Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception PDF Author: Kevin O’Farrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 056770940X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Engaging with the many debates about the meaning and character of Bonhoeffer's late resistance theology and action, particularly as it relates to his participation in the attempted coup d'état against Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception attends to Bonhoeffer's understanding of the exception. Resisting the common reduction of the exception to a political or ethical concept, O'Farrell argues that the exception for Bonhoeffer is an extraordinary moment in history that disarms persons, impinging on one's understanding of politics and ethics. Through a wide engagement with the Bonhoeffer corpus, this book claims that this leads to distinctive narrations of key concepts in Bonhoeffer's corpus: responsibility, the free venture, simple obedience, and action beyond the law. It also offers a different portrait of Bonhoeffer to contemporary narrations. The Bonhoeffer that emerges is neither a Niebuhrian realist, a pacifist, or a religious fanatic, but one who is impelled to act apart from the law without this action becoming arbitrary. This Bonhoeffer provides a hopeful political witness that seeks a world beyond the conflicts and divisions of this age.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception PDF Author: Kevin O’Farrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 056770940X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Engaging with the many debates about the meaning and character of Bonhoeffer's late resistance theology and action, particularly as it relates to his participation in the attempted coup d'état against Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception attends to Bonhoeffer's understanding of the exception. Resisting the common reduction of the exception to a political or ethical concept, O'Farrell argues that the exception for Bonhoeffer is an extraordinary moment in history that disarms persons, impinging on one's understanding of politics and ethics. Through a wide engagement with the Bonhoeffer corpus, this book claims that this leads to distinctive narrations of key concepts in Bonhoeffer's corpus: responsibility, the free venture, simple obedience, and action beyond the law. It also offers a different portrait of Bonhoeffer to contemporary narrations. The Bonhoeffer that emerges is neither a Niebuhrian realist, a pacifist, or a religious fanatic, but one who is impelled to act apart from the law without this action becoming arbitrary. This Bonhoeffer provides a hopeful political witness that seeks a world beyond the conflicts and divisions of this age.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception PDF Author: Kevin O’Farrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567709434
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
Engaging with the many debates about the meaning and character of Bonhoeffer's late resistance theology and action, particularly as it relates to his participation in the attempted coup d'état against Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception attends to Bonhoeffer's understanding of the exception. Resisting the common reduction of the exception to a political or ethical concept, O'Farrell argues that the exception for Bonhoeffer is an extraordinary moment in history that disarms persons, impinging on one's understanding of politics and ethics. Through a wide engagement with the Bonhoeffer corpus, this book claims that this leads to distinctive narrations of key concepts in Bonhoeffer's corpus: responsibility, the free venture, simple obedience, and action beyond the law. It also offers a different portrait of Bonhoeffer to contemporary narrations. The Bonhoeffer that emerges is neither a Niebuhrian realist, a pacifist, or a religious fanatic, but one who is impelled to act apart from the law without this action becoming arbitrary. This Bonhoeffer provides a hopeful political witness that seeks a world beyond the conflicts and divisions of this age.

Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer PDF Author: Wolf Krötke
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493416790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Wolf Krötke, a foremost interpreter of the theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, demonstrates the continuing significance of these two theologians for Christian faith and life. This book enables readers to look with fresh eyes at the theologies of Barth and Bonhoeffer and offers new insights for reading the history of modern theology. It also helps churches see how they can be creative minorities in societies that have forgotten God. Translated by a senior American scholar of Christian theology, this is the first major translation of Krötke's work in the English language. The book includes a foreword by George Hunsinger.

Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer PDF Author: Petra Brown
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030056988
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Theologian. Conspirator. Martyr. Saint. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was killed in the waning days of World War II, having been implicated in the July 20th assassination attempt on Hitler. Since his death, Bonhoeffer’s life and writings have inspired contradictory responses. He is often seen as a model for Christian pacifist resistance, and more recently for violent direct political action. Bonhoeffer’s name has been invoked by violent anti-abortion protestors as well as political leaders calling for support on a ‘war on terror’ in the aftermath of 9/11. Petra Brown critically analyses Bonhoeffer’s writing preceding and during his conspiracy involvement, particularly his recurring concept of the ‘extraordinary.’ Brown examines this idea in light of ‘the state of exception,’ a concept coined by the one-time Nazi jurist and political theorist, Carl Schmitt. She also draws on the existentialist philosopher Sören Kierkegaard to consider what happens when discipleship is understood as obedience to a divine command. This book aims to complicate an unreflective admiration of Bonhoeffer’s decision for conspiracy, and draws attention to the potentially dangerous implications of his emerging political theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception PDF Author: Kevin O'Farrell (Theologian)
Publisher:
ISBN: 0567709442
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Examines the idea of the exception for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which is a moment in history that befalls a person whereby God liberates them for a free response that participates in the emergence of new political and moral formations beyond the determinations of this age"--

