Number 104 Fall 2012

Inside This Issue* * * * * * *

Society News President’s Message Note to Members Annual Meeting Annual Dinner

Report on Sigtuna Bonhoeffer Congress

THE POLITICAL IN THE THEOLOGY OF BONHOEFFER

XI INTERNATIONAL BONHOEFFER CONGRESSKeith Clements

Sigtuna, Sweden, was the venue for the XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress 27 June – 1 July 2012. The 140 participants came not only from Europe and North America but from as far afield as Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, drawn by the overall theme A Spoke in the Wheel: Reconsidering the Political in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Sigtuna, the small, picturesque lakeside town situated between Sweden’s capital Stockholm and its most historic cathedral city Uppsala, lays claim to having the country’s oldest surviving street, Stora Gatan. For the Congress participants, however, one house in Stora Gatan was invested with particular historic interest, for it was there that late one night in May 1942 Dietrich Bonhoeffer had his clandestine meeting with his English ecumenical friend Bishop George Bell, giving him the fullest possible details of the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler. Bell was to pass these details on to the British for-eign office in the hope of securing allied support for a coup and a new,

non-Nazi German government. It was perhaps the most significant, daring and fateful point in Bon-

Uppsala University Singing Group House where Bonhoeffer met George Bell in May 1942

John Matthews (Minneapolis) recognizing Bishop Martin Lind (Sweden)

Continued on Page 10Reports Sigtuna Conference Brazil Section

Newsletter Archives

Book ReviewNew BooksFilm

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President’s Message

Ridgefield, Connecticut

Fall Greetings,

As I write this, the fall colors of New England are beginning to break out in a display that reminds us to marvel at God’s good creation. This change in the season is also a stark reminder that for most of us, our busy schedules have returned; yet, hopefully all of you were able to find extra time to spend with family and in recreation these past few months.

The highlight of the summer was the XI International Bonhoeffer Congress held in Sigtuna, Sweden. Participants gathered around the theme, “A Spoke in the Wheel: Reconsidering the The Political in Bonhoeffer’s Theology.” In papers that explored the many dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s theology that led him to become engaged in the political struggles of his day, we are able to see the ongoing relevance of Bonhoeffer’s witness in the church today. The intellectual exploration, the conversation, and the fellowship were all enriched by the hospitality of our hosts, the beauty of the setting, and the historical connection to Bonhoeffer’s own visit to Sigtuna in 1942. All in all, the wonderful program that concluded with worship at the Uppsala cathedral, with participants from many continents, is a sign of the global reach of Bonhoeffer’s legacy, which is remembered and lived out in many very different contexts. This is something to be celebrated.

In this issue of the Newsletter, however, we also want to draw your attention to other activities of the Society, in particular, our annual meeting that will be held in Chicago, November 17-20, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature. It will offer the opportunity to participate in the program sessions, as well as opportunities for more informal gatherings and fellowship. Members of the society may find the annual dinner particularly enjoyable. The dinner will held on Saturday, November 17, 6:30-9:00 PM at North Park Covenant Church. We are thankful that Alice Bond, a regular participant in our annual gatherings, has agreed to plan the dinner for us (additional information is available on page 19 of this Newsletter, as is other information pertinent to the annual meeting). We encourage you to make your reservations in advance, which will help Alice to make sure the arrangements are adequate and in order. (Please note that the IBS Board of Directors and the DBWE Editorial Board will hold meetings on Friday, November 16).

We hope you can join us. As we continue to explore the richness of Bonhoeffer’s witness, we also ask for your continued support.

Blessings,

H. Gaylon BarkerPresident

INTERNATIONAL BONHOEFFER SOCIETYENGLISH LANGUAGE SECTION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2012

Officers: H. Gaylon Barker (President) Ridgefield CT; Stephen Plant (Vice-President) Cambridge UK; Lori Brandt Hale (Secretary) Maplewood MN; and Mark Randall (Treasurer) Vancouver WA

Board of Directors: Mark Brocker, Beaverton OR; Michael DeJonge, Tampa FL; Peter Frick, Waterloo, Ontario; Stephen Haynes, Memphis TN; Jenny McBride, Waverly IA; Anna Mercedes, Collegeville MN; Jeff Pugh, Elon NC ; and Jens Zimmerman, Langley British Columbia.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works - English Edition: Victoria Barnett (General Editor)(Washington D.C.), Clifford Green (Executive Director)(Boston MA)

Editorial Advisory Board: Lori Brandt Hale (Maplewood MN); John Matthews (Chair) (Apple Valley MN); and Clifford Green (Boston MA)

Newsletter Editor: Dean S. Skelley (San Antonio TX)

Emeriti Board Members: Jim Burtness+, Keith Clements, John Godsey+, Clifford Green, Daniel Har-dy+, Pat Kelley, Geffrey Kelly, Michael Lukens, John Matthews, Burton Nelson+, Bill Peck, Larry Rasmus-sen, Deotis Roberts, Martin Rumscheidt, Charles Sensel, Charles West and Ruth Zerner

Future Bonhoeffer Meeting Dates and Sites November 17-20 2012 Chicago, Illinois November 23-26 2013 Baltimore, Maryland November 22-25 2014 San Diego, California November 21-24 2015 Atlanta, Georgia November 19-22 2016 San Antonio, Texas November 18-21 2017 Boston, Massachusetts

Note to Society MembersPlease send changes/updates of mailing addresses and e-mail adresses to:

Rev. Mark Randall, Salmon Creek United Methodist Church, 12217 NE Highway 99, Vancouver WA 98686-3216 or to: mark.randall@salmoncreekchurch.org

Please notify the Editor (dskelley@satx.rr.com) if you prefer receiving the Newsletter by e-mail in a PDF format.

Request for Nominations

Each year three members must be elected to the Board of Directors of the International Bonhoeffer Society - English Language Section. In order to prepare a slate of nominees for the election at the upcoming meeting of the society in Chicago, November 17, the Nominating Committee is requesting names of candidates. If anyone knows of a society member who should be considered for election to the board, submit their name, along with their stated willingness to serve to: John W. Matthews (chair of the committee) (jwmatt@aol.com). Nominations from the floor will also be accepted at the time of the annual meeting.

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Special ReportPortuguese Language Section (Brazil) Celebrates Ten Years

The Brazilian Section of the International Bonhoeffer Society has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. This section was founded in 2002, three years after initial activities by its leader, Pastor Luís Cumaru, now Presidente – Sociedade Internacional Bonhoeffer/Seção- Lingua Portuguesa-Brasil.

In 1999, after having participated in the meeting of the English Language Section of the International Bonhoeffer Society held in Boston, Pastor Luís, who has been a member of the IBS-ELS since 1996, organized informal meetings to discuss and review Bonhoeffer’s legacy. During these initial meetings, the group reflected on Bonhoeffer’s book Discipulado (Discipleship). Pastor Luis then participated in the Eighth International Bonhoeffer Congress held in Berlin in 2000. Initial contacts who were helpful in establishing the Brazilian section included Sabine Dramm (German section), Fritz De Lang (Dutch section) and a Spanish researcher José Alemany (Madrid). At the end of 2000, Luís Cumaru sponsored the showing of the documentary Bonhoeffer: A Life of Challenge at the Pastors School Theological Seminary and also at a meeting of pastors at Bethany Presbyterian Church, both in Niterói. At the request of John Matthews, Pastor Luís provided an essay The Importance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Legacy for the Church in Brazil which appeared in an issue of this Newsletter (No. 76, June 2001). In November of that year Luís Cumaru participated in the meeting of the IBS-ELS in Denver.

In April 2002, the Brazilian section released their first home page on the internet and published their first newsletter in both printed and electronic versions. This newsletter served as a testimonial to Marianne Mellentin, who was a contemporary of Bonhoeffer. Frau Mellenthin was the Professor of Bonhoeffer’s godson, Dietrich Bethge (Eberhard & Renate Bethge’s son) who lives in London. The newsletter also reported on the death of Rev. Ernst Bernhoeft, a German of Jewish descent, who emigrated to Brazil in 1971. He had translated Letters and Papers from Prison into Portuguese and also published a short biography of Bonhoeffer under the title No Caminho para a Liberdade (In the Way to Freedom). In the preface of Letters and Papers (published 1968) he wrote: “To this man whose work now I propagate to whom I owe the courage to venture myself to translate it.” His widow, Mrs. Carmen Bernhoeft, was one of the first persons to join the IBS-Brazilian section.

The Portuguese section of the IBS was officially founded in August 2002, and was recognized by the Bonhoeffer society with a congratulatory note from Enno Obendiek, secretary of the International Bonhoeffer Society. The German section acknowledged the first board of directors: Luís Cumaru (president), Joel Macedo (theologian/psych- ologist) as Vice-President and Fatima Almeida (psychologist) as secretary. This section had onhoeffer.Attending the Prague Congress in 2008

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The Brazilian section meeting in 2010

as its purpose to reach the various Portuguese-speaking, countries, Portuguese being the fifth most spoken language in the world (including the former Portuguese colonies in Africa). In November of that year, Luís Cumaru attended the annual meeting of the IBS-ELS in Toronto.

In 2003, the section screened the docu-mentary A Saint Who Conspired and the film Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace which was released in Brazil byCOMEV productions. In the August issue of the newsletter, Joel Macedo published an essay Bonhoef-fer: O Bom Pastor (Bonhoeffer: The Good Shepherd) and the issue also featured a translation of Memo-ries by Gerhard Leibholz. Pastor Cumaru also participated in a radio station debate about the rights of persons with physical disabilities and spoke of Bonhoeffer’s theology (his doctrine of natural life, the suffering of God in Christ, the weakness of God in conformation with an incarnate, crucified and the risen one, according to a theology of the prison letters and his Ethics, and the theology of incarnation against the Nazi ideal of the Aryan type). He also spoke of his own experience as one of the victims of thalidomide. Cumaru delivered an address to the Theological Seminary School of Pastors on the sub-ject of Herança e Decadȇncia na Ética de Bonhoeffer (Heritage and Decay in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics). Luís was also interviewed by Revista Enfoque Gospel (Focus Gospel Magazine).In 2004 Luís Cumaru participated in the Ninth Bonhoeffer Congress held in Rome and in 2005 the section viewed Martin Doblemeier’s film Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resister. In the same year Cumaru discussed Bonhoeffer in a 15 minute interview on the Senate TV, a state-run Brazilian TV.

Cumaru participated in the 2006 Congress Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s birth, an event occurring in Wroclaw. He also celebrated Bonhoeffer’s birthday held in the Barão de Taquara Baptist Church, Rio de Janeiro, during which Aleksander Laks, a survivor from the Auschwitz concentration camp and at this time President of Association of Israel Survivors from Nazi Persecution Sherit Hapleitá participated. Laks’ father died in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. In the same year the Brazilian section viewed the film Hanged on a Twisted Cross – The Life of Convictions and Martyrdom of D. Bonhoeffer. In 2007, Prof. Luciana Soares Ramos presented her master’s thesis: A Recepção da Teologia de D Bonhoeffer na América Latina (The Reception of Bonhoeffer’s Theology in Latin America) (awarded by Metodist University, São Paulo) at the annual meeting of the society.

In 2008, Alberico Baeske (a retired Lutheran pastor), Carlos Caldas, Leandro Marques and Luís Cumaru participated in the Tenth Bonhoeffer Congress held in Prague. The Brazilian section’s program this year featured a paper by Prof. Carlos Caldas (Mackenzie Presbyterian University - São Paulo), a master’s thesis by Prof. Jandira Cortes (awarded by Pontifical Catholic Univ), and Uma Mística’s Militante: Reflexão sobre as Possíveis Contribuições de D. Bonhoeffer para Uma Teologia e Pastoral de Integração na Igreja Batista Brasileira (A Mistic Militant Reflection about the Possible Contributions

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from D. Bonhoeffer to an Integration of Pastoral and Theology in Baptist Brazilian Church) presented at the annual meeting. Peter Frick spoke on the topic Bonhoeffer, Religion and Theology: What They Say in North-South Dialogue? at a roundtable held in 2009 at the University of Mackenzie, São Paulo. Later that year, Prof. Martin Barcala (Metodist Univ. - São Paulo) presented his master’s thesis Cristianismo Arreligioso – Uma Introdução à cristologia de D. Bonhoeffer (Religionless Christianity: An Introduction to the Christology of D. Bonhoeffer). Publication of his thesis the following year represented the first publication in Portuguese of a Bonhoeffer work.

In 2010, Vicente Pastro, pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Church (Kent, Washington), a member of the Brazilian section released his book Enflamed by the Sacramental Word: Preaching and Imagination of the Poor. Pastro has ministered for many years in parishes with large Mexican immigrant communities, where has used Bonhoeffer’s theology contextually in collaborative ministry and popular theological education with base ecclesial communities. Luis Cumaru published in the section’s newsletter his essay Palavra e Silȇncio na Perspectiva de D. Bonhoeffer (Word and Silence in the Perspective of D. Bonhoeffer). In addition, Prof. Gerson Lourenço presented his master’s thesis O Metodismo na cidade do Rio de Janeiro: Uma Abordagem teológico-pastoral a partir do pensamento eclesiástico de D. Bonhoeffer (Methodism in the city of Rio de Janeiro: an approach to pastoral theology from the ecclesiastic thought of D. Bonhoeffer).

At the annual meeting in May 2011 Prof. Franklin Ferreira (Martin Bucer Seminary) presented to the section his paper A Igreja Confessante Alemã e a Disputa da Igreja 1933-1937 (The German Confessing Church and Struggle of the Church 1933-1937). A year ago Vicente Pastro, Carlos Caldas and Luís Cumaru attended the Bonhoeffer Conference held at Union Theological Seminary (New York). Carlos Caldas participated in the panel “Bonhoeffer and Public Ethics in Five Nations.”

At this year’s Eleveenth Bonhoeffer Conference in Sigtuna, Sweden Carlos Caldas presented a paper D. Bonhoeffer’s Ethical Theology as a Theoretical Framework for the Elaboration of a Public Theology in Brazil and Vicente Pastro spoke on The Church of Poor as Gestalt Christi: Bonhoeffer’s Theology of Preaching in Dialog with the Mexican Diaspora in the United States. Luís Cumaru participated in one of the morning’s devotionals and later read a report of the Brazilian section in The Harvesting from the Congress. He also provided a prayer for world peace in the worship service held in the Uppsala Cathedral.

Upon returning to Brazil, Cumaru spoke of the life and work of D. Bonhoeffer in a Sunday school class at the Presbyterian church in Icaraí (Niterói). He continues to exercise his pastoral ministry in the Igreja Comunidade Cristã in addition to participating in official meetings, various celebrations, informal gatherings and ecumenical events in numerous places in Brazil.

Luís Cumaru at Union Theological Seminary 2011

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Bonhoeffer Documentary Film Now Available

A documentary film, entitled “He that believeth shall not flee” is now available for viewing outside Germany. Originally released in 2006, the 24 minute film was awarded the “Comenius EduMedia Seal of Approval”,

a prize for an exemplary educational tool. The film is suitable for use in both schools and higher education es-tablishments and a new edition will be released soon. This will include an English language version and will be available in NTSC and PAL formats.

The film was first published in 2005 at the request of the German Section of the International Bonhoeffer Soci-ety. The new edition is sponsored by the Society and is being released by “Geschichte: begreifen e.V.”, a small society that has produced films about Helmut James von Moltke and Adam von Trott. Hellmut Schlingensiep-pen presented the ‘voice-over-version’ at the Bonhoeffer for the Coming Generations conference held at Union Theological Seminary in November 2011.

“He that believeth shall not flee” (Isaiah 28:16) was the watchword of the Moravian Church on June 25, 1939. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in New York at that time and was faced with the decision of staying in a safe envi-ronment in the United States or returning home. He chose to return to his life of ministry and resistance in his homeland. The film addresses the question: “Who was this man who put his responsibility for the coming gen-erations of his own people above the possibility of saving his own life?”

The film uses private photographs of the Bonhoeffer family and some taken by his students. Other material is taken from various films, including the Wochneschau (the weekly Nazi Newsreel). These ‘technically brilliant’ examples of Nazi propaganda are confronted by the words of Bonhoeffer as ‘truth against lies.’

The film’s producer, Hellmut Schlingensiepen is the son of Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, a Bonhoeffer biogra-pher. Hellmut initially studied philosophy and then political science for two years. After a year at the Düsseldorf Theater, he studied photography at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences. His diploma project Beyond the Blackness of the Eye was awarded best diploma project of the year (2002).

Pre-orders can be placed for a discount rate. The budget plan for this project requires the majority of the produc-tion costs to be covered by DVD sales. The price of the DVD is $37.50 and £24.50, plus postage and packaging. For pre-ordered and pre-paid copies postage and packaging is free.

For further information, contact the producer by e-mail: sito@forwertz.com or at http://www.bonhoeffer-film.de/english.html or

Hellmut Schlingensiepen and Christian Coers forwertz GbR, Düsseldorf/Berlin

Kittelbachstr. 47D-40489 Düsseldorf

Germany

Tel: +49 (0)211.7334132Fax: +49 (0)211-7334131http://www.forwertz.com

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GISELA R. I. McBRIDE1925 - 2012

Gisela McBride, 86, was born in Berlin, Germany and died at her home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in August. She attended the Bon-hoeffer Conference held at Union Seminary a year ago, commut-ing every day from her son’s home in Fairview NJ.

In 2000, she wrote an account of her childhood during the time pri-or to and during the Third Reich and World War II in a publication “Memoirs of a 1000-Year-Old Woman: Berlin 1925-1945.” After the war she worked as an interpreter for the RAF War Crimes Sec-tion in Celle (Germany), until she emigrated to London. After 10 years she emigrated to Canada where she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, finally moving to the U.S. becoming an American citizen in 1973.

She spoke of her experiences in Berlin to hundreds of children and adults at numerous colleges, schools, civic organizations, church-es, libraries and book clubs throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

In addition to her memoirs, she also translated a commentary on the Book of Revelation by Landes-bishof Edouard Lohse of Han-nover, Germany and self-published a volume of Estonia folk tales which she translated from German into English.

At age 62, she received a liberal arts degree from the Pennsylvania State University. She studied oil, pastel and watercolor painting and exhibited her work in Pennsylvania and in Washington, D.C. where she was a foreign language docent at the National Gallery of Art. She was also an accomplished singer and enjoyed traveling, meeting people of all ages and learning about the world.

She is survived by a daughter, a son, one grandson as well as a sister who resides in Berlin.

She was keenly interested in the Bonhoeffer Conference and was looking forward to the publication of the conference papers.

contributed by Guy Carter

Book Review Dietrich Bonhoeffers Christentum. Florian Schmitz and Christiane Tietz (Eds). Gütersloh, Germany: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. 2011. (www.gtvh.de) 424 pgs. ISBN 978-3-579-07142-8. $41.50.

“What keeps gnawing at me is the question: what is Chris-tianity, or who is Christ actually for us today?” (DBWE 8:362). These well-known words - written by Dietrich Bon-hoeffer to Eberhard Bethge on April 30, 1944 from his cell in Tegel prison - form the center of this Festschrift, edited by Florian Schmitz and Christiane Tietz. The 34 essays collect-ed in this volume present themselves as concentric circles around the center. All essays are united by their quest for providing a contribution as how to understand Bonhoeffer’s Christianity.

Paying tribute to the fact that any answer can provide only facets, the editors decided to follow two different, though certainly intertwined paths. One path pursues an academ-ic-theoretical route. The first 17 essays provide different interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s own theological approach-es toward what is Christianity and what being a Christian means today. These include particularly, but not limited to, his thoughts concerning a non-religious interpretation of Christian terminology and religionless Christianity. The dif-ferent authors investigate a wide range of sources including Bonhoeffer’s sermons, his letter exchanges with Eberhard Bethge and Maria von Wedemeyer, and his engagement

against poverty or his concept of the church. Bonhoeffer is brought into conversation with authors as diverse as Walter Benjamin and Phillip Melanchthon.

The second path seeks a different course, biographical-re-flective in nature. Fifteen authors offer different perspec-tives on how not only Bonhoeffer’s discursive, but his own, personal approach to being a Christian has impacted others. Contributions focusing, for instance, on Bonhoeffer’s poems are accompanied by deliberations concerning Bonhoeffer’s relevance for young people today. Three essays deserve special attention for providing us with a much-needed view reaching beyond our own Western World: Bonhoeffer and his reception are set in the context of Czechoslovakia, India and Poland.

The paths taken are circumscribed by two authors who add a very special, personal note: Ulrich Kabitz, lector of many years of the Christian Kaiser publishing house, which pub-lished most of Bonhoeffer’s works, as well as Ruth-Alice von Bismarck, sister of Maria von Wedemeyer. Schmitz’ and Tietz’ accurately edited volume resembles a colorful bouquet of flowers - arranged with care for the occasion of Christian Gremmels 70th birthday. And it is all held together by the shared concern of his friends, students and colleagues to pro-vide theological and personal reflection on what Christianity meant of Bonhoeffer and what it can mean for us.

Christine SchliesserUniversity of Zurich

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New Books Bonhoeffer - A Brief Overview of the Life and Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.Theology for Life Series. John W . Matthews. Minneapolis MN: Lutheran University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-932688-65-8. 100 pgs. $15.00. In his foreword, Martin Marty states that John Matthews “takes up numerous corollary and a few tangential questions...Matthews raises questions about some of Bonhoeffer’s claims, for example, that ‘the world has come of age,’ and questioning the future of religion itself.” While it is impossible to deal “with all the excitement and problems one finds in his writings and his life...” Matthews focuses on “Christ the center” showing “what made Bonhoeffer’s life cohere.”

