Who am I?: Bonhoeffer's Theology through his Poetry

by Bernd Wannenwetsch

Overview

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis.

Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be 'explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years.

Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567032225
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/21/2009
Series:	T&T Clark Theology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bernd Wannenwetsch is Lecturer in Ethics at Harris Manchester College in the University of Oxford, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Who is Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Us Today? - Bernd Wannenwetsch

'Who Am I?' Human Identity and the Spiritual Disciplines in the Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Michael Northcott

'Past': Bonhoeffer's 'Past'- Oliver O'Donovan

'Success and Failure': Public Disasters, Works of Love, and the Inwardness of Faithfulness - Brian Brock

'By Powers of Good': Bonhoeffer's Last Poem - Nancy Lukens with Renate Bethge

'The Friend': Reflections on Friendship and Freedom - Stanley Hauerwas

'Voices in the Night': Human Solidarity and Eschatological Hope - Philip Ziegler

'Stations on the Road to Freedom': The Presence of God-The Freedom of Disciples - Hans G. Ulrich

'Christians and Pagans': Towards a Trans-Religious Second Naiveté or How to Be a Christological Creature - Bernd Wannenwetsch

'Jonah': Guilt and Promise Stephen Plant

'The Death of Moses': Why Moses? Craig Slane

Bibliography