For the first time in nearly 20 years, the essential theological writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have been drawn together in a helpful and concise one-volume format. The Bonhoeffer Reader brings the best English translation to readers, students, and scholars and provides a ready-made introduction to the thought of this essential thinker

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.

Bonhoeffer reveals a great deal of his family context, social world, and cultural milieu in this fiction from his first year in prison.

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.

Recent scholarship in a number of disciplines has explored the relationship between ontology and ethics. The essays in this collection indicate what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) has to contribute to this discussion. By engaging the breadth of his academic and pastoral writings, these essays retrieve Bonhoeffer's theology for a contemporary audience. They do so by critically clarifying and extending key concepts developed by Bonhoeffer across his corpus and in dialogue with Hegel, Heidegger, Dilthey, Barth, and others. They also create dialogues between Bonhoeffer and more recent figures like Levinas, Agamben, Foucault, and Lacoste. Finally, they take up pressing, contemporary ethical issues such as globalization, managerialism, and racism. "This essay collection is a great addition to Bonhoeffer scholarship that shows the ongoing relevance of this important theologian, not merely for postmodern academic concerns but for wider issues of global significance." --Jens Zimmermann, Trinity Western University "There is no mystery in the fact that interest in Dietrich Bonhoeffer has remained consistently high since the publication of his prison correspondence. In this volume we hear from yet another generation of young scholars who find him to be an important interlocutor for contemporary theology. These essays bring valuable new insights and perspectives to bear on Bonhoeffer's life and thought, particularly with regard to the connection between ontology and ethical reflection in his theology." --Barry Harvey, Baylor University Adam C. Clark is a doctoral candidate in Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation compares Bonhoeffer to other recent figures on the contribution of the grammars of creation and salvation history to social justice. Michael Mawson is Lecturer in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen. His doctoral dissertation focused on Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology and social ethics.

Prompted by the 2017 commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, this book examines the legacy of Martin Luther in the life, work, and reception of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the most widely read modern Lutheran theologian. Framing the commemoration of the Reformation in conversation with Bonhoeffer's legacy places much more than Bonhoeffer's connection to Luther at stake. Given the fraught relationship of the Lutheran Bonhoeffer with the German Protestant Church under National Socialism, the question inevitably arises: "What happened to Luther's church in Germany?" This in turn prompts the question: "How did the Protestant tradition play out in public life in other nations?" And these historical issues in turn encourage reflection on a question that exercised both Luther and Bonhoeffer: "What will be the shape of the church in the future?" In these pages, an international group of scholars and practitioners from both church and state pursues these questions.

Writing fiction, letters to his family, fiancee, 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 Bethge--who brings personal knowledge of the Bonhoeffer family to her observations?and Ilse Todt, 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, which followed completion of his dissertation, was formative for Bonhoeffer's personal and pastoral and theological direction. Almost all of these nine hundred pages of writings appear in English here for the first time. They document the intense four-year period that included preparation of his postdoctoral thesis; a vicarage in Barcelona; occasional lectures; his postdoctoral academic year at Union Theological Seminary; travel around the United States, Cuba, and Mexico; and his re-entry into the German academic and ecclesial scene.

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.