John Matthews has impressed Marty “not only for his ability to produce first-rate professorial or academic work, but also for his ability to let his own experience as a pastor color that work.

The first five chapters are entitled: 1. “Jesus Christ Is the Center, Yet Hidden,” 2. “Life with Jesus Christ Is Communal, Yet Personal” 3. “Discipleship Is Bonding with Jesus Christ, Yet Breaking with the World” 4. “Ethics Is Conforming to Jesus Christ, Yet Reconnecting to the World” 5. “Worldly Christianity Is Standing by God, Yet Living for Others”

In the sixth chapter, he identifies four challenging issues in Bonhoeffer’s enduring legacy. First, there is what some point to as the apparent dissonance between Bonhoeffer as a pastor and as one who became involved in the plot to murder a head of state. Matthews asks: “Might his life inspire ours in ethically gray areas that require bold, risky decisions?”

Secondly, although the Bonhoeffer family lived amongst Jews and the family had an aversion to Nazi’s anti-Semitism, Bonhoeffer was not immune to some degree of traditional Christian supercessionism. His “views on this subject are ambiguous in some of his teaching and preaching, while his life and sacrifice portray equality, respect and acceptance.”

Matthews lifts up a third issue, rhetorically asking, as some do - whether Bonhoeffer ought to be designated as a Christian martyr. “When the name of Dietrich Bon-hoeffer was suggested for such an honor (re-naming city streets), one pastor discouraged it because he did not ‘want the names of our colleagues, who were killed for their faith, lumped together with political martyrs.’ For that pastor, Christian martyrdom is distinct from political resistance.” Matthews implies that Bonhoeffer embodied both.

“A fourth point of interest in Bonhoeffer’s work has to do with with his views on the role of women.” Mat-thews states that Bonhoeffer “was a man of his time and not immune to the prevailing attitudes and cultural ste-reotypes that he inherited.” However, he suggests that time and experience would have likely occasioned an evolution in Bonhoeffer’s views.

Accompanying this overview is a leader’s guide, pre-pared by H. Gaylon Barker, president of the Society. This guide is useful for leading discussions based on the sections covered by Matthews in his book. The guide presents multiple discussion questions in seven sections: One: Who was Bonhoeffer; Two: An introduc-tion to Bonhoeffer’s importance for us; Three - Seven: discussion points based on the five chapter headings presented by Matthews.

The ten page Leader’s Guide is also available from Lu-theran University Press (P.O. Box 39-759, Minneapo-lis MN, 1-888-696-1828; www.lutheranupress.org, or publisher@lutheranupress.org).

Breakfast with Bonhoeffer - How I Learned to Stop Being Religious So I Could Follow Jesus. Jon Walker. Abilene TX: Leafwood Publishers (1-877-816-4455). 2012. ISBN 978-0-89112-340-8. 202 pgs. $9.93 Champion of Freedom: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Mi-chael Martin. Greensboro NC: Morgan Reynolds Pub., Inc. 2012. ISBN 978-1-59935-169-8 (also available as an e-book). 144 pgs. $28.95.

Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoef-fer’s The Cost of Discipleship. Jon Walker. Abilene TX: Leafwood Publishers (1-877-816-4455). 2010. ISBN 978-0-89112-676-8. 237 pgs. $11.89.

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hoeffer’s political involvement. The house in Stora Gatan (today it is the local tourist office) became a point of pilgrimage for many at the Congress, while the recalling of that 1942 meeting provided a firm point of contact with historical and political reality for the Congress discussions themselves.

No less appropriately, the Congress was housed in the Sigtuna Stiftelsen (Foundation), established in 1917 and one of Swe-den’s most creative and influential church-related institutes facilitating dialogue on social and cultural issues. On the open-ing evening two of our Swedish hosts – Congress President Bishop Dr Martin Lind and Prof. Dr Sven-Erik Brodd - cogently but carefully expounded the significance of the Swedish Lu-theran scene and its relation to Bonhoeffer’s German context for a proper understanding of the reception of Bonhoeffer in Sweden – a reception which in fact began in 1936 when Bon-hoeffer brought his Finkenwalde class of students on a short visit to the country. The Congress was equally well served by the other plenary lecturers whose presentations, followed by open discussion, occupied the next three mornings: Bishop Prof. Dr Wolfgang Huber (Berlin) on ‘The Theological Profile of Bonhoeffer’s Political Resistance’; Prof. Dr Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago) on ‘The Profile of Bonhoeffer’s Political Re-

sistance from the Perspective of Political Science’; Prof. Dr Wolf Krötke (Berlin) on ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Under-standing of the State’; Victoria J. Barnett (Washington D.C.) on ‘’Church, State and Civil Society”; and Prof. Dr Nico Koopman (Stellenbosch, South Africa) on ‘How Do We Live Responsibly?’ Rarely have Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions been subjected to such scrutiny and interpretation from so varied angles in three short days. Warnings were issued, for example, by Wolfgang Huber, against seeing Bonhoeffer as more than a marginal figure in the political resistance as far as his personal activity was concerned. As the other presenters also argued, his true significance lies rather in his underlying perception of responsibility in relation to state and society, and his daring to inhabit the misty borderland between eccle-sial and individual responsibility. Another reiterated concern was Bonhoeffer’s relation to democracy: was he, or would he have become, a democrat such as we assume now to be the

Sigtuna Bonhoeffer Conference (Continued from Page 1)

Gaylon Barker and Carla Meyer Barker (Connecticut)

Andres Csepregi (Budapest)

Hans Buurmeester (Netherlands) Wolfgang Huber (Germany) Barry and Sarah Harvey (Texas)

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norm in westernised society? Again, warnings were heard against too easy answers, those of dismissing him as a conservative traditionalist and, there-fore, of little contemporary relevance, or of assuming that his anti-totalitari-anism equally betokens an ease with what passes for liberal democracy (but may in truth be anything but liberal or democratic) in western society today. The real questions are about how Bonhoeffer theologically interpreted his situation then, and how we might learn from him and how we might no less critically and theologically evaluate our situations now. Nico Koopman aptly summarized how, in the still-changing context of post-apartheid South Af-rica, Bonhoeffer is persistently relevant:

‘Bonhoeffer’s theology helps South Africans in our quest for responsible living. He offers helpful descriptions of responsible living as a life that responds faithfully to the concrete call of God in Jesus Christ, which also implies responding faithfully to human beings of our generation, as well as those of past and future generations. He equips us with a theological rationale and motivation, as well as with thicker theological descriptions of human dignity and human rights. He provides essential tools for formulating policies that are cautions about wrong compromises, and that advance the fulfilment of human dignity and human rights. He shows the way to a threefold action of firstly prayer, which includes spiritual and moral formation, concrete obedience, and active hoping and waiting upon God.’

