Taking Hold of the Real: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Profound Worldliness of Christianity

Description

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in one of his last prison letters that he had “come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity”. In “Taking Hold of the Real”, Barry Harvey engages in constructive conversation with Bonhoeffer, contending that the “shallow and banal thisworldliness” of modern society is ordered to a significant degree around the social structures of religion, culture, and race. These mechanisms displace human beings from their traditional connections with particular locales, and relocate them in their “proper places” as determined by the nation-state and capitalist markets. Christians are called to participate in the profound “this-worldliness” that breaks into the world in the apocalyptic action of Jesus Christ, a form of life that requires discipline and an understanding of death and resurrection. The church is a sacrament of this new humanity, performing for all to hear the polyphony of life that was prefigured in the Old Testament and now is realised in Christ. Unable to find a faithful form of “this-worldliness” in wartime Germany, Bonhoeffer joined the conspiracy against Hitler, a decision aptly compared to the actions of a small church in the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon which, prepared by its life together over many generations, saved thousands of Jewish lives. Barry Harvey is Professor of Theology in the Honours College and the Graduate Programme in Religion at Baylor University. His other books include “Politics of the Theological”, “Another City”, and “Can These Bones Live?” He has served on the Board of the International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, and the Editorial Board of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. “Harvey’s fine study offers a mature and highly responsible interpretation of the central elements of Bonhoeffer’s theology in creative conversation with leading theologians and theorists of our day. Here is a work from which we can learn what ought never to have been forgotten: that following where Christ leads drives Christians ever more profoundly into the realities of the world for its sake.” PHILIP G. ZIEGLER, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, King’s College, University of Aberdeen.