What does “religion” mean? Great question! I’m writing my dissertation on Barth, Bonhoeffer, the Bible, and “religion.” However, getting clear on just what Barth and Bonhoeffer meant by “religion” is a huge challenge. It’s what I devoted my entire writing sample to examining, and I plan to devote an entire chapter of my dissertation to…… Continue reading Want a taste of what my dissertation is about? Read these two passages (Dissertation Dispatch, 2020-04-03)
Tag: Bonhoeffer
What did Barth and Bonhoeffer think of the Bible? (Dissertation Dispatch, 2020-03-30)
I’m trying to parse out the relevance of Barth’s and Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Scripture for making sense of the “Barth-Bonhoeffer relationship.” Specifically, I’m trying to, at the very least, add some biblical content and context to the ongoing debate over the relationship between Barth’s and Bonhoeffer’s theological critiques of religion. As I put it in…… Continue reading What did Barth and Bonhoeffer think of the Bible? (Dissertation Dispatch, 2020-03-30)
Are the Beatitudes “Renunciations” (Verzichte)?
In Discipleship (DBWE 4), Dietrich Bonhoeffer frames all of the Beatitudes in terms of Jesus’ disciples living in renunciation (Verzicht) and want (Mangel). Interestingly, for Bonhoeffer, Jesus is only speaking to his disciples in the Beatitudes (he makes this argument on the basis of Luke 6:20ff.). And the disciples’ renunciation and want are caused by…… Continue reading Are the Beatitudes “Renunciations” (Verzichte)?
Are the Beatitudes “Good Works”? (Matt. 5:13–16)
Yesterday, I wrote just a bit about interpretive approaches to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. I’m trying to get a better handle on how Barth and Bonhoeffer treat the Sermon on the Mount, and I’m starting with the Beatitudes. However, it’s pretty challenging to situate Barth and Bonhoeffer in light of the “standard” approaches to…… Continue reading Are the Beatitudes “Good Works”? (Matt. 5:13–16)
Interpretive Approaches to the Beatitudes
As I said in my previous post, “Interpretive Approaches to the Sermon on the Mount,” I’m working on how Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer read the Sermon on the Mount. Of course, when interpreting the Sermon on the Mount, the best place to start is at the beginning! This means beginning with the Beatitudes in…… Continue reading Interpretive Approaches to the Beatitudes
No One Knows what “Positivism of Revelation” Means!
When it comes to the Barth-Bonhoeffer relationship, there is perhaps no greater conundrum than the meaning of what Bonhoeffer called Barth’s “Offenbarungspositivismus” (“positivism of revelation” or “revelatory positivism”) in his Letters and Papers from Prison (DBWE 8). Now, before we proceed, please note that Bonhoeffer meant something very particular by “religion” in his prison letters.…… Continue reading No One Knows what “Positivism of Revelation” Means!
I’m quite excited for these Oxford Handbooks!
If you’ve not yet consulted the Oxford Handbook series, you should! The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology is especially useful! I’m very excited because the Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth are both about to be released soon! I just wish they weren’t so expensive!
Bonhoeffer Timeline: A Chronology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life
The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer SOURCE (Amazon affiliate link): John W. de Gruchy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), xxiv–xxvi. 1906, 4 February, Dietrich Bonhoeffer born in Breslau, Germany1912 Family moves to Berlin, where Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s father, takes up a position at Berlin University1913 Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins…… Continue reading Bonhoeffer Timeline: A Chronology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life
Dissertation Dispatch: 2019-11-11
I’m narrowing my focus to Genesis 1–3 and the Sermon on the Mount. Originally, my dissertation proposal cast a very wide net. I was going to have the following chapters: Introduction (5,000 words) Chapter 1: Creation and Fall (Genesis 1–3) (16,000 words) Chapter 2: The Prophets (16,000 words) Chapter 3: The Gospels (16,000 words) Chapter…… Continue reading Dissertation Dispatch: 2019-11-11
Following Christ as a Hermeneutical Problem?
I’m trying to puzzle out the meaning of the following paragraph from Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship (DBWE 4). Fundamentally eliminating simple obedience introduces a principle of scripture foreign to the Gospel.[19] According to it, in order to understand scripture, one first must have a key to interpreting it. But that key would not be the living Christ…… Continue reading Following Christ as a Hermeneutical Problem?