Dietrich Bonhoeffers Letters And Papers From Prison

From National Book Award–winning author Martin Marty, the surprising story of a Christian classic born in a Nazi prison cell For fascination, influence, inspiration, and controversy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison is unmatched by any other book of Christian reflection written in the twentieth century. A Lutheran pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer spent two years in Nazi prisons before being executed at age thirty-nine, just a month before the German surrender, for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. The posthumous Letters and Papers from Prison has had a tremendous impact on both Christian and secular thought since it was first published in 1951, and has helped establish Bonhoeffer's reputation as one of the most important Protestant thinkers of the twentieth century. In this, the first history of the book's remarkable global career, National Book Award-winning author Martin Marty tells how and why Letters and Papers from Prison has been read and used in such dramatically different ways, from the cold war to today. In his late letters, Bonhoeffer raised tantalizing questions about the role of Christianity and the church in an increasingly secular world. Marty tells the story of how, in the 1960s and the following decades, these provocative ideas stirred a wide range of thinkers and activists, including civil rights and antiapartheid campaigners, "death-of-God" theologians, and East German Marxists. In the process of tracing the eventful and contested history of Bonhoeffer's book, Marty provides a compelling new perspective on religious and secular life in the postwar era.

Despite Dietrich Bonhoeffer¿s earlier theological achievements and writings, it was his correspondence and notes from prison that electrified the postwar world six years after his death in 1945. The materials gathered and selected by his friend Eberhard Bethge in Letters and Papers from Prison not only brought Bonhoeffer to a wide and appreciative readership, especially in North America, they also introduced to a broad readership his novel and exciting ideas of religionless Christianity, his open and honest theological appraisal of Christian doctrines, and his sturdy, if sorely tried, faith in face of uncertainty and doubt.This splendid volume, in many ways the capstone of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, is the first unabridged collection of Bonhoeffer¿s 1943¿1945 prison letters and theological writings. Here are over 200 documents that include extensive correspondence with his family and Eberhard Bethge (much of it in English for the first time), as well as his theological notes, and his prison poems. The volume offers an illuminating introduction by editor John de Gruchy and an historical Afterword by the editors of the original German volume: Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge.

A collection of letters written between Maria von Wedemeyer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while he was in prison before being executed for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The letters written by Dietrich show his passionate and romantic side.

"For facination, influence, inspiration, and controversy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison is unmatched by any other book of Christian reflection written in the twentieth century. A Lutheran pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer spent two years in Nazi prisons before being executed at age thirty-nine for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. Ever since it was published in 1951, Letters and Papers from Prison has had a tremendous impact on Christian and secular thought, and has helped establish Bonhoeffer's reputation as one of the most important Protestant thinkers of the twentieth century. In this, the first history of the book's remarkable global career ... writer Martin Marty tells how and why Letters and Papers from Prison has been read and used in such dramatically different ways, from the Cold War to today."--

A new comprehensive biography of this hugely important Christian martyr, 60 years after his execution at the hands of the Nazis Bonhoeffer has gained a position as one of the most prominent Christian martyrs of the last century. His influence is so widespread that even 60 years after his execution by the Nazis, Bonhoeffer's life and work are still the subject of fresh and lively discussion. As a pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer decided to resist the Nazis in Germany, but his resistance was not solely theological. He played a key leadership role in the Confessing Church, a major source of Christian opposition to Hitler and his anti-Semitism and was principal of the secret seminary at Finkenwalde in Pomerania. It was here that he developed his theological visions of radical discipleship and communal life. In 1938, he joined the Wehrmacht's "Abwehr", the German Military Intelligence Office, in order to seek international support for the plot against Hitler. Following his inner calling and conscience meant that Bonhoeffer was continually forced to make decisions that separated him from his family, friends, and colleagues, and which ultimately led to his martyrdom in Flossenbürg concentration camp, less than a month before the Second World War came to an end. His letters and papers from prison movingly express the development of some of the most provocative and fascinating ideas of 20th century theology. Sixty years after Bonhoeffer's death and forty years after the publication of Eberhard Bethge's ground breaking biography, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen offers a definitive new book on Bonhoeffer, for a new generation of readers. Schlingensiepen takes into account documents that have only been made accessible during the last few years - such as the letters between Bonhoeffer and his fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer. Schlingensiepen's careful narrative brings to life the historical events, as well as displaying the theological development of one of the most creative thinkers of the 20th century, who was to become one of its most tragic martyrs.

How does one read the signs of the times? What does it mean to resist? How do we engage faithfully in struggle? Dietrich Bonhoeffer has achieved iconic status as one who epitomizes what it means to struggle and resist tyranny and fascism and how one acts in faithful witness as a religious and political commitment. Bonhoeffer‘s witness and example is more relevant than ever. A testimony to that is a crucial essay penned by Bonhoeffer in 1942; "After Ten Years" is a succinct and sober reflection, and remains one of the best descriptions ever written about what happened to the German people under National Socialism. This volume presents this timely and unique essay in a fresh translation and a penetrating introduction and analysis of the importance of this essay-in Bonhoeffer‘s time and now in our own.

One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was only thirty-nine years old when he was executed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, yet his courage, vision, and brilliance have greatly influenced the twentieth-century Church and theology. Particularly through his bestselling classic, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer profoundly shaped such minds and movements as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Leonardo Boff, civil rights and leberation theology. A Testament to Freedom, completely revised and expanded for this edition, includes previously untranslated writings, excerpts from major books, sermons, and selected letters spanning the years of Bonhoeffer's pastoral and theological career. This magnificent volume takes readers on a historical and biographical journey that follows Bonhoeffer through the various stages of his life--as teacher, ecumenist, pastor, preacher, seminary director, prophet in the Nazi era and, finally, as martyr in pursuit of peace and justice.

Jesus died with a psalm on his lips. For millennia, humans have been shaped by the Psalms. And before the Nazis banned him from publishing, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer published this book on the Psalms. What comfort is found in the Psalter? What praise, and what challenge? What threat? In the pages of Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, discover the richness this book of Scripture held for Bonhoeffer, and learn to pray psalms along with Christ. First published in 1940, this classic reveals how the Psalms are essential to the life of the believer and offers Bonhoeffer's reflections on psalms of thanksgiving, suffering, guilt, praise, and lament. Now with an introduction by Walter Brueggemann and excerpts from the Psalms, Bonhoeffer's timeless work offers contemporary readers ancient wisdom and resources for the living of these days. Includes a biographical sketch of Bonhoeffer written by his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge.