John (TRN) Bowden

Vividly and concisely written, critical as well as appreciative, and containing material never before published in English, this new biography paints a memorable portrait of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian hanged by the Nazis in 1945. Portraying the complexity of Bonhoeffer's personality and the difficult, lonely course his life took, Wind especially brings out Bonhoeffer's early realization of the horror of Nazi treatment of the Jews, and despite misunderstanding by fellow church members, his brave involvement in the resistance against Hitler, his resolve to become "a spoke in the wheel."

In the tradition of Karl Rahner and Teilhard de Chardin, this book from renowned New Testament scholar Gerd Theissen daringly probes the innermost sanctuaries of the biblical tradition through the lens of evolutionary theory. Without associating evolution with a na?ve optimism about progress, Theissen shows how a thorough examination of the "cultural evolution" of the Christian faith can yield glimmers of a possible goal of history: "complete adaptation to the reality of God."