Performing the Faith

Performing the Faith PDF Author: Stanley Hauerwas
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725235447
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
"Folksy, eclectic, disarmingly humble, and astonishingly wide-ranging, Hauerwas offers us a provocative reading of Bonhoeffer that, not surprisingly, assimilates him closely to John Howard Yoder. At the same time, Hauerwas replies to recent criticisms of his work by Jeffrey Stout. Contending that truth depends on performance far more than on theory, Hauerwas steps forward as a pacifist gadfly for a more truly faithful church and a more recognizably democratic society." --George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary "This book shows how lively and fecund Hauerwas's thought remains. A dazzling performance, capable of entertaining and instructing professional theologians as much as those who think the world might be a better place without theologians in it." --Paul J. Griffiths, University of Illinois at Chicago "Stan Hauerwas has done it again! He is able skillfully to blend into his book the passion for truth and justice of two of his greatest influences, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Howard Yoder. He takes these heroic advocates for peace into his own present-day struggle for the soul of the American nation. Hauerwas, an admirable Christian pacifist himself, dares Christians to be the 'Jesus people' they claim to be and to follow Jesus into the gospel path of nonviolence." --Geffrey B. Kelly, author of Liberating Faith: Bonhoeffer's Message for Today "Never totally predictable. Always a fresh perspective. And yet once again in these essays--on narrative, politics, Bonhoeffer, and the church--we hear the engaging, discerning, and brilliant voice we have come to know as Stanley Hauerwas." --Mark Thiessen Nation, Eastern Mennonite Seminary "Contending with and learning from the witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life is often thought to provide a Christian alternative to pacifism, Hauerwas deepens the account of Christian nonviolence he has been articulating for decades. His theology is strengthened and clarified by his encounter with the exemplary figure of Bonhoeffer." --Alan Jacobs, Wheaton College "Without loss of the provocative edge that has made him a vital and distinctive Christian voice, Hauerwas's Performing the Faith allows him to cast a retrospective eye on his work. At the same time, in a brilliant essay under the title of the book, he develops a profoundly important description of faithfulness." --Dennis O'Brien, University of Rochester

Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context

Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context PDF Author: Peter Hooton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 197870934X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood Western civilization to be “approaching a completely religionless age” to which Christians must respond and adapt. This book explores Bonhoeffer’s own response to this challenge—his concept of a religionless Christianity—and its place in his broader theology. It does this, first, by situating the concept in a present-day Western socio-historical context. It then considers Bonhoeffer’s understanding and critique of religion, before examining the religionless Christianity of his final months in the light of his earlier Christ-centred theology. The place of mystery, paradox, and wholeness in Bonhoeffer’s thinking is also given careful attention, and non-religious interpretation is taken seriously as an ongoing task. The book aspires to present religionless Christianity as a lucid and persuasive contemporary theology; and does this always in the presence of the question which inspired Bonhoeffer’s theological journey from its academic beginnings to its very deliberately lived end—the question “Who is Jesus Christ?”

Ethics

Ethics PDF Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451688504
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
From one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, Ethics is the seminal reinterpretation of the role of Christianity in the modern, secularized world. The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum; what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics. The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Church as distinct from the secular world; such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God’s having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God’s commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world.

The Sovereign Human Being

The Sovereign Human Being PDF Author: Valentin Jeutner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567717054
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Sovereign is who decides; and who decides is responsible. The book develops these two arguments by comparing Carl Schmitt's and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theories of sovereignty. Carl Schmitt was an influential jurist of Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran priest hanged for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. In many ways, the two men could not be more different. But they both struggled with the question of how to maintain order and how to prevent violence at times of crisis. In this considered work, Jeutner brings these two thinkers into careful dialogue. They both agreed that order is established not by appealing to existing norms or general principles but by an individual's sovereign decision. Ascribing sovereignty to individuals communicates that they always have a choice and that they are always responsible for these choices. Thus, it is not just powerful individuals who have the choice to bring wars to an end or who can combat climate change. This exploratory work reveals that, by making sovereign decisions, ordinary individuals, too, can work towards the peaceful resolution of conflicts or reduce their carbon footprint. Making such sovereign decisions is not easy for individuals who are taught to follow orders and norms. For this reason, this book supplements the comparative analysis of Schmitt and Bonhoeffer with an action-guiding decision-making framework. While the proposed framework departs from Schmitt's and Bonhoeffer's theses by recognizing the agency, responsibility, and sovereignty of all individuals, Jeutner argues that this acknowledgement of the universal sovereignty of individuals is the only way to bring about the orderly and peaceful world of which Schmitt and Bonhoeffer dream.

The Life of Christian Doctrine

The Life of Christian Doctrine PDF Author: Mike Higton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567687228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
The lives of Christian churches are shaped by doctrinal theology. That is, they are shaped by practices in which ideas about God and God's ways with the world are developed, discussed and deployed. This book explores those practices, and asks why they matter for communities seeking to follow Jesus. Taking the example of the Church of England, this book highlights the embodied, affective and located reality of all doctrinal practices – and the biases and exclusions that mar them. It argues that doctrinal theology can in principle help the church know God better, even though doctrinal theologians do not know God better than their fellow believers. It claims that it can help the church to hear in Scripture challenges to its life, including to its doctrinal theology. It suggests that doctrinal disagreement is inevitable, but that a better quality of doctrinal disagreement is possible. And, finally, it argues that, by encouraging attention to voices that have previously been ignored, doctrinal theology can foster the ongoing discovery of God's surprising work.