Bonhoeffer's Theology Research Articles

Teaching Christian Ethics Beyond Europe and North America: From a Postgraduate Research Seminar to a Theology of Listening

This article explores the process of teaching Christian theological ethics beyond the common focus on European and North American sources. In conversation with moves to decolonise university curricula, the article proposes a theology of listening, an example of a research seminar for master’s and doctoral students at the University of Aberdeen on Christian ethics beyond Europe and North America, and an exploration of broader challenges for the formation of the theologian. The article asks, what can we learn when we give up power and control when teaching and learning theology? How can we shift our methods of knowing and practising theology? We write as theologians from India, Mexico, and the United States living in the United Kingdom. We reflect on forms of exclusion in theological method and formation that arise from colonising, systemic violence, and inequalities. The article considers intercultural challenges when encountering different methods of reflection on the Christian experience. In a search for a more profoundly theological approach, we propose listening to the other as integral to doing theology. In an intercultural move, we draw on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology of listening, proposing that theology must be an advent of voices from beyond our usual places and methods.

KeithClements. Appointments with Bonhoeffer: Personal Faith and Public Responsibility in a Fragmenting World, T&T Clark New Studies in Bonhoeffer's Theology and Ethics. London: T&T Clark, 2022. xiii+203 pp.

KeithClements. <i>Appointments with Bonhoeffer: Personal Faith and Public Responsibility in a Fragmenting World</i>, T&amp;T Clark New Studies in Bonhoeffer's Theology and Ethics. London: T&amp;T Clark, 2022. xiii+203 pp.

To See Responsibility from Below: Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, and Racism

This article analyzes and compares the theologies of Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr regarding race and racial injustice. It examines the ways both theologians responded to the racial crisis in America, and Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany, in patterns consistent with their own divergent accounts of moral responsibility. The article argues that Bonhoeffer's theology of the responsible life offers deeper ethical resources than Niebuhr's for responding to the contemporary realities of White supremacy. Yet, while celebrating Bonhoeffer's contributions, it concludes by drawing on criticisms of Bonhoeffer from feminist and womanist thinkers to press this notion of acting responsibly in light of white supremacy beyond Bonhoeffer and offering one concrete example of an institution attempting to do that work.

The constant reality beyond exception and rule in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology

Due to the many warnings at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic of an increased transfer of power to governments and the subsequent impending demise of democracy, this article presents a theological response to a persistent theory of autocratic power. Employing, but reinterpreting the semantics of the concepts of the jurist and theorist of state Carl Schmitt, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer redirects the former’s rhetoric regarding history, rule, nothingness, creation ex nihilo and miracle. As a result, Bonhoeffer responds to a secular method with faith in Christ’s cross and provides for a reality that can serve as a constant grounding for a new life carried by ultimate hope.

Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper

Reviewed by: Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper H. Gaylon Barker Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation. By Joel Looper. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2021. 260 pp. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was both attracted to and disappointed in America. His attraction led him to make two trips to America in the 1930s; one in 1930–31 to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the other briefly in 1939, when he sought refuge [End Page 105] from the war. In both instances, he was "bitterly disappointed" (16) because "there is no theology here" (17). When viewed through his European Lutheran eyes, America "lacked the gospel" (27). The one bright spot was Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem; while the churches Bonhoeffer attended in New York preached virtually everything except "the gospel of Jesus Christ" (17), at Abyssinian he found that the gospel was "truly preached and received with great welcome and visible emotion" (137). Bonhoeffer's experiences in and reflections on American church life and theology are the subject of Looper's study. The subtitle refers to Bonhoeffer's 1939 essay, "Protestantism without Reformation," which pronounced Bonhoeffer's verdict on American Christianity that it was not really Protestant. Looper examines Bonhoeffer's experiences in America and his responses through a detailed analysis of his written reports and identifies the sources for Bonhoeffer's critique. The first is traced to the work of Thomas Cuming Hall that located the origins and characteristics of American Christianity in the theology of John Wycliffe and the 15th century English pre-Reformation Lollard movement with its emphasis on individualism and conscience (or "the inner light"). When transplanted to America, it brought a "non-ecclesial, antidogmatic, inward-looking theology" (74) and adopted an attitude of tolerance that "involved jettisoning of the question of truth" (82). The second influence shaping Bonhoeffer's response was his use of Luther's "two kingdom" thinking. Drawing on Luther's insights, America, because of its "enthusiastic spiritualism [schwärmerishe Spiritualismus]," had conflated the two kingdoms, collapsing the "church into the world" (112). What was needed was for the church to "simply continue being the church because the world will most certainly continue to be the world" (119). Like Luther, "Bonhoeffer wanted the church to invade the world with the gospel rather than keeping the Word to itself" (190). Looper places Bonhoeffer's reflections in the context of 1930s American theology, contrasting them with the theology of his professors at Union Seminary. For example, the author discusses Bonhoeffer's use of Luther to critique Reinhold Niebuhr, in whom Bonhoeffer found "the person and work of Jesus Christ is missing" (57). In addition, Looper examines the history of Abyssinian Baptist [End Page 106] Church and its roots in American slavery to show how Bonhoeffer's experiences there continued to shape both his involvement in the resistance (his concern for the plight of the Jews) and his later theology. While Bonhoeffer is likely to have missed something in American church life, is what he saw valid? Consider the "radical individualism" that has come to embody American identity; if it indeed has roots in the Lollard movement and its abandonment of the church as institution in favor of following one's own conscience, many would agree that "individualistic religiosity" in American Christianity misses "the point of the gospel" (195). When Bonhoeffer envisioned the church of the future in some of his final writings, it is a church shaped by the gospel and two kingdoms teaching, the very things absent in the American church. This work, which takes seriously Bonhoeffer's reading of the American theological tradition, is a welcome addition to the secondary work on Bonhoeffer's theology. In addition, because of the scope of Looper's analysis, this work should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about the impulses that shaped America's version of Christianity that continue to have an impact on public life in the twenty-first century. As a side note, readers of Lutheran Quarterly might find Looper's analysis of Bonhoeffer's use of Luther's two kingdoms thinking for framing his evaluation of American Christianity an added bonus. H. Gaylon Barker Molloy...

The Politicalvs. the Theological: The Scope of Secularity in Arendtian Forgiveness

ABSTRACTThe conventional interpretation of Hannah Arendt's accounts of forgiveness considers them secularistic. The secular features of her thinking that resist grounding the act of forgiving in divine criteria offer a good corrective to religious forgiveness that fosters depoliticization. Arendt's vision of free politics, however, calls for much more nuance and complexity regarding the secular and the religious in realizing forgiveness for transitional politics than the secularist rendition of her thinking allows. After identifying an area of ambiguity in Arendt's thoughts that invites further investigation of religious forgiveness, this study seeks to relieve her misgivings about religion's role in politics by engaging with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, which emphasizes worldliness and altruism in religious faith. Through constructive engagements with both thinkers, the article presents a balanced Arendtian position that is neither solely secularist nor complacent about religion in politics.

Theology in the Shadow of the Holocaust: Revisiting Bonhoeffer and the Jews

The scholarship on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews has focused on two questions: (1) To what extent did the persecution of the Jews drive Bonhoeffer's actions with respect to the Third Reich, and (2) Did Bonhoeffer's theology of Judaism and the Jewish people undergo a change as a result of the Nazi program of persecution and extermination? The work ranges from writers who reject the hagiography of a Bonhoeffer who for the sake of the Jews joined the resistance and paid the ultimate price, to those who argue that the persecution of the Jews was key in the development of Bonhoeffer's theology and his resistance to National Socialism. Bonhoeffer biographer Eberhard Bethge figured large in this second group; Bethge's work in this area coincided with his involvement in Christian post-Holocaust theology, an expression of the intensely philojudaic theology that emerged in the West following World War II. Driven by the desire to atone for millennia of anti-Jewish doctrine and action, post-Holocaust theology has exerted a strong influence on Bonhoeffer scholarship. The argument of this article is that the postwar focus on Christian anti-Judaism has led the church away from confronting the exceptionalism that persists in Christian identity and teaching. In its penitential zeal, the postwar project to renounce church anti-Judaism has instead replaced it with a Judeo-Christian triumphalism and a theological embrace of political Zionism that betray fundamental gospel principles. These run counter to the passionate opposition to the merger of hyper-nationalism and religion that informs Bonhoeffer's radical, humanistic Christology. Fashioning Bonhoeffer as a martyr for the Jews and as a forerunner of post-Holocaust theology does damage to the legacy of his theology and distorts the lessons of his life and witness. This carries implications for the role of the church in confronting the urgent issues of our time.

