Dietrich Bonhoeffer's encounter with Roman Catholicism as theology through biography (Master's...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s

encounter with Roman

Catholicism as theology

through biography.

Neil Hinnem

MSt Theology - Dissertation

Worcester College, University of Oxford

June 2013

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‘It has been a magnificent day; the first in which I gained some real understanding of Catholicism; no romanticism or anything of the sort, but I believe I am beginning to understand the concept of the church.’ – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Italian Diary’, 1924.

With thanks to Barbara and Malcolm Hinnem, Thomas Ridd and Clare

Wilcockson, Gareth Evers and Jenifer Field, Alex Wilson and Kristie

Pickersgill, Angela Murphy, Fr. Kevin Ryan, Dr. Johannes Zachhuber, St.

Christopher’s Educational Trust, Culham St. Gabriels, St. Luke’s College

Foundation, Sisters of the Love of God, and the London Bonhoeffer Centre.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Roman

Catholicism as theology through biography.

Table of Contents

The nature of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's relationship with Roman Catholicism: Methodological considerations concerning theology through biography. _________________________________________________ 3

Bonhoeffer and Roman Catholicism ________________________________________ 3 Bonhoeffer and Biography ________________________________________________ 7 Theology through biography: Methodological considerations _________________ 10

From Rome to unity? Bonhoeffer, the Roman Catholic Church and ecclesiology. _____________________________________________________ 13

The formative experiences of Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Roman Catholicism: From Rome to the ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’ ________________________ 13 Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology: Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being _________ 18 Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and Roman Catholicism: Positive engagement and criticism _______________________________________________________________ 21 Bonhoeffer and the ecumenical movement: Questions of church unity ________ 24 Unity with the Roman Catholic Church? The concrete command of the church as the essential criterion ___________________________________________________ 27 Summary ______________________________________________________________ 30

A ‘new monasticism?’ The relationship between the discipline of spiritual practices, Bonhoeffer and Roman Catholicism. _____________ 31

Bonhoeffer’s spirituality: A definition ______________________________________ 32 Life Together: The Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde ______________ 34 Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Roman Catholic spirituality in Rome _____________ 37 Finkenwalde: The influence of Roman Catholicism or Lutheran spiritual renewal? ______________________________________________________________________ 39 Finkenwalde and the concrete situation facing the church ___________________ 41 Summary ______________________________________________________________ 42

Conclusion: Recognising Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’ towards Roman Catholicism with theology through biography. _______________ 44 Table of Abbreviations ____________________________________________ 47 Bibliography ______________________________________________________ 50

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The nature of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's relationship with Roman

Catholicism: Methodological considerations concerning

theology through biography. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s status as arguably one of the most important and influential

of twentieth Century Christian theologians and personalities has grown, so too has

positive reception of Bonhoeffer among Christians outside Protestantism.

Bonhoeffer’s influence is now truly found across theological and denominational

divides: ‘If he is read in both East and West, so, too he is studied in both Catholic

(Orthodox and Roman) and Protestant Christian circles.’ 1 In light of such a

development, the German Lutheran theologian’s relation to Roman Catholicism

warrants special attention. This dissertation will investigate the nature of

Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Roman Catholicism, focussing not simply on the

references to Catholic2 theology or the Catholic Church in Bonhoeffer’s writing, but

also on Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Catholicism in his biography. It will suggest

that Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Roman Catholicism can be summarised as a

‘theological attitude’ that is closely linked to theme of concreteness, notably the

authority of the church to speak the concrete command of the Word of God, and the

importance of the reality of the concrete situation facing the church.

Bonhoeffer and Roman Catholicism It is important to consider the immediate ways in which the life and thought of

Bonhoeffer has been, and might be, related to Roman Catholicism. The first is found

1 Martin E. Marty, ‘Introduction: Problem and Possibilities in Bonhoeffer’s Thought’, The

Place of Bonhoeffer, ed. Martin E. Marty (London: SCM Press, 1963), 12.

2 For ease of phrase I will employ the widely used shortened terms ‘Catholic’ and

‘Catholicism’ to refer to the Roman Catholic Church and will indicate reference to the

universal church by referring to the church ‘catholic.’ To avoid confusion with the English

meaning of ‘Evangelical’ I will use ‘Protestant’ and ‘Protestantism’ in reference to the

Evangelische Kirche.

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in Bonhoeffer’s biography and his first-hand experiences of Catholicism and the

Catholic Church. Before continuing his undergraduate studies in Berlin, Bonhoeffer

travelled to Italy and North Africa in 1924 at the age of eighteen. The weeks spent in

Rome, including Holy Week, provided an important formative experience for the

young Lutheran, especially in regards to the formation of his thoughts on the church.

As he writes in his travel diary after a Palm Sunday attending Mass at St. Peter’s and

Vespers at Trinità dei Monti, ‘I believe I am beginning to understand the concept of

the church.’3 In addition, the observation of the seriousness of penitents preparing

for confession at St. Maria Maggiore also left an indelible mark, with Bonhoeffer

keen to note that the practice of confession ‘is the concretization of the idea that the

church is fulfilled in confession and absolution.’4 In light of the importance of these

particular experiences5 of the Catholic notion of the church, and the practice of

confession being central to Bonhoeffer’s formative encounter with Catholicism, the

question of the nature of Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Catholicism will be

examined in relation to his ecclesiology, as expressed in Sanctorum Communio and Act

and Being, and his approach to spirituality as the discipline of spiritual practices, as

promoted in Life Together.6

Although the Catholic Church was not represented in the ecumenical movement and

the World Alliance for Promoting Friendship among the Churches (which

Bonhoeffer served as a regional secretary of the Joint Youth Commission until 1937),

3 ‘Italian Diary’, YB, 89.