The issues raised in plenary, with other questions, were examined fur-ther in no fewer than 36 shorter afternoon seminars on a fascinating range of subjects which presented participants with beguiling prob-lems of choice: topics ranging from ‘Religion, Race and Resistance’ to ‘The Form of Christ and Christian Formation’; from ‘The Politics of Life Together’ to ‘The parish as a body of otherness’; from ‘Theol-ogy as Politics versus “Political Theology”’ to ‘Bonhoeffer and Human Rights’. Andreas Pangritz (Bonn), looked yet again at the oft-quoted phrase ‘to fall within the spokes of the wheel’, alluded to in the Con-gress title itself and found in Bonhoeffer’s 1933 essay ‘The Church and the Jew ish Question’. It seems we Anglophones are still wilfully misreading this phrase! But as well as es-tablished academics taking a fresh look at perennial points of interest and debate, these seminars also allowed many younger scholars to share their work-in-progress on quite new themes and perspectives, and drawing upon more recent approaches in social and political science, gender studies and psychology. The plenary papers and much of the seminar material will, it is hoped, be published in due course.

Though intensive, in true Bon-hoefferian style the Congress was not ‘all work and no play’. An octet of voices from the Uppsala University Choir gave an utterly charming evening concert of traditional Swedish songs, to rapturous and pro-longed applause (have you ever seen young people sing so joy-fully with their whole faces?). A group performed the play ‘Dem Rad in die Speichen Fallen’, by

Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago) Kristen Busch Nielsen (Denmark)

Wolf Krötke (Germany)

Jurgen Wiersma (Netherlands) and Anders Jonäker (Sweden)

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Galileo Galilei and der Narr. The layout of the Foundation with its informal lounges and outdoor ‘cloister’ made for easy communality during coffee breaks and late evening conviviality around the bar, while in the long Scan-dinavian summer daylight Sigtuna at large, with its lakeside and woodland walks, lent itself to contemplation whether alone or with others. It is rumoured that theological conversations even took place between early-morning joggers. Then, of course, mealtimes served not only splendid meals, such as Bonhoeffer himself would have relished, but also the opportunities to talk or argue with friends old and new. To all this was added morning worship in the chapel, calm and meditative, and uplifted by the inspiring organ-playing of Gottfried Brezger (Ber-lin). Thanks are due to John Matthews, Hans Buurmeester, Michael Lukens and Gottfried Brezger for arranging these services. Towards the end of the Congress, news from the different language and national sections of the International Bonhoeffer Society was shared.

Prof. Dr Christiane Tietz (Mainz) perceptively and succinctly surveyed the ‘Harvest’ of the Congress’ under five main headings: awareness of the need for care in retrospective reading of Bonhoeffer in his own historical con-text as distinct from ours; a new perception of the political character of Bonhoeffer’s whole theology; a realiza-tion that a contextually committed theology will always have political implications; new insights into Bonhoeffer’s political actions which were not simply confined to his role in the conspiracy but involved a novel questioning of the state and the nature of its authority; and a fresh encounter with the foundational role of spirituality in Bon-hoeffer’s political engagement, which enabled him to remain faithful even in the most extreme circumstances. These insights, Tietz stated, map a future for the new generation of Bonhoeffer scholars but are not merely of historical interest: they are inspirational for our own contemporary responsibilities in society.

The Congress certainly demonstrated that Bonhoeffer studies not only have a past but a future, as evidenced by the strong presence and vital contributions of so many younger participants – not to mention the fact that for reasons of time and space the organizers had had to decline as many proposals for seminar top-

ics as they accepted. At the final chapel worship, one of the leading veterans of the Bonhoeffer Society, John de Gruchy (South Africa), gave a poignant meditation on the theme ‘Nothing is Lost’, referring to the text Ephesians 1:10 ‘. . . as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ’, taken up by Irenaeus in his doctrine of recapitulation and in turn by Bonhoeffer in his prison reflection on the line in the hymn ‘I will restore it all’. A group that has existed as long as the Bonhoeffer Society, said de Gruchy, should have no fears that the work of its pioneers will lose its significance, any more than a loss in our personal lives is irredeemable. In this spirit also, a card with signed greetings was sent by the Congress to Renate Bethge who is no longer able to attend meetings in the way she, and of course Eberhard, did to the immense profit of so many of us.

At the Congress banquet on the final (Saturday) evening several distinguished guests from church and cultural life in Sweden were welcomed, and Bishop Martin Lind as President expressed his deep satisfaction with all that had taken place. John Matthews, from the English Language section, spoke of the Sigtuna event providing a four-fold experience for us all: inter-national, inter-generational, inter-disciplinary and inter-personal and thus a real taste of Gemeinsames Leben. Finally, next morning we made our way to Uppsala for High Mass in the impressive Cathedral, at which Bishop Lind preached on authentic witness to Christ as always involving the overcoming of separation - a hopeful note on which to take leave of one another to go our ‘separate’ ways across the world.

Heartfelt thanks, then, to our hosts in Sigtuna and the Congress organizers, especially Bishop Lind, Kirsten Busch Nielsen, Anders Jonåker, John Matthews, Karina Juhl Kande, Jurjen Wiersma, Hans Buurmeester, Martin Hüneker and Stephen Plant. Much appreciated also was the work of the German-English interpreters Elaine Griffiths, Re-nate Sbeghen and Ursula Ziel.

And what of a future Congress? Sigtuna has set a dauntingly high standard in terms alike of content, organization and venue, but a provisional committee is already investigating possibilities for 2016. This particular wheel will keep turning!

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Keith Clements (Great Britain) and Clifford Green (Boston)

Jens Zimmerman (Canada) and Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago)

John and Julia Cromartie (Atlanta) Nico Koopman (South Africa) Victoria Barnett (Washington, D.C.) and Wolf Krötke (Germany)

Afternoon Coffee Break

photographs courtesy of Victoria Barnett, Keith Clements, and John Matthews

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Newsletter ArchivesReaders may find of interest the following reviews of Issues #19 - 21 of the Society’s Newsletters. A copy of all three of these issues, in addition to Issues #1-18 is available to current members and will be sent by e-mail upon request submitted to the Editor. The review and availability of additional past issues of the Newsletter will be announced in forthcoming issues.

(Issues #19-#21 all edited by C. Green).No.19 August 1980Lengthy report on 3rd Int’l Bonhoeffer Conference held past spring in Oxford (Spring 1980) by Geffrey Kelly. 2 main questions: 1) does DB still have anything to say to the world of today? and 2) is there anything still deserving of serious research in DB’s theology (to help us today)? Kelly remarked on the warm collegiality of the gathered group, fostered by the presence of Eberhard & Renate Bethge. It was during this conference that a special research center was opened at the DB Kirche in the Sydenham section of London. Among those speaking of the influence of DB’s courageous writings were Tom Cunningham (a Methodist theologian from South Africa), Carl-Jürgen Kaltenborn (a Baptist theologian-pastor from East Berlin), Pastor Hisashi Kajiwara (Japan), whose travel expenses were paid for by a Buddhist who shared an interest in DB and Pastor Jean Lassere, a retired pastor of the Reformed Church in France. Lassere, a dedicated pacifist met DB at Union Seminary, told of how the delegates at the ecumenical gathering at Fanø (Denmark, 1934) were electrified by DB’s passionate plea for world peace and recognition of the brotherhood of peoples. Donald Shriver, president of Union Seminary, opened his presentation with DB’s question: “What is God doing to us and to his church in America (and ultimately the world)?” Shriver stated that it was the church “that must go the center of the village in order to understand that Jesus is there and how he is there.” Furthermore, he pointed out “that the church needs the world just as the world needs the church for the sake of their mutual integrity.” Kelly noted that “Shriver’s call for hospitality to the cultural-traditional stranger in one’s ecclesial-political midst became all the more poignant in the atmosphere of Eberhard Bethge’s major address the following morning. Bethge took the audience on a serious journey into that period in Christian ecclesial history when the traditional stranger, the Jew, was not only rejected but also made the object of a vicious genocidal policy in which the church bore a share of guilt. Bethge described…the wholly unprejudiced attitudes of the Bonhoeffer family toward their Jewish friends. He then analyzed DB’s opposition to a devaluation of the Old Testament current in the theological circles around Adolf von Harnack. In 1933 DB hinted that the church might have to ‘jam the spokes of the wheel’ of state if the victimization of the Jews continued.” DB “urged the Confessing Church to speak up on behalf of the Jewish people. When the famous Bethel Confession refused to endorse Bonhoeffer’s rejection of attempts to blame Jews for Golgotha, he refused to sign the text. Bethge noted DB’s reaction to Kristallnacht, citing Psalm 24: ‘They burn all the house of God in the land.’” “Bethge cited DB’s Confession of Guilt in which he declared that the church was ‘guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ. Bethge concluded his presentation by mentioning that the deeds of DB are still his most important contribution to a Jewish-Christian dialogue in a post-holocaust world. This last point was reinforced in a moving response…by William J. Peck (Univ. North Carolina) pointing out that DB could not have ‘publically and officially’ retracted his theological error about the Jews in the article of 1933. Rather, his life became governed in the aftermath of the increasingly unbreakable

