Bonhoeffer

I’m finally retiring an old set of TextExpander snippets I built up during my Ph.D. work. Before I delete them, I wanted to keep a record, because a person’s text-expansion abbreviations turn out to be a surprisingly honest map of what was constantly on their mind. Mine were almost entirely about two theologians, their books, and one stubborn question: can you be scriptural without being religious? Here’s the archive. The people I couldn’t stop typing Snippet Expanded to xdb Bonhoeffer xddb Dietrich Bonhoeffer xkb Barth xkkb Karl Barth xnietz Nietzsche xSlot van ’t Slot Bonhoeffer’s works Snippet Expanded to xab / xas Act and Being / Akt und Sein xcf / xsf Creation and Fall / Schöpfung und Fall xdisc Discipleship xlpp Letters and Papers from Prison xlt Life Together Barth’s works Snippet Expanded to xcd Church Dogmatics xrom2 / xröm2 Romans / Römerbrief xderr Der Römerbrief The concepts at the heart of the dissertation Snippet Expanded to xpor / xoffenb positivism of revelation / Offenbarungspositivismus xtcr / xttcr theological critique(s) of religion xtis / xttis theological interpretation(s) of Scripture xvra vicarious representative action xsp Schriftprinzip (the Scripture principle) xbbr the Barth-Bonhoeffer relationship xkge / xge knowledge of good and evil / good and evil The biblical and theological furniture Snippet Expanded to x10c Ten Commandments xsom Sermon on the Mount xot / xnt Old Testament / New Testament xbt biblical theology xst systematic theology The workflow scaffolding Snippet Expanded to xcn [[[CITATION NEEDED]]] (in alarming red) xpara ¶ xs § xreadingnotes a full reading-notes template (bibliographic data, interpretation, critique) The links I kept reaching for xproposal → the elevator pitch for my dissertation proposal xwsample → my writing sample on Barth, Bonhoeffer, and religion Looking back What strikes me now is how narrow and deep the list is. Just Barth and Bonhoeffer, their major works in both English and German, and a tight cluster of concepts (revelation, religion, Scripture, good and evil) that I evidently typed so often I couldn’t bear to spell them out one more time. Even the [[[CITATION NEEDED]]] snippet, flashing red, says something about the anxieties of that season. ...

I keep seeing the same rhetorical move, and it’s making me furious. An ICE agent shoots someone on video. The administration lies about it in ways that would make Orwell blush. And the response from certain Christian commentators? “Let’s not fan the flames.” “We shouldn’t rush to conclusions.” “There are extremes on both sides.” This posture has the appearance of wisdom. It sounds mature, measured, above the fray. It positions the speaker as the reasonable adult in the room while everyone else loses their heads. ...

In his “Letters and Papers from Prison,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer made some remarkably insightful observations about the nature of stupidity and its dangers to society. These reflections, perhaps more relevant today than ever, deserve our careful attention. Here they are in full. On Stupidity (DBWE 8:43-44) Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical—and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. ...

I received word yesterday that the Ph.D. Committee voted to approve my request for “Excused Program Leave” beginning in January 2021 and lasting until January 2022. At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, 2020 has been a particularly difficult year. Attempting to complete my “Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Bible” dissertation has taken a toll on my mental health as I ran into some major research and writing roadblocks right before and during the COVID pandemic. ...

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 the topic. Neither Barth nor Bonhoeffer used the word “religion” in the way that we’re prone to use the word in everyday speech today. According to Merriam-Webster, “religion” means: ...

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 the “elevator pitch” for my dissertation proposal: Why does Bonhoeffer in prison, after adopting Barth’s theological critique of religion as idolatrous unbelief… ...

Perhaps it’s just the global COVID–19 pandemic, but I’ve been really discouraged about my dissertation lately. My normal reading/writing workflow has ground to a halt because (1) we are temporarily without childcare and (2) my wife, a Family Nurse Practitioner is still working full-time from the office. That leaves me home alone with our 1.5-year-old during the week and, while she is a wonderful child, she’s not really jazzed about dad sitting quietly in a corner getting some reading and writing done during the day. ...

I’m still very much in the weeds, taking a closer look at how Bonhoeffer and Barth read the Sermon on the Mount. Given the importance of the Sermon on Mount for Bonhoeffer’s life and work, I’m persuaded that there’s something important to be found here—something that will hopefully shed some light on the Barth-Bonhoeffer relationship re:their theological critiques of religion. Additionally, there are at least two other tidbits that have me interested in how Barth and Bonhoeffer read the Sermon on the Mount. ...

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 Jesus’s call to discipleship. Jesus sees: his disciples are over there. They have visibly left the people to join him. He has called each individual one. They have given up everything in response to his call. Now they are living in renunciation and want; they are the poorest of the poor, the most tempted of the tempted, the hungriest of the hungry. They have only him. Yes, and with him they have nothing in the world, nothing at all, but everything, everything with God. (DBWE 4:101). ...

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 both the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. A case in point: yesterday, I felt pretty confident that Bonhoeffer does not take the standard “entrance requirements” approach 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 Matthew 5:1–12. The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1–12) 1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: ...

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. For an overview of how Bonhoeffer and Barth differed on the meaning of “religion,” and what that means for how we interpret their theological critiques of religion, please see my essay: “To Be or Not To Be Religious: A Clarification of Karl Barth’s and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Divergence and Convergence Regarding Religion.” ...

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!

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, Germany 1912 Family moves to Berlin, where Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s father, takes up a position at Berlin University 1913 Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins gymnasium studies 1916 Family moves to the suburb of Grunewald 1918 Walter Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s brother, dies on the western front ...

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 4: The Epistle to the Romans (16,000 words) Chapter 5: Completing the Biblical Critique of Religion (16,000 words) Summary and Conclusion (5,000 words) However, after doing survey work, and spending most of the previous academic year working on Barth and Bonhoeffer’s reading of Genesis 1–3, I’ve decided to narrow my focus down to Genesis 1–3 and the Sermon on the Mount. ...