Book Review: Eleanor McLaughlin, Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ

Book Review: Eleanor McLaughlin, <i>Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ</i>

EleanorMcLaughlin, Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ. London: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020, 210 pp. $95.00/£73.00

EleanorMcLaughlin, Unconscious Christianity in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Late Theology: Encounters with the Unknown Christ. London: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020, 210 pp. $95.00/£73.00

Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer's Reception of Hegel by David S. Robinson

Reviewed by: Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer's Reception of Hegel by David S. Robinson Theodore J. Hopkins Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer's Reception of Hegel. By David S. Robinson. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. 260 pp. This book provides another entry in the growing scholarship on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's relationship to the Lutheran tradition. In this revision of his doctoral thesis finished at the University of Edinburgh under David Fergusson, Robinson contends that Bonhoeffer's engagement with Hegel was more complex than some suggest. Robinson shows that Bonhoeffer knew Hegel's thought well and used aspects of Hegel in a constructive fashion. More specifically, Robinson argues that Bonhoeffer is not Hegelian (230) but Bonhoeffer does freely incorporate certain elements of Hegel's thought into his own work even as the person of Jesus Christ and the external Word (sacramental and preached) form the center of Bonhoeffer's theology. The most promising chapters cover primarily Sanctorum Communio, Creation and Fall, and the 1933 Christology lectures. Robinson shows that Hegel was never far from Bonhoeffer's theological approach in these texts. Most importantly, Bonhoeffer modified Hegel's definition of the church from "God existing as church community" to "Christ existing as church community." For Robinson, Bonhoeffer travels with Hegel in refusing to set divine and human agency in opposition in the church, but Bonhoeffer's modification from God to Christ also signals his emphasis on the external Word that disrupts the inward curvature of the self in the state of sin and puts "the Word before Geist," to use Bonhoeffer's phrase (61). In this [End Page 108] way, Robinson shows how Bonhoeffer incorporates part of Hegel's understanding of objective Geist, refusing to think of God's actions separately from his work in the church. Bonhoeffer does so, however, in a Barthian mode, subordinating the church and its thinking to Christ the head, the community and its Geist to the Word of God preached. One of Robinson's most helpful contributions is his discussion of Bonhoeffer's use of Hegelian language, especially the English translations of aufheben and its cognates. The standard translation of the verb aufheben for Hegel scholars is "sublate," intending to convey a dual negative and positive sense in one word: such as negate/preserve, abolish/complete, overcome/redeem, or break/fulfill. In translations of Bonhoeffer, though, the technical terminology is rarely used; aufheben is rendered as suspend (61) or "supersede" (121) to avoid Hegelian undertones. Robinson, however, demonstrates that "Bonhoeffer does not merely demonise the Hegelian terms he encounters, naively thinking he can'break' with his predecessor" (85). Instead, Bonhoeffer knew Hegel's technical language from close reading of key texts and used Hegel's language intentionally. In fact, Bonhoeffer explicitly names the double sense of the word aufheben as his intent in at least one place: the law is sublated by the gospel, both "broken and fulfilled" (87). Thus, Robinson argues that "Bonhoeffer's use of the verb aufheben [in the Christology lectures] should more clearly indicate such double or triple sense—abolition, preservation, elevation. . . . Such a translation must, of course, acknowledge his post-Hegelian recoveries, particularly his insistence on the Christ who freely disrupts the human Logos" (121). Considering how often Bonhoeffer uses aufheben and its cognates, Robinson's contribution on this point is an essential one for English readers to understand Bonhoeffer's theology. Although Robinson offers much, he is occasionally overeager to find similarities between Hegel and Bonhoeffer. Robinson never equates similarity with genealogy, nor does he lack nuance, but a few suggestions do not offer enough evidence to convince one that Bonhoeffer was indeed pulling from Hegel. Since both lie in the Lutheran tradition, Bonhoeffer could have been thinking with Luther or within Lutheran forms of thought learned from [End Page 109] Karl Holl, Reinhold Seeberg, or the Lutheran Confessions. Despite this criticism, Robinson's work helpfully illustrates just how close Hegel was to Bonhoeffer's thinking. Not only does Robinson show how Bonhoeffer drew from Hegel in his definition of the church and use of technical language, but Robinson also explores Bonhoeffer's Christological logic and its similarity to Hegel that structured Bonhoeffer's approach to seeing...