racist attitudes of Nazism by a qualified silence in which cheap words were rejected and exigencies of ethical responsibility to covert sedition against the state dictated that deeds, not wordy evasion, convey the truth of one’s love for the ‘weakest brethren of Christ.’ To the question, did DB ever take back his stereotyped 1933 statement about Jewish guilt? Peck answered that he did so in the only way possible - with his whole life.” Heinz-Edouard Tödt (Heidelberg) “pointed out that DB’s strong sense of community caused him to agitate for a certain solidarity in ethical decisions, rather than to leave the moral judgment to the absolute measure of individual conscience. His decision to return to Germany in 1939 was dictated, for instance, by his own desire to participate in the destiny of the German people. Tödt referred to the “Initiativegrupe,” those who seize initiative in the moment of ‘ultimate necessity’ when individual action is both illegal and ineffective. What was certain in the midst of pondering the ethical ramifications of their decisions, though, was that such action would leave the conspirators outside the visible support of the church. The church’s resistance was limited to words alone, and , in this, the church had divided the three levels of resistance with the result that groups were ignored and individuals like DB isolated. His plea for solidarity had its counterpart in Roger Poole’s insistence that the life of Christ in the world today must be embodied, as it was in Bonhoeffer and in those persons who were the center of his concerns, in ways which communicate significance.” Clifford Green reported on the project of reexamining DB’s approach to ethical responsibility while Peck described how DB’s ethics, “particularly his strong emphasis on freedom, on respect for the ‘natural,’ on a robust Christocentrism, and on concreteness, however limited in perspective, provide a good stimulus for rethinking ethical issues in medicine. Others contributing papers of interest included Herman Wiersinga, Clarke Chapman, John Milhaven, Robin Lovin, Burton Nelson, John de Gruchy of South Africa and J.C. Thomas of Ghana. Members ratified the society’s constitution. New members included Guy C. Carter and Donald Shriver. Congratulations to Pat Kelley for completing his dissertation Revelation and the Secular in the Theology of DB and to Burton Nelson and Ruth Zerner for leading the oral history project of the society.

No. 20 December 1980Dallas meeting featured papers by Dena Davis (“Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and Pacifism”), Clarke Chapman (“Bonhoeffer and Liberation Theology”) John Godsey (“Bonhoeffer’s Understanding of Love”), Clifford Green (“Supplement to ‘Bonhoeffer’s Ethics: A Research Brief’”), Patrick Kelley (“One Reality” the Trajectory of Bonhoeffer’s Course from Churchly to Worldly Forms of Thinking in his Ethics”) and Geffrey Kelly (“A Priori Use of Revelation in the Shifting Structure of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics Text”). Report of Bonhoeffer Study Tour of Germany led by Burton Nelson. Eberhard and Renate Bethge plan to be “Scholars in Residence” at Lynchburg VA College in Fall 1981. Society’s ratified Constitution reprinted. Werner Koch (student of DB) plans on U.S. lecture tour in 1981. New members include Nancy Lukens, Lloyd H. Steffen,

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Robert Ecklund, Campbell Stamp (England) and Chris Thomas (Ghana).

No. 21 October 1981December meeting in San Francisco to feature papers by Wayne Floyd (“Bonhoeffer and Critical Social Theory: The Search for an ‘Ethical Sacrament’”), Larry Rasmussen (“Clues for North Americans from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Toward an Ethic of the Cross”), William D. Apel (“Praying with Bonhoeffer: An Inquiry into Spirituality”) and a panel discussion on DB’s

Fiction from Prison with Renate Bethge, Eberhard Bethge, Clifford Green and Ruth Zerner. Trinity Film is preparing a film on DB. Schedules prepared for visits by the Bethges and Werner Koch. John Godsey and Geffrey Kelly, editors of Ethical Responsibility, based on Oxford Conference (see #19 above). Other new publications include A Bonhoeffer Legacy: Essays in Understanding (A.J.Klassen), Fiction from Prison and an abridged edition of Letters and Papers from Prison. New members include William Apel, Peter Wood (England) and David Maitland.

Bonhoeffer and Don Quixote Rob Lentes

Bonhoeffer treasured Cervantes’ Don Quixote. He believe the beleaguered idealist was an apt metaphor for the Confessing Church. He reasoned that the church needed new weapons, a new theology, and new strategies to confront the rise of National Socialism. The established state church reflected an old falsehood, a church which had burned its witness at the stake, as the Nazis had burned books in the Bebel Platz in Berlin. Now, new “weapons of the Spirit” were necessary.

I led devotions for the Joint Peace with Justice Committee of the Minneapolis Area Synod and St. Paul Area Synod. We first sang Gor-don Lightfoot’s song, “Don Quixote,” which is based upon Cervantes’ book. The main character, Don Quixote, “takes a battered book into his hand,” takes a rusty sword into his hand,” and “takes a tarnished cross into his hand.” He always “shouts across the ocean to a shore, till he can shout no more.” The final lines, after he shouts once more, are: Then in a blaze of tangled hooves He gallops off across the dusty plain In vain to search again Where no one will hear.

The message, one of many, is that no one is listening because the message was false and the means of communicating the message was outdated. Says Bonhoeffer: “Here is the immortal figure of Don Quixote...who takes a barber’s dish for a helmet and a miserable hack for a charger. [In Germany we have] “an old world venturing to take up arms against a new one or a world of the past hazarding an attack against the superior forces of the commonplaces and the mean.”

In Luke 5:37-39, Jesus tells the parable of the new wine and old wineskins: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled out, and the skins will be destroyed.” One of the meanings is the new Message of Jesus which also means new Methods of action to be effective. Christianity, the Church, the People of God, need to reclaim the radical, transforming message of Christ and discover new ways to give witness. Otherwise, we are only lifting an old battered book, a rusty sword, and a tarnished cross: captive to anemic theology, a culturally-captive church, and the pablum of personal I-centered witness.

