Gene Hatfield will lead this discussion.

Rick Riggle will lead this discussion.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, igniting the Second World War, a group of German conspirators were already plotting a coup d’état; over the next six years, there were as many as fifteen assassination attempts against Hitler. One of the co-conspirators, a double-agent who smuggled information about the plots to the Allies, was the young German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In the late 1930s he wrote about the necessity of “risking” peace and “daring” a loving presence to others – words which seem to fly in the face of his later justification of assassination. But Bonhoeffer formulated his theology and ethics in the crucible of a long and ultimately fatal struggle with the Nazi regime in Germany. His story is a fascinating window onto the dilemmas of twentieth-century ethics and spirituality.

Bonhoeffer’s work came to full fruition only after his death. His efforts and his writings on behalf of the international ecumenical movement laid the groundwork for post-war inter-faith dialogue. His insistence on the importance of an active response to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount – a call to social justice – inspired many of the world’s great civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Vaclav Havel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And finally, his brave and revolutionary concept of a “religionless Christianity” has helped Christian theology turn toward uncertain vistas of the future. It is an idea which exposes the vitality and relevance of faith in a world, as Bonhoeffer put it, “come of age.”

Notes on Paul’s Theology

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