Injury, Justice, Love, and Fate: Bonhoeffer’s Theo-Ethical Legacies

Submitted to Program Units
1: Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Unit and Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Unit

This co-sponsored session examines various dimensions of the legacy of Bonhoeffer’s political theology and ethics. Bonhoeffer’s theology emerges in dialogue with contemporary theory, Bonhoeffer’s own Lutheran contemporaries, or the work of Martin Luther himself. Papers in this session offer new perspectives on Bonhoeffer through the lenses of Moral Injury, dialogues with the Black Pentecostal Tradition, earthly love poetry in the Song of Songs, and Martin Buber’s personalism.

Papers

Jacob Cook, Eastern Mennonite Seminary

“Everyone Who Acts Responsibly Becomes Guilty”: Reading Bonhoeffer’s Free Responsible Action, Relative Sinlessness, and Participation in Conspiracy through the Lens of Moral Injury

Abstract

In “Moral Injury and Human Relationship,” Michael Yandell explores the many layers and scales of responsibility in the waging and fighting of war. After locating himself as a US veteran and reviewing core literature in the study of moral injury, which is yet only in its nascence, he draws on Bonhoeffer’s account of conscience and shame to offer substantive theological engagement with more clinical definitions. Against the backdrop of the growing understanding of moral injury and Yandell’s theological response that draws upon Bonhoeffer’s theology, this paper will reverse the hermeneutical flow to explore how moral injury might be a helpful category for understanding Bonhoeffer’s theological moves most nearly associated with his decision to join a conspiracy. These include the claim that “everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty,” his preference for concreteness over abstract principles, and his notions of “free, responsible action” with hope for only a “relative sinlessness” in Christ.
Christopher Whyte, University of St. Andrews

Deliver Us From Evil: A Constructive Account of Prayer and Justice in Conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ernst Käsemann, and the Black Pentecostal Tradition

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the underlying logics of Bonhoeffer's view, found in Letters and Papers from Prison and Ethics, that the church can enjoy a clean break from injustice through prayer and confessional practices. I do so first by engaging the work of Ernst Käsemann, who offers a post-war critique of clean break thinking in light of the German Church’s ongoing entanglement with white supremacy. I then turn to the the Black Pentecostal Tradition, and its own confrontation of white supremacy through tongues speech, to develop an account, in conversation with Bonhoeffer and Käsemann, of the type of prayer that might confront white supremacy in our day and accomplish Bonhoeffer’s desire for the church to one day regain the authority to speak liberative and redemptive words evoking those spoken by Jesus.
Michelle CAO, Institute of Sino-Christian Studies

Song of Songs as an Earthly Love Poem: Exploring on Bonhoeffer’s Christological Interpretative Logic

Abstract

Though a student of Harnack, Bonhoeffer did not shy away from figural exegesis since his early period. He approached Genesis 1-3 from a theological perspective and interpreted the Psalms as Christ's own prayers. However, during his time in prison, he began to affirm earthly love by turning to the Song of Songs, a book traditionally interpreted through the lens of the love between Christ and the Church or believers. In a later letter, he even told Bethge that reading the this book as an earthly love poem was ‘probably the best “Christological” interpretation’.(DBWE 8, 410.)This affirmation of earthly love from the standpoint of holy scriptures and Christology is uncommon in Christian theology. So why could reading the Song of Songs as an earthly love poem be considered a Christological interpretation, and even the best one? This paper aims to explore Bonhoeffer’s exegetical logic behind this fragmented reflection.
David Robinson, Regent College

Resistance and Submission: Confronting Fate in Bonhoeffer’s Prison Letters

Abstract

Although the German title of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison letters—Resistance and Submission [Widerstand und Ergebung]—suggests a direct reference to political activity, it actually comes from his reflection on two ways to confront one’s “fate.” “I’ve often wondered,” he writes in a 1944 letter to Eberhard Bethge, “where we are to draw the line between necessary resistance to ‘fate’ and equally necessary submission.” This essay situates Bonhoeffer’s remark within the frequent references to “fate” [Schicksal] among German theologians working between 1919-45, including Emanuel Hirsch and Werner Elert. It then shows how Bonhoeffer creatively engages with the question of fate by retrieving Martin Luther’s concept of social realities as “masks” of God, an insight that leads him to adapt his personalist philosophy. Finally, I demonstrate how Bonhoeffer’s treatment of fate is related to his disavowal of tragedy, both in his Ethics and in an unpublished note from the archive.

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LCD Projector and Screen

Podium microphone

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Session Length

2 Hours

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Injury, Justice, Love, and Fate: Bonhoeffer’s Theo-Ethical Legacies

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