Bonhoeffer's Theology of the Cross: The Influence of Luther in "Act and Being" by Josh de Keijzer

Reviewed by: Bonhoeffer's Theology of the Cross: The Influence of Luther in "Act and Being" by Josh de Keijzer Chester O'Gorman Bonhoeffer's Theology of the Cross: The Influence of Luther in "Act and Being." By Josh de Keijzer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. 185 pp. Dutch theologian Josh de Keijzer (PhD Luther Seminary, 2017) argues that Luther's posthumously dubbed theologia crucis (theology of the cross), or key features of it, enables Bonhoeffer to resolve an important theological problem: that pertaining to act and being. That resolution, in turn, leads Bonhoeffer to a refashioned interpretation of Luther's theologia crucis for the twentieth century. De Keijzer focuses on Bonhoeffer's Habilitationsschrift "Act and Being" (1931). In Bonhoeffer's terminology, "act" is a reference to theological approaches that accent God's transcendence. These approaches preserve transcendence, but render problematic God's presence in a concrete, meaningful sense. Bonhoeffer uses the term, "being," in reference to theological interpretations that stress God's presence or immanence. In so doing, they risk domesticating God; that is to say, they eliminate God's transcendence and make God part of the world. In either case, if in opposite ways, they eliminate the possibility of God's grace. That elimination reinforces the present form of existence of the self and community. Bonhoeffer, of course, wants to have his cake and eat it too. A key feature of the theologia crucis is God's presence as Jesus Christ. Christians become part of Christ in Word and sacrament and together as a community. God is thereby made present in and as this community of faith. However, that presence risks domestication. Bonhoeffer, de Keijzer argues, avoids this problem through an interpretation of faith that borrows ideas from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Dasein, the key idea from Heidegger, refers to the unique kind of being of humans. With this concept, according to de Keijzer, [End Page 480] Heidegger maintains an insurmountable gap between being and what humans can know of that being. This gap is not transcendent, however; it is existential. Dasein is an ongoing project that comes to knowledge of itself only through engagement with its world, that is, in relation to a particular time and place with other human beings. Since this process is never-ending, this gap can never be closed. Bonhoeffer transposes this idea of Dasein to Christians in their community. In analogy to Dasein, Christians come to understand themselves in relation to the world they live in, foremost through Christ and the community of Christ. Since this community is an ongoing project that comes to understand its existence or being through its activity, it can never become closed or domesticated. In Bonhoeffers Kritik der verkrümmten Vernunft: Eine erkenntnistheoretische Untersuchung in Beiträge zur historischen Theologie (Tübingen, 1999), Christiane Tietz-Steiding argues that Bonhoeffer's appropriation of Heidegger amounts to a misunderstanding and misapplication. De Keijzer suggests otherwise. I leave it to the Heidegger and Bonhoeffer scholars to settle the matter. Assuming that Bonhoeffer has formally succeeded in bringing together the transcendence and immanence of God, a number of questions remain that the theologian who follows Bonhoeffer must address if that success is to be considered a substantive one. I will offer one. If Dasein is open in an existential or immanent way, does not that render God superfluous? If "act" approaches are important because God's transcendence prevents both self and community from closing themselves off from the other or otherness, then Dasein no longer requires God or the transcendent. Bonhoeffer demonstrates some awareness of this challenge, but does not seem to address it. Perhaps this apparent superfluity of God is a seed that blossoms into the religionless Christianity of the later Bonhoeffer? I offer one criticism that intends to be both constructive and sympathetic. De Keijzer's book, at times, presents terms and ideas whose precise meanings are not always clear. Thus, their contribution to his argument can be a little obscure. That gripe aside, I find de Keijzer's elaboration of Bonhoeffer's objective both compelling and inspiring for future research that seeks to understand the complex relationship among Bonhoeffer, Luther, and Heidegger. I [End Page 481] should...