The Colorado Confession reflects the lessons from Bonhoeffer and Don Quixote. The Confession calls the faithful to look at reality, to admit to a “dis-ease,” to consider the common good, to affirm that all people are created in the Image of God and to demand that we all live like it, to be one with the poor and oppressed, to work so that all people have enough, to care for the earth, to be generous in compassion, to demand equal justice for all, to live nonviolently, to make for peace. We are given Gospel dreams and we must fight to bring them to reality.

There is a song, sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell, called “Make Them Hear You.” It comes from the musical “Ragtime.” Some of the words are: “How justice was our battle. How justice was denied.” “Your sword can be a sermon or the power of the pen.” “Will justice be demanded by ten thousand righteous men [women]?” “Make them hear you!”

How do we make them hear us? Biblical preaching and Bible study with an ear to balancing personal and political, pastoral and pro-phetic, global and local, community and congregation. Commitment to active involvement in personal renewal and community action. Commitment to love and justice. Commitment to timely ministry of bandaid and being a “spoke in the wheel.” Commitment to the possibility of martyrdom. Commitment to working ecumenically. Commitment to marching, sitting in, using Facebook and Twitter, writing a blog, attending meetings, meeting with senators and congresspersons, synod assembly actions, meeting with community leaders, writing letters, making telephone calls, meeting one on one at Starbuck’s, and... What are we fighting for? Are we fighting at all? Are we saying anything? Are we making people hear us? How are we fighting? Are we open to new methods? Can we risk trying something different? Or, are we just a gathering of solemn assemblies? Press on!

Originally published in The Colorado ConfessionContributed by Robert Tucker, Foundation for Contemporary Theology (Houston)

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2012 BONHOEFFER SOCIETY MEETINGS

American Academy of Religion November 16 – 20. 2012Chicago, Illinois

Meetings and Program Sessions of InterestFriday, November 16 Editorial Board and Board of Directors Meeting 1:00 - 6:00 pm

McCormick Place South - 503A

Saturday, November 17 Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group 9:00 - 11:30 am A17-113 McCormick Place West - 474B

Theme: Exploring Bonhoeffer’s Volume 16: Prayer, Mission, Confession, and Natural LawMark Brocker, Saint Andrew Lutheran Church, Presiding

Based on the broader collection of Bonhoeffer’s late writings now available in Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 1940-1945 (Volume 16 of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation project, Fortress Press, 2006), this session explores facets and themes that may augment current interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s life and thought. We consider Bonhoeffer’s challenge to existing theories of natural law, the role of a disciplined life of prayer beyond the Finkenwalde period, possible new developments in Bonhoeffer’s notion of personal confession, and whether Bonhoeffer can be rendered as a theologian of mission based on his prison writings.

David Congdon, Princeton Theological Seminary The Missionary Situation of a World Come of Age: The Problem of the Missionsgemeinde and Volkskirche in Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a theologian of mission. His later writings demonstrate a profound attempt to grapple with the missionary situation of a world come of age. In particular, volume 16 includes writings on the Volksmission and discusses the concept of the Missionsgemeinde. In his 1942 defense of infant baptism, however, he appeals to the distinction between a Missionkirche and a Volkskirche. This is the very distinction to which the Erlangen faculty appealed in 1933 in defense of the Aryan Paragraph. Bultmann’s response to this report argued that “the church is always a mission-church.” Regardless of the question of infant baptism, Bonhoeffer should not have made this distinction on the grounds of his own theological commitments. To isolate the missionary church as one form of the community among many is theologically hazardous. Bonhoeffer provides key resources elsewhere in his final writings to overcome this problem.

Mark Knight, University of Cambridge “The Ordering of Life”; Prayer in Bonhoeffer’s Writings from DBWE 16

Between the practices of prayer instituted by Bonhoeffer at Finkenwalde and the enigmatic proposals from Tegel for the renewal of Christianity through “prayer and righteous action” stands, among myriad developments, Bonhoeffer’s unfinished Ethics, which despite its theology of formation, curiously neglects to discuss the life of prayer. The letters of DBWE 16, nevertheless, reveal Bonhoeffer’s enduring interest throughout this period in prayer as “the ordering of life,” which he considers vital to the renewal of the church. By interpreting these reflections in light of Bonhoeffer’s treatment of prayer as a “practice,” in the Finkenwalde period and in lectures from as early as 1932, I suggest a way in which Bonhoeffer’s theology of prayer can be integrated into his contemporaneous account of formation in Ethics, by understanding prayer as a “penultimate practice of Christ-reality,” whereby Christ takes form in the community.

Nicola Wilkes, University of Cambridge Life and Health: Bonhoeffer’s Normative and Divergent Accounts of Confession of Sin

This paper highlights a critical distinction between Bonhoeffer’s theology of confession of sin as found in volume 16 with that found in his other writings. Using volume 16 as a base, and drawing on others, where necessary, to elucidate further, I compare and contrast Bonhoeffer’s normative account of private confession with divergent aspects of his thought found particularly in an essay entitled “The Best Physician” in which Bonhoeffer argues for psychosomatic benefits of confession. I argue that the differences do not necessarily constitute a shift in his thinking but are due to the context in which the papers were written.

Anthony Bateza, Princeton Theological Seminary Bonhoeffer’s Challenge to and Re-envisioning of the Natural Law Complaints about natural law theory fall into two categories: not enough or too much. One side indulges repristination, imagining a time when the natural law was wedded to practical reason and provided a bulwark against the waves of relativism. On the other side stand the cultured despisers who view the natural law as a failed attempt to find univer-sal foundation for cultural prejudice. I demonstrate the ways in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer deftly avoids these extremes and outlines a new natural law that responds to Protestant theological sensibilities. I show that Bonhoeffer’s interpre-tation of the natrual law draws from the Thomistic traditions while moving us beyond misguided efforts by John Finn-is, Germain Grisez and Robert George. Bonhoeffer’s use of natural law moves us beyond unfruitful debates between the standard forms of ethical discourse that continues to offer us guidance for genuine life between Eden and eschaton.

Sunday, November 18 Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group A18-214 the Colloquium on Violence and Religion 1:00 - 2:30 pm

McCormick Place West - 185A

Theme: Bonhoeffer and Girard in Conversation: Revelation, Scandal, and the Theology of the Cross Volume 16: Prayer, Mission, Confession, and Natural Law

Nikolaus Wandinger, University of Innsbruck, Presiding

Working from different starting points, using dissimilar concepts, and speaking to distinct audiences, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and René Girard nevertheless concur on many points. Kevin Lenehan explores resonances in Bonhoeffer and Girard’s work that issue in a “prophetic critique of the Gospel” which is post-critical, revelational, relational, and violence-renouncing. Craig Slane argues that the scandal of the cross reveals an opposition between a logos originating in the love of God that points to a non-sacrifical Christianity (Girard) and “religionless Christianity” (Bonhoeffer). Nicholas Bott examines a shared Christolo-goical ethic of imitation. For Girard, Christ is adopted as a model and mediator of one’s desires; for Bonhoeffer, imitation may be described as the constant encounter with the “moment of decision” in which we hear a call to answer “yes” to Christ and “no” to self when we encounter others.

