A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler.

A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double-agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinati! ng, complex figures of the 20th century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.

*2011 ECPA Book of the Year

*2011 Canterbury Medal by the Becket Fund recognizing courage in the defense of religious liberty

*2011 Christopher Award winner highlighting the power of faith, courage, and action

Before his arrest by the Nazis in 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was head of a seminary of the German Confessing Church. In The Cost of Discipleship, he focuses on the most treasured part of Christ's teaching, the Sermon on the Mount."When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." With these words, in The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave powerful voice to the millions of Christians who believe personal sacrifice is an essential co! mponent of faith. Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and th! eologian , was an exemplar of sacrificial faith: he opposed the Nazis from the first and was eventually imprisoned in Buchenwald and hung by the Gestapo in 1945. The Cost of Discipleship, first published in German in 1937, was Bonhoeffer's answer to the questions, "What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us to-day?" Bonhoeffer's answers are rooted in Lutheran grace and derived from Christian scripture (almost a third of the book consists of an extended meditation on the Sermon on the Mount). The book builds to a stunning conclusion: its closing chapter, "The Image of Christ," describes the believer's spiritual life as participation in Christ's incarnation, with a rare and epigrammatic confidence: "Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord," Bonhoeffer writes, "we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human r! ace." --Michael Joseph Gross "Bonhoeffer is teaching a few Protestants what it means to say 'yes' to the 20th century and still somehow stay recognizablly Protestant. A look at a few of his seminal ideas will make this clear.Letters and Papers from Prison is a collection of notes and correspondence covering the period from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in 1943 to his execution by the Gestapo in 1945. The book is probably most famous, and most important, for its idea of "religionless Christianity"--an idea Bonhoeffer did not live long enough fully to develop, but whose timeliness only increases as the lines between secular and ecclesial life blur. Bonhoeffer's first mention of "religionless Christianity" came in a letter in 1944:

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological o! r pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and consci! ence--an d that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."

The pleasures of Letters and Papers from Prison, however are not all so profound. Occasionally, Bonhoeffer's letters burst into song--sometimes with actual musical notations, other times with unforgettable phrases. Looking forward to seeing his best friend, Bonhoeffer writes, "To meet again is a God." --Michael Joseph Gross

Shepherd's Notes- Christian Classics Series is designed to give readers a quick, step by step overview of some of the enduring treasures of the Christian faith. They are designed to be used along side the classic itself- either in individual study or in a study group. The faithful of all gener! ations have found spiritual nourishment in the Scriptures and in the works of Christians of earlier generations. Martin Luther and John Calvin would not have become who they were apart from their reading Augustine. God used the writings of Martin Luther to move John Wesley from a religion of dead works to an experience at Aldersgate in which his "heart was strangely warmed." Shepherd's Notes will give pastors, laypersons, and students access to some of the treasures of Christian faith.

An illuminating study of prayer using the Psalms as a guidebook.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler.

A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bon! hoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to spe! ak out a gainst Hitler. As a double-agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler.

A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to spea! k out against Hitler. As a double-agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.

The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum; what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics.

The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as re! vealed in Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Ch! urch as distinct from the secular world; such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God's having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God's commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world.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. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, a sixteen volume series, offers a fresh, critical translation of Bonhoeffer's writings, with introductions, annotations, and interpretations. The stimulus for the writing of Life Together was the closing of the preacher's seminary at Finkenwalde. The treatise contains Bonhoeffer's thoughts about the nature of Christian co! mmunity based on the common life that he and his seminarians experienced at the seminary and in the "Brother's House" there. Bonhoeffer completed the writing of Life Together in 1938. Prayerbook of the Bible is a classic of Christian spirituality. In this theological interpretation of the Psalms, Bonhoeffer describes the moods of an individual's relationship with God and also the turns of love and heartbreak, of joy and sorrow, that are themselves the Christian community's path to God.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 expa! nded for this edition, includes previously untranslated writin! gs, exce rpts 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.