Michael P.De Jonge: Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth and Protestant Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; pp. xiv + 158.

Journal of Religious HistoryVolume 40, Issue 4 p. 620-621 BOOK REVIEW Michael P. De Jonge: Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth and Protestant Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; pp. xiv + 158. John A. Moses, John A. Moses St Mark's National Theological CentreSearch for more papers by this author John A. Moses, John A. Moses St Mark's National Theological CentreSearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 December 2016 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12393Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume40, Issue4December 2016Pages 620-621 RelatedInformation

“The House of Your Church Is Burning”: Race and Responsibility in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead

This article examines Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead in dialogue with her speculative reflection upon Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology to read the novel as a radically ambivalent text which exposes an aporia at the core of the Reverend Ames's Christian ethics. This ambivalence appears in the way that Ames's version of his own family history works assiduously to expiate the perceived violence done to ethics by his grandfather's support for abolitionist violence while remaining haunted by the thought that in the unforgiving context of Bleeding Kansas simply to insist upon an absolute distinction between violence on the one hand and ethics and law on the other may be irreconcilable with the workings of good faith and the ends of justice. Reinterpreting Ames's narrative in the light of Jacques Derrida's reflection on the paradoxical structure of ethical responsibility, the article argues that the violence done to Ames's ethical reflection by the memory of the grandfather, John Brown, and the excluded black body reveals the agonistic location of the ethics of abolitionist history between two kinds of violence on the uncertain border between justice and law which defines the ground of every genuinely ethical decision.

The Calling of the Wild: Christian Tradition and Wilderness

Pervasive users of modern technologies express some unease about their technologically mediated being in the world. This anxiety has encouraged greater relation to the natural world, but given a Western obsession with mastery and domination, alternative ways of being in the world remain scarce. In the face of Western cultures which both fear nature and seek mastery over nature, Christian traditions can provide alternative voices which can recast the role of nature, indirectly celebrating a ‘rural’ way of life which works alongside nature without nostalgia. While Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides several points of departure for a consideration of Christian dependence on the natural world, the biblical text itself highlights the potential of the wilderness for divine encounter. The desert mothers and fathers offer a third voice celebrating the rural life for its escape from distractions in the urban and secular ‘world’. These voices understand nature's existence as co-creation alongside human beings while remaining painfully aware of its persistent threat. Human beings should neither idealise wilderness nor seek to master it; human life in proximity to wilderness should be appreciated as a unique space for encounter with God.

Christ Existing in Ordinary: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sanctification

One task of any doctrine of sanctification is to attend to a theological rationale for the significance of a habitual and developing Christian life within a broader salvific economy. This article introduces the problem of claiming ‘ordinary’ life as the arena and instrument of God and distils three elements of Bonhoeffer's early theology that might be employed to articulate a theology of sanctification as the counterpoint of justification: the realization of a new humanity in Christ that constitutes an ontology of justification; Christian devotion as the act of this new humanity in the Spirit; and the dynamic integrity accorded to historical existence.

The View from Way Below: Inter‐Species Encounter, Membranes, and the Reality of Christ

AbstractViewing modern life from the perspective and world of those whose lives are treated as expendable commodities in our current economic systems—humans and creatures of every other species—creates, Bonhoeffer asserts, the most reliable hermeneutical standpoint for seeing and living in reality. This essay attempts to fashion in broad strokes a Christian theology of creaturely re‐engagement: learning to live again “way below,” in literal and metaphoric touch with reality. I assert that Bonhoeffer's theology of I/Thou encounter as the means of humans’ ethical formation has the potential to ground a broader theology of inter‐species encounter as well.

Who Am I? Bonhoeffer's Theology through His Poetry. Edited by BerndWannenwetsch. London, T&amp;T Clark, 2009, $70.00.

