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What led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his momentous decision to be
involved in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944?
What is the relation between his resistance activities and his
theological and ethical reflections? Exploring these and other
intriguing and complex relationships in Bonhoeffer's life and
throughout the turbulent 1930s and 1940s, Larry Rasmussen
characterizes Bonhoeffer's resistance as an enactment of his
Christology lived out with utter seriousness. Originally published
in 1972 and now updated with a new introduction by the author,
"Dietrich Bonhoeffer" remains the defining study of Bonhoeffer's
views of Jesus Christ, his ethics, and his resistance against
Hitler and the Nazi regime.
How can a church in the richest and most powerful nation on
earth respond to the needs of the poor, the hungry, and the
oppressed? The authors of this book describe this issue with
clarity and power, and explore the biblical perspectives that offer
guidance toward a viable and more equitable future for both church
and society.The authors call for a radical change in life-style
based on a revolution in perspective and basic values.
"Then came the crisis of 1933." This is Bonhoeffer's own phrase in
a letter that documents a turning point in his own life as well as
that of the nation. Of Bonhoeffer's own life at this time, his
biographer writes, "The period of learning and roaming" from 1928
until 1931 "had come to an end" as the young lecturer, age 26,
began to teach "on a faculty whose theology he did not share" and
to preach "in a church whose self-confidence he regarded as
unfounded." Bonhoeffer was becoming part of a society "that was
moving toward political, social, and economic chaos." Events moved
quickly at the onset of 1933 in Berlin. In only one hundred days
the path was cleared by the German Parliament and the Nazi Party
for the establishment of the fascist dictatorship. These one
hundred days, as well as the preceding and succeeding months, are
reflected in the materials in this volume: in letters, in sermons,
in Bonhoeffer's university teaching, in manifestos and a church
confession, and in his proactive engagement in the developing
church struggle. The vast majority of these are translated here for
the first time.
This signal volume gathers theologians from around the world to
address three pressing questions: How can Christianity and
Christian churches rethink themselves and their roles in light of
the endangered earth? What "earth-honoring" elements does
justice-oriented Christianity have to contribute to the common
good? And how can local communities and churches respond creatively
and constructively on a level to these vast global forces?
This volume captures the chief themes and presentations from the
October 1998 conference on social justice, ecology, and church,
entitled "Ecumenical Earth" and held at Union Theological Seminary.
Among the 18 contributors to this trailblazing conference are
Rasmussen and Hessel, James Cone, Kusumita Pedersen, Brigitte Kahl,
Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, Steven Rockefeller, Havid Hallman, Ernst
Conradie, Peggy Shepard, and Troy Messenger.
Western society today lives from community fragments and moral
fragments alone, and these fragments are being destroyed more
quickly than they are being replenished. Larry Rasmussen assesses
the long-term reasons for this situation and then proposes the
forms and tasks that churches can undertake to help mend and
improve civil society.
Among the topics treated are: Christian ethics as community ethics
Charting the moral life Elements of character formation Character
and social structure Decision making The nature and role of
biblical authority Uses of Scripture in Christian ethics
Thoughtful observers agree that the planetary crisis we now
face-climate change; species extinction; the destruction of entire
ecosystems; the urgent need for a more just economic-political
order-is pushing human civilization to a radical turning point:
change or perish. But precisely how to change remains an open
question. In Earth-honoring Faith, Larry Rasmussen answers that
question with a dramatically 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,
Rasmussen 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.
Earth-honoring Faith advocates an alliance of spirituality and
ecology, in which the material requirements for planetary life are
reconciled with deep traditions of spirituality across religions,
traditions that include mysticism, sacramentalism, prophetic
practices, asceticism, and the cultivation of wisdom. It is these
shared spiritual practices that can produce a chorus of world
faiths to counter the consumerism, utilitarianism, alienation,
oppression, and folly that have pushed us to the brink. Written
with passionate commitment and deep insight, Earth-honoring Faith
reminds us that we must live in the present with the knowledge that
the eyes of future generations will look back at us.
Ethics for a Small Planet offers complementary studies by two major
social ethicists on these issues. Daniel C. Maguire indicts our
male-dominated religions for the problems they have caused for our
ecology and reproductive ethics. He raises the controversial
questions of whether the very concept of God is a problem and
whether Christianity's notions of afterlife and a divinized male
have done more harm than good. Larry L. Rasmussen also recognizes
that the problems of our planet are largely male-made and
rich-dominated. He writes that Europeans packaged a form of
earth-unfriendly capitalism and shipped it all over the world with
missionary zeal. He ably scans the long history that led to the
current manic rush to push the earth beyond its limits, and goes on
to suggest moral norms and policy guidelines for sustainable
communities and genuinely shared power. Both authors argue that
there are positive and renewable moral energies in the world's
religions and that unless religion, understood as a response to the
sanctity of life, animates our ethical debates, the prospects for
the world are grim. The sense of the sacred is presented here as
the nucleus of the good and the only force that can bring about the
lifestyle changes and power reallocations that are necessary to
prevent terracide.
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