in Barcelona, Spain, where he delivered twenty sermons and three academic lectures. The last two of his Barcelona lectures demonstrate the intellectual acumen of a brilliant scholar, but some of the content of the lectures was not consistent with his legacy of prophetic resistance to the Nazis and their Christian supporters, the German Christian movement. In Barcelona Bonhoeffer spoke in favor of nationalism, which he later opposed. In a brief statement about the 1928–29 Barcelona lectures, Bonhoeffer’s best friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge said, simply “it was the theologia crucis that saved him from this line of thought.” This article argues that during his Sloane Fellowship year, 1930–31, Bonhoeffer was a student of New York’s Harlem Renaissance, where he was put in contact with a tradition that recognized Jesus as active and present in the daily lives of marginalized people, identifying with suffering and shame, as a redemptive presence in oppression. That tradition put Bonhoeffer in contact with his own German Lutheran theological tradition of the theologia crucis, helping him to see racist oppression as it is in this world, a problem that Christians must address, and to advocate solidarity with Jesus, who is hidden in the world, in suffering and shame.