Who Am I? Bonhoeffer's Theology through His Poetry. Edited by BerndWannenwetsch. London, T&amp;T Clark, 2009, $70.00.

Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth, &amp; Protestant Theology. By Michael P. DeJonge.

With Bonhoeffer’s Theological Formation (2012), Michael P. DeJonge has offered an insightful and exciting study focussed on Bonhoeffer’s second dissertation in view of Systematic Theology in historical perspective. The clarity and precision with which DeJonge engages in his theological argument is matched by a keen awareness that any systematic claim has to ground itself in a clear understanding of its historical situation and critical reflection of its methodology. Thus we do not only find here a critical analysis of the reception of Bonhoeffer’s early work in Act and Being (orig. 1929–30), but we are given a rigorous overview of the historical, philosophical, and confessional implications of Bonhoeffer’s thought. Bonhoeffer’s academic development is considered in relation to his engagement with Luther and his contemporaries’ pseudo-Lutheran polemics, as well as his teacher Karl Holl and the Reformed theology of Karl Barth. In so doing, Michael DeJonge identifies crucial differences but also structural similarities between the philosophical concerns of hermeneutics and Bonhoeffer’s negotiation between act-theologies and being-theologies in the theological context of the general problem of transcendence. DeJonge interprets Bonhoeffer’s proposal of rereading Lutheran Christology as a hermeneutics of the person as a distinct alternative to the theological positions of his mentors in Berlin. What DeJonge’s philosophical contextualization of Bonhoeffer shows is that dualistic thinking in its formal distinction between act and being necessarily misrepresents or neglects the ethical context, crucial for a historically relevant and accurate understanding of transcendence in Systematic Theology, from which our relationship with the divine emerges: ‘For this reason, Bonhoeffer finds it necessary to understand person as the unity of act and being, as the unity of willed encounter and historical continuity’ (p. 73).

Con-formed to Christ: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christian Formation

This essay offers an overview of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's distinct theology of conformation in Christ. His work is unique both in form and content. Formally, Bonhoeffer, as a systematic theologian, emphasizes doctrinal relationships as well as biblical exegesis. This leads him to develop a distinct content of Christian formation. This essay investigates how he works and the specific benefits of an exhaustive theological accounting of formation in Christ. To do this, this essay investigates Bonhoeffer's “upstream” theological commitments, beginning with anthropology, in order to illumine his distinct starting position. These are then put into conversation with doctrines of sanctification and holiness to draw attention to their import for Christian formation. It will then review Bonhoeffer's unique understanding of conformation in Christ and what it means for Christ to take form among the community. All of this will be done in order to place him in conversation with more dominant models of formation and look forward to how his theology might push the current dialogue further.

Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth, and Protestant Theology. By MICHAEL P. DEJONGE

This book offers us a brief but dense study of Bonhoeffer’s Habilitation thesis, Act and Being. DeJonge argues that it differs interestingly from Barth, that it follows a classic Lutheran line, and that it has more significance for understanding Bonhoeffer’s later work than has usually been allowed. Bonhoeffer classifies understandings of revelation as focused either on act or on being. Act, we are told, means discontinuous, contingent, and structurally open; being means continuous and structurally closed. Bonhoeffer engaged with Scheler and Heidegger, but he argues that all philosophy tends to orient itself around the self. His real interest was in Barth, the really exciting object in the theological firmament at this time. Barth committed himself to an act ontology very early on. It allowed him to emphasize the livingness of God, to get away from any notion of abstract deity, and it meant thinking of God as acting subject. In this way he could put clear blue water between himself and liberal Protestantism, which, in his view, had a fatal tendency to talk about faith, and thus the human being, rather than God. But, in his mischievous way, he also thought Lutheranism ran into a ‘Jesus Christ pit’. Feuerbach had simply spelled out where Lutheran theology leads, namely to a reversal of the divine–human relationship. For him the truth of the incarnation is that human beings are what we mean by ‘God’. To avoid that it was essential to make dogmatics Trinitarian. What this means for Christology is that it is possible to insist on the eternal difference between God and creature, and also to emphasize that the incarnation is the dynamic act of God on behalf of the whole threatened creation.