A preface to a JLE portfolio on the life, theology and
ethical constructs of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
[1] For the last two years running the semester's start brought a
knot of students to my door demanding a special reading course on
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Interest sparked by the week-long courses
offered each January by the Rev. Dr. Mark Brocker, these students
wanted more. They were willing to add this courses to an already
full load of academic work. Their commitment and enthusiasm
educated me -- and raised a question: Why this current fascination
with Bonhoeffer? Let me suggest three reason why Bonhoeffer and why
now..
[2] First, the Bonhoeffer corpus in its entirety is being
translated into English. The German press Christian Kaiser Verlag
marked what would have been Bonhoeffer's eightieth birthday by
issuing a definitive edition of the collected works. A team under
the leadership of Wayne Whitson Floyd, Jr. and Clifford J. Green
oversees the English translation. Fortress Press handles production
and publication, and the series includes material that has not
previously appeared in English. Two members of the translation
team, Dr. Brocker and Rev. Dr. Lisa Dahill write in this issue. In
addition, Cambridge University Press has just released The
Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer1. These ventures spur
fresh interest in a pivotal twentieth century theologian. More
importantly, they invite readers to take Bonhoeffer seriously on
his own terms.
[3] Accordingly, a second reason for the resurgence of interest in
Bonhoeffer is that people are simply ready to read him on his own
terms, rather than recruit him for their own projects. Bonhoeffer
has been a kind of cipher for the present, whatever "present" one
inhabits. Prolific though he was, he died too young to systematize
his own writings, clarify any ambiguities, argue continuities that
might not be readily apparent, and refine ideas that may have been
rough in their initial expression. Others have done so in his
absence, often extending his ideas beyond what might have been the
author's intent. Theologians have read one work out of the context
of the whole or weighted a single text or idea with undue
import.
[4] The result is the Bifurcated Bonhoeffer, whose work is labeled
simultaneously both "secularist" and "sectarian." On one hand,
theologians find their pole-star in Letters and Papers from
Prison2 and
read everything else through that lens. Paul Van Buren, William
Hamilton, and other "death of God" theologians from the last
century rode Bonhoeffer's notion of a "religionless Christianity"
to their own destinations. Their use of Bonhoeffer's theology led
others to dismiss his work as one of the "theologies of
secularization," a charge that stuck.3 On the other hand, other
theologians find Bonhoeffer's center of gravity in
Discipleship, the newly translated version of The
Cost of Discipleship4. They read the
excoriation of "cheap grace" and conclude that secularization is
precisely what Bonhoeffer protests. Larry Rasmussen, L. Gregory
Jones, David Ford, and Miroslav Volf train Bonhoeffer's costly
discipleship on a vision of Christian community that is
counter-cultural, highly ecclesial, and tightly
disciplined.5
[5] What gives? It seems that Bonhoeffer reads differently
depending on where you start, Discipleship and Life Together or
Letters and Papers from Prison. The new German edition and its
English translations will invite people to read Bonhoeffer more
holistically and find his writing, if not a seamless garment, at
least as a work in full.
[6] Finally, as that process of reading begins, people will find
that Bonhoeffer has a great deal to say to Christian communities in
these times. There is a heightened interest in spirituality, as
burgeoning offerings in any Barnes & Noble attest. At the same
time mainline churches decline in both numbers and income. Seekers
who claim to be "spiritual, but not religious" as well as those in
tired mainstream denominations alike could learn a lot from
Bonhoeffer. He challenges seekers to "seek first the Kingdom of
God" in a community of believers, discarding the smug righteousness
of a virtuosi spirituality. He invites mainstream Christians to
"meet Jesus again for the first time" and listen to his message of
uncompromising grace.
[7] I think the Bonhoeffer of Discipleship and Letters and Papers
come together in his notion of spiritual practices. An ethic of
command drives the first part of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer derives
it from the synoptics, and it's hard, harsh, and uncompromising.
But the second part of the book describes an ethic of formation for
the communities that Jesus left behind. The ethic of formation
draws on Paul, and there the marks of the church emerge, these key
practices that will sustain Christians in the presence of the
Spirit of the risen Christ: forgiveness, baptism, the Lord's
Supper, reading scripture, worship, prayer, etc. These same
practices sustain Bonhoeffer as he writes from prison. The daily
diet of Scripture from the Losungen is his lifeblood, and there he
hears the word of God as it is spoken "for me." He painfully learns
the truth of what he told his seminarians at Finkenwalde, that the
"Christian cannot simply take for granted the privilege of living
among other Christians.6" Finally, his letters to
Eberhard Bethge demonstrate the rich blessing of the practice of
forgiveness, as he struggles with doubt and gathering despair: "In
the presence of a psychologist I can only be sick; in the presence
of another Christian I can be a sinner....The psychologist views me
as if there were no God. Another believer views me as I am before
the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus
Christ.7" What
a gift Bethge and his letters were to Bonhoeffer in prison! And
what a gift Bonhoeffer and his work is to us in this new
millennium.
© August
2003
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 3, Issue 8
1 John W. de Gruchy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1999).
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison ed.
Eberbard Bethge (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,
1971).
3 See for example, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson
(eds.), A Map of Twentieth Century Theology: Readings from Karl
Barth to Radical Pluralism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, tr. Barbara Green and
Reinhard Krauss (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).
5 Cf. David Ford, Self and Salvation: Being Transformed
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); L. Gregory Jones
Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995); Stephen Fowl and L. Gregory
Jones, Reading in Communion (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1991); Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace:
A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and
Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996); Larry Rasmussen
with Renate Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- His Significance for
North Americans (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).
6 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together/Prayerbook of the
Bible: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 5, Daniel W. Bloesch and
James H. Burtness (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), p. 27.
7 Ibid., p. 117.