Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Works: Reader's Editions (4 vols.)

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2015

Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, these new editions of Discipleship, Ethics, Letters and Papers from Prison, and Life Together feature the latest translations of Bonhoeffer’s works, supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett, and insightful introductions by Geffrey B. Kelly, Clifford J. Green, and John W. de Gruchy.

Key Features

• Provides an accessible edition of Bonhoeffer's most popular works'
• Includes scholarly translation without technical notes for casual reading
• Examines key themes in Christian ethics, moral discipleship, and Christian community

Praise for Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoefffer is the one German theologian who will lead us into the third millennium.

—Dorothy Soelle

Product Details

• Title: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Works: Reader's Editions
• Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Translator: Victoria J. Barnett
• Publisher: Fortress
• Publication Date: 2015
• Volumes: 4
• Pages: 1,300
• Christian Group: Lutheran
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Theology, Christian Living

Ethics

• Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Edition: Reader’s
• Series: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works
• Publisher: Fortress
• Publication Date: 2015
• Pages: 380

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Ethics is the culmination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological and personal odyssey and one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century. Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features an insightful introduction by Clifford Green and supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett.

Written in the midst of the conspiracy to overthrow the Hitler regime, it is nonetheless chiefly concerned with ethics for the postwar time of reconstruction and peace. Though caught up in the vortex of momentous forces in the Nazi period, Bonhoeffer systematically envisioned a radically Christocentric, incarnational ethic for a postwar world, purposefully recasting Christians’ relation to history, politics, and public life. Focused on Christ, the God who became human, and the vision of a world reconciled with God, Ethics shuns abstraction, seeks the will of God in concrete historical reality, and calls the church to be a transforming community in the world with a new responsibility to public life.

All students of Bonhoeffer will relish this new translation and expanded edition of his indispensable Ethics. Not only does this edition of the Ethics continue the superb scholarly production of Bonhoeffer’s works, but it also contains a wonderful Introduction and Afterword by the editors that helps clarify how the Ethics stands in continuity with Bonhoeffer’s earlier work. Anyone interested in Bonhoeffer must own this volume. But just as important, anyone interested in continuing to think through what a Christian ethic is and how it should be done needs to read this book.

—Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University Divinity School

Bonhoefer’s Ethics is one of the greatest works of twentieth-century theology, gripping in its capacity to go to the heart of living the Christian life, rich in generative concepts, and still powerfully relevant. This new translation of the authoritative German edition does full justice to a classic text, reads very well, and is superbly edited.

—David Ford, University of Cambridge

Discipleship

• Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Edition: Reader’s
• Series: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works
• Publisher: Fortress
• Publication Date: 2015
• Pages: 309

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” And with that sharp warning to his own church, which was engaged in bitter conflict with the official Nazified state church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began his book Discipleship (formerly entitled The Cost of Discipleship). Originally published in 1937, it soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. At its center stands an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount: what Jesus demanded of his followers—and how the life of discipleship is to be continued in all ages of the post- resurrection church.

“Every call of Jesus is a call to death,” Bonhoeffer wrote. His own life ended in martyrdom on April 9, 1945.

Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by Geffrey B. Kelly to clarify the theological meaning and social context of this attempt to resist the Nazi ideology.

Dietrich Bonhoefffer is the one German theologian who will lead us into the third millennium.

—Dorothy Soelle

Life Together

• Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Edition: Reader’s
• Series: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works
• Publisher: Fortress
• Publication Date: 2015
• Pages: 120

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most influential Christian martyrs in history, bequeathed to humanity a legacy of theological creativity and spirituality that continues to intrigue people from a variety of backgrounds. Life Together gathers Bonhoeffer’s 1938 reflections on the character of Christian community, based on the common life that he and his seminarians experienced at the Finkenwalde Seminary and in the “Brother’s House” there. The stimulus for the writing of Life Together was the closing of the preacher’s seminary at Finkenwalde by the Nazis.

While Bonhoeffer wrote with his own seminary community in mind, he intended Life Together to have a more universal impact, and spoke of a mission and responsibility of the church as a whole.

Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by Geffrey B. Kelly to clarify the theological meaning and social importance of Bonhoeffer’s work.

Bonhoeffer’s Life Together is substantial evidence that this servant of God saw himself as belonging to the church. The short, powerful book is both a gift and a challenge to any Christian who will take the time to study it.

—Words on the Word

Letters and Papers from Prison

• Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Edition: Reader’s
• Series: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works
• Publisher: Fortress
• Publication Date: 2015
• Pages: 614

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

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 some ways the capstone of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series, presents the full array of Bonhoeffer’s 1943–1945 prison letters and theological writings. Using the acclaimed English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by John W. de Gruchy to clarify the theological meaning and social importance of Bonhoeffer’s prison writings.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison has inspired many of us in South Africa and across the world. In these remarkable writings we meet Bonhoeffer at his most vulnerable and human, but also as a man of faith and prayer. Separated from those he loved most, surrounded by destruction, assailed by doubt, and fearing the worst, his hope in Christ remains firm even as his death becomes more certain. And through his profound reflections on what it means to be a Christian he guides us into the twenty–first century. I strongly commend this volume to a new generation of readers.

—Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus, South africa

About Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German pastor and theologian whose striking theological journey and public witness against the Nazi regime led to worldwide fame after his death in 1945.