Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany on February 4th, 1906. The centennial remembrance of his birthday sparked a publishing frenzy which has filled the bookstores with many new studies on his life and ministry. I don't know what your impression of Bonhoeffer is (I'd be interested to know), but it has become apparent to me that his life and writings have greatly impacted Christianity over the past half-century.Bonhoeffer was reared and educated in the midst of a post-enlightenment, liberal, Christian era. He decided to study theology at the age of fourteen. He pursued his studies at Tübingen University an later at Berlin University. At Berlin Bonhoeffer studied under Adolf von Harnack. Although Bonhoeffer deviated from Harnack's liberalism, he continued to admire his teacher. He also grew to appreciate the theology of Karl Barth which influenced much of his work.
Bonhoeffer is known for his leadership in the German Resistance movement during the Second World war, his work as a leader and teacher in the Confessing Church, for his arrest and imprisonment for treason, and for his subsequent death (murder/martyrdom) at the hands of the S.S. Black Guards. Here is a timeline of some of the key events in his life:
- 1923 began theological studies at Tübingen University
- 1924 continued his studies at Berlin University
- 1927 completed his doctoral dissertation entitled Sanctorum Communio
- 1930 went to Union Theological Seminary in New York to some postdoctoral studies
- 1931 returned to Berlin and completed his habilitation thesis entitled Act and Being
- 1933 Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany
- 1933 frustrated with the response of the churches to Nazi socialism, he moves to London and becomes the pastor of two German-speaking churches
- 1934 founding of the Confessing Church in Barmen
- 1934 production of the Barmen Declaration
- 1935 returned to Germany at the request of the Confessing Church
- 1937 wrote The Cost of Discipleship
- 1939 wrote Life Together
- 1939 left Germany for America in the face of the impending war
- 1939 only weeks later he writes to his friend Niebuhr, "I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people"
- 5 April 1943 arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Tegel prison near Berlin
- 9 April 1945 a hasty trial was conducted, Bonhoeffer was convicted of high treason and hanged
Primary Works
- Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. E. Bethge, London: SCM, 1986 (1953)
- Life Together, London: Collins, 1954 | HarperOne, 1978 | combined with Prayerbook, Fortress, 2004
- The Cost of Discipleship, London: SCM, 1948 | New York: Macmillan, 1959 | 2nd ed., revised, 1960 | Touchstone, 1995 | Fortress, 2003
- Creation and Fall; Temptation, Translated by John C. Fletcher & Kathleen Downham, New York: Macmillan, 1959 | Fortress, 2007
- Act and Being, Translated by Bernard Noble, New York: Harper & Row, 1962 | Fortress, 1996
- Sanctorum Communio, London: Collins, 1965 | The Communion of the Saints, Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, et al., New York: Harper & Row, 1963 | Fortress, 1998
- No Rusty Swords, London: Collins, 1965
- Christology, London: Collins, 1966 | Christ the Center, Translated by John Bowden, New York: Harper & Row, (1960) 1978
- The Way to Freedom, London: Collins, 1966
- Ethics, London: Collins, 1968 | Fortress, 2004
- Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, new ed. Fortress, 1974
- Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Man for his Times: A Biography, Rev ed. Fortress, 2000
- Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Brief Life, Fortress, 2004
- E. Bethge knew him best. There are other biographies, but Bethge's are regarded as the best.
- John W. De Gruchy, Daring, Trusting Spirit: Bonhoeffer's Friend Eberhard Bethge, Fortress, 2005
Further Reading
- Sabine Dramm, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Introduction to his Thought, Hendrickson, 2007
- C. Marsh, Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer: the promise of his theology, Oxford: OUP, 1994
- John De Gruchy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cambridge: CUP, 1999
- John De Gruchy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ, London: Collins, 1988
- Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer, Exile and Martyr, London: SCM, 1975
- for more secondary reading visit this page
- Ron Klug (ed.), 40-day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fortress, 2007
- Includes discussion questions. This would make for a very nice small-group study. Includes selections mostly from The Cost of Discipleship along with a psalm selection, a NT selection, and discussion questions.
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