White on Black on White: The Connection of Karl Barth and James H. Cone to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues that the early Barth made too little of the concrete in a theologically spatiotemporal sense. In his wariness towards abstract a priori thinking, Barth refrained from developing a social imaginative poise that might embody a genuinely free, Christian creatureliness. In contrast, Bonhoeffer’s insistence on the concrete command of Christ led to his assertion that the “Jewish question” required concrete action as a status confessionis for the Christian church in his context. Barth initially considered Bonhoeffer’s radicalism to be extreme and hasty, yet he later came to view the events of the Confessing Church's resistance with some regret, having not immediately displayed the categorical opposition that Bonhoeffer had advocated. Cone’s high esteem for Bonhoeffer reveals an important challenge regarding the integrity of Christian theology and ethics today in the brains and bodies of White scholars.