Kevin Lenehan, MC University of Divinity Standing Responsibly Between Silence and Speech: Doing Theology in the Light of Bonhoeffer and Girard

In this paper I argue that bringing the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and René Girard into conversation in the contemporary context provides an important and timely contribution to a fundamental theological ‘style.’ This style is described as 1) post-critical, in that it moves beond an uncritical synthesis of Christian faith and Western culture and addresses our context - both post-Christendom and post-secularist - on its own terms; 2) revelational, in that it witnesses to the priority of God’s self-communication in human existence and history, and to the transformative effect of this encounter with irreducible otherness; 3) relational, in that it rethinks theological categories from the perspective of an anthropology based on relationality with the other; and 4) violence-renouncing in that it is alert to and responsible about the propensity to violence within human com-munities and their religious traditions, including the Christian tradition.

Craig Slane, Simpson University Two Logics: One Scandal: Understanding Expulsion with Bonhoeffer with Girard

This paper connects the thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer with René Girard by focusing on three interrelated ideas appearing in their writings: logos, skandalon, and expulsion. Bonhoeffer and Girard stand together in their conviction that there are two kinds of logos: one originating from Greek culture that inclines toward violence, and the other originating in the love of God. For both thinkers, the scandal of the cross reveals these logics in their opposition and opens a retrospective glance at human history that enables us to see more clearly how expulsion works to unify human cultures and retrench mythological thinking. A careful examination of select texts from each thinker may help us grasp what Bonhoeffer was searching for from his time as lecturer in Berlin to the end of his life when he imagined a “religionless Christianity.”

Nicholas Bott, Stanford University and Reggie Williams, McCormick Theological Seminary “Solidarity in Suffering”: René Girard’s Theological Pedagogy in Conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Experience in the Harlem Renaissance

Imitation and modeling play an integral role in one’s interpretation and imitation of Christ, with immense consequences for one’s engagement in the world, either for good or ill. In understanding Bonhoeffer’s theological and ethical development - his insistence on the importance of solidarity with those in suffering, and the developments in his interpretation of Martin Luther’s theologia crucis - the role of models he encountered during his Sloane Fellowship year in New York is paramount. Girard’s mimetic theory places singular importance on the role of models in one’s understanding of who Christ is and how

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one should live. Imitation and modeling form the foundation of what Girard sees as a divine pedagogical strategy, whereby one’s interpretation and imitation of Christ - for good or ill - is mediated by the models of Christ one chooses to embrace. The development of Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics shares a striking resemblance to Girard’s thesis that Christ-like models mediate the understanding of Christ as one who suffers as an outcast, and participates in the suffering of outcasts and the marginalizd.

Monday, November 19 Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group 1:00 - 3:00 pm A18-214 McCormick Place East - 353A

Theme: Teaching Bonhoeffer in Undergraduate SettingsJoel Lawrence, Bethel University, Presiding

This session will be an interactive teaching workshop addressing the challenges and opportunities for teaching Bonhoeffer in various undergraduate settings. We welcome participation from professors who range in experience teaching Bonhoeffer, including those who have yet to do so. Participants have been encouraged to bring course material to the session, including syllabi.

Panelists: Thomas Herwig, University of Alabama; Stephen Haynes, Rhodes College; David Gides, Marian University; Lori Hale, Augs-burg College; and Jennifer McBride, Wartburg College.

Business Meeting of the Society will be held Saturday, November 17 immediately following the A17-113 session.

New Book

Earth-honoring Faith - Religious Ethics in a New Key. Larry Rasmussen. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. 2012. ISBN 9780199917006. 480 pgs. $45.00.

This book will definitely be of interest to society members. The author, a long-time member and supporter of the Society, is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary and winner of the 1997 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. He is the author of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance and the co-editor of Earth Habitat: New Dimensions of Church and Community in Creation.

In Earth-honoring Faith, Rasmussen presents a new way of thinking about human society, ethics and the ongoing health of our planet. “Rejecting the modern assumption that morality applies to human society alone, he insists that we must derive a spiritual and ecological ethic that accounts for the well-being of all creation, as well as the primal elements upon which it depends: earth, air, fire, water, and sunlight. He argues that good science, necessary as it is, will not be enough to inspire fundamental change. We must draw on religious resources as well to make the difficult transition from an industrial-technological age obsessed with consumption to an ecological age that restores wise stewardship of all life.” Rasmussen introduces a groundbreaking form of religious ethics. He provides a constructive treatment of Earth issues utilizing spiritual-moral resources and he offers a spiritual and ecological system of ethics that can be applied by members of all religions.

Jim Martin-Schramm, Professor of Religion, Luther College, writes: “Rasmussen argues persuasively that religion needs to stop perceiving nature as the stage for the human salvation drama and view it instead as the locus for experience of the divine. His scholarship is impeccable and his ability to weave together insights from various fields and scholars is exemplary. Earth-honoring Faith is a grand intellectual endeavor that reflects interdisciplinary thinking at its best.”

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Co-Director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University writes: “This book is a tour-de-force, bringing together theological reflection and ethical persuasion to argue for the transformation of religions into their ecological phase. Larry Rasmussen is eloquent, comprehensive, and compelling in his articulation of a vision that is sorely needed for our emerging Earth Community.”

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INTERNATIONAL BONHOEFFER SOCIETY

ENGLISH LANGUAGE SECTION

2012 ANNUAL DINNER

Saturday, November 17, 20127:30 pm (gathering at 6:30 pm) - 9:00 pm

Memorial Service and Dinner to Commemorate Burton Nelson and Recently Deceased Members of the International Bonhoeffer Society

Service and DinnerNorth Park Evangelical Covenant Church

5250 North Christiana AvenueChicago, Illinois

(12 miles from Convention Center)

The buffet dinner will be catered by Tre Kronor Restaurant.Cost of Dinner: $37 per person.

For dinner reservation, send check (payable to IBS) to:H. Gaylon Barker, 169 Branchville Rd., Ridgefield CT 06877-5114

(e-mail: hgaylonbarker@comcast.net)Deadline for Reservation: November 12, 2012

For other information (including transportation)contact Alice Bond at alice.bond@att.net

(phone: 434-369-4140)

Member Services Please copy this page and return to: Mark E. Randall, 12217 NE Hwy 99 Vancouver WA 98686 e-mail: mark.e.randall@comcast.net

_____ My dues for 2013 ($30) or 2014 ($30) or 2013 - 2014 ($60) are enclosed _____ My back dues for the following years (_____, _____, _____) are enclosed _____ My dues are paid, but I am missing the following newsletters: _________________________ _____ Please send me information about supporting the DBW English Edition Project _____ I am interested in receiving an electronic version of this Newsletter.

Please enter my NEW address on the mailing list: ________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ e-mail: ___________________________

Submissions for the Spring 2013 issue are due by February 28, 2013 and should be sent to: Dean S. Skelley, Editor, Newsletter, IBS-ELS, P.O. Box 160879, San Antonio TX 78280

or by e-mail to: dskelley@satx.rr.com

International Bonhoeffer Society English Language Section

Information

The society’s website is: www.dietrichbonhoeffer.org NOT www.dbonhoeffer.org

The society is concerned with the rising cost of publishing the Newsletter, including the postage required for mail-ing. We would like to make this Newsletter available to as many members as possible by electronic distribution. Please provide us your e-mail address and inform us if an electronic version (pdf format) would be acceptable.

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