Clifford J. Green

In the early twenty-first century, interest in the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasing significantly. In this environment, how should we understand and interpret Bonhoeffer? Interpreting Bonhoeffer explores the many questions surrounding the complexities of Bonhoeffer's life, work, and historical context and what they might mean for how we understand and interpret Bonhoeffer now and in the future.

Ethics is the culmination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological and personal odyssey and one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century. Using the acclaimed DBWE translation, adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features an insightful introduction by Clifford Green and supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett. Written in the midst of the conspiracy to overthrow the Hitler regime, it is nonetheless chiefly concerned with ethics for the postwar time of reconstruction and peace. Though caught up in the vortex of momentous forces in the Nazi period, Bonhoeffer systematically envisioned a radically Christocentric, incarnational ethic for a postwar world, purposefully recasting Christians' relation to history, politics, and public life. Focused on Christ, the God who became human, and the vision of a world reconciled with God, Ethics shuns abstraction, seeks the will of God in concrete historical reality, and calls the church to be a transforming community in the world with a new responsibility to public life. This edition allows all readers to appreciate the cogency and relevance of Bonhoeffer's vision.

Writing fiction, letters to his family, fiance, and friends and contending with his interrogator occupied Bonhoeffer during his first year in Tegel Prison. Of the incomplete drama, the novel fragment, and the short story, Bonhoeffer admitted to his friend and later biographer, Eberhard Bethge, "There is a good deal of autobiography mixed with it." This book discloses a great deal of Bonhoeffer's family context, social world, and cultural milieu. Events from his life are recounted in a way that embodies and illuminates his theology. Characters and situations that represent Nazi types and attitudes are a form of social criticism and help to explain Bonhoeffer's participation in the resistance movement and the plot to kill Adolf Hitler, for which he was hanged. This important volume, now in paperback, is complete and authoritative and contains much material not found in the previous edition. The German edition of this volume was edited by Bonhoeffer's niece, Renate Bethgewho brings personal knowledge of the Bonhoeffer family to her observationsand Ilse Tdt, who contributed much of the commentary. The English edition is edited by Clifford Green, who also edited the earlier version of the book, titled Fiction from Prison.

The period 1928 to 1931, whichfollowed completion of his dissertation, was formative for Bonhoeffer's personaland pastoral and theological direction. Almost all of these nine hundred pagesof writings appear in English herefor the first time. They document theintense four-year period that includedpreparation of his postdoctoral thesis;a vicarage in Barcelona; occasionallectures; his postdoctoral academicyear at Union Theological Seminary;travel around the United States, Cuba, and Mexico; and his re-entry into theGerman academic and ecclesial scene.

The first of the chronological volumes in this acclaimed critical edition of Bonhoeffer's work gathers his one hundred earliest letters and journals from after the First World War through his graduation from Berlin University. It also contains his early theological writings up to his dissertation. These seventeen works include, for example, works on the patristic period for Adolf von Harnack, on Luther's moods for Karl Holl, on biblical interpretation for Professor Reinhold Seeberg, as well as essays on the church and eschatology, reason and revelation, Job, John, and even joy. Rounding out this picture of Bonhoeffer's nascent theology are his sermons from the period, along with his lectures on homiletics, catechesis, and practical theology. In translation for the first time, these writings show Bonhoeffer as pastor and theologian alert to his times and developing the formative themes of his religious worldview.

Sanctorum Communio was Bonhoeffer's dissertation, completed in 1927 and first published in 1930. In it he attempts to work out a theology of the person in society, and then, particularly, in the church. Along with enlightening us about his early positions on sin, evil, solidarity, collective spirit, and collective guilt, the volume unfolds a systematic theology of the Spirit at work in the church and what this implies for questions of authority, freedom, ritual, and eschatology. Here is offered the complete text in translation, annotated by the German and American editors. The historical context is explained and textual commentary is provided in a Foreword and Afterword.