4 Ibid.

5 Bonhoeffer also spent a year in Catholic Spain as a pastoral assistant to a Lutheran

congregation. However, due to what he saw as an uncultivated clergy and an educated

populace often vehemently opposed to the Church, Bonhoeffer viewed the experience as a

disappointment. Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker,

Man of Resistance, trans. Isabel Best (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2012), 50-4.

6 I will be primarily concerned with the expression of Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology in Sanctorum

Communio and Act and Being, and the promotion of the discipline of spiritual practices in Life

Together. I will also refer to extracts from diaries, letters and papers when they are relevant to

the relation of Bonhoeffer and Catholicism, in addition to other works by Bonhoeffer that

may offer further clarification of ideas.

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Bonhoeffer came into regular contact with Catholic clergy in his involvement in the

resistance. Activity in the resistance led Bonhoeffer to spend four months from

November 1941 near the Benedictine monastery at Ettal. Whilst at Ettal Bonhoeffer

wrote the chapter on ‘Ultimate and Penultimate Things’ later published in Ethics in

addition to meeting with several Catholic theologians, including Prelate Johannes

Neuhäusler, Angelus Kupfer, the abbot of Metten Monastery, and Father Johannes

Albrecht at Ettal, to discuss Catholic ethics and questions surrounding euthanasia and

contraception.7 Further interaction with Catholic clergy followed in Bonhoeffer’s visit

to Rome with Hans von Dohnanyi and Josef Müller (a Catholic) in the summer of

1942. Though little is known of the details of this trip,8 Müller’s records indicate that

meetings at the Vatican included conversations with Ivo Zeiger, Rector of the

Collegium Germanicum. 9 It is in this biographical context that Bonhoeffer’s

relationship with Catholicism will be focussed on Catholicism in the terms that

Bonhoeffer himself encountered it: the institution of the Roman Catholic Church,

and personalities and theologians explicitly identified with this institution.

A second way in which Bonhoeffer has been related to Catholicism is to be found in

accusations from fellow Protestant theologians that Bonhoeffer is too greatly

influenced by aspects of Catholicism. Such claims are made especially in relation to

the primary concerns of this dissertation, Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and spirituality.

In his assessment of Sanctorum Communio Karl Barth was keen to warn Bonhoeffer of

the dangers of too closely linking Christology with ecclesiology. For Barth,

‘Bonhoeffer’s view of the church as a revelational reality established in Christ’10

would be dangerously close to a sense of ‘being homesick’ for Roman Catholicism,

granting ecclesiology too great an importance in relation to the proper place of

theology in testing the proclamation of the revelatory event of Christ.11 In relation to

7 Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 252-259.

8 The only record of this visit kept by Bonhoeffer takes the form of a forged diary that

feigned loyalty to the Nazi regime. See ‘Fictitious Diary Fragments’, CI, 400-3.

9 See Josef Müller, Bis zur letzten Konsequenz (Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1975), 241-2.

10 Joachim von Soosten, ‘Afterword’, SC, 293.

11 See Karl Barth, ‘Das Schriftprinzip der reformierten Kirche’, Vörtrage und kleinere Arbeiten

1922-1925, ed. Holger Finze (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1900), 500-44. Barth

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the question of Bonhoeffer’s promotion of spiritual practices, the daily schedule of

the life in community at the seminary at Finkenwadle, the principles of which are

extoled in Life Together, from its infancy attracted claims that it was a ‘Catholicizing’

experiment; indeed, at first many of the seminarians themselves expressed resentment

‘over being the butt of jokes from other preacher’s seminaries about their

“unevangelical monasticism.”’ 12 However, there can be no doubt, as will be

evidenced, that Bonhoeffer remained a committed Lutheran. As the claims of

Bonhoeffer as a covert ‘Catholicizer’ are shown to be unfounded, there will be

further opportunity to examine the true nature of the relationship of the Lutheran

theologian to Catholicism at the points where his ecclesiology and spirituality appear

to be closely linked to Catholicism.

A third potential way of relating Bonhoeffer to Catholicism is to focus on the

reception of Bonhoeffer by Catholic writers, from professional theologians to

authors of devotional texts. There has been a steady growth of interest in Bonhoeffer

among Catholics, especially, as Bethge highlights, after the publicity generated by the

use of the theologian in J.A.T. Robinson’s Honest to God, ‘which led many Roman

Catholics to explore what it was that fascinated people about Bonhoeffer’s thought.’13

Undoubtedly greater openness towards Bonhoeffer among Catholics must be

understood against the development of closer ecumenical bonds between the

Catholic Church and Protestant denominations since the Second Vatican Council;

nevertheless, there is something particularly significant about Bonhoeffer that renders

him not simply accessible to Catholics but also an inspirational figure. Indeed, there

have even been calls from some Catholics for the Catholic Church to consider

Bonhoeffer for canonisation due to his standing as a Christian who exemplified

however praised Sanctorum Communio as an overall work labeling it enlightening, stimulating

and edifying. See John W. De Gruchy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ (London:

Collins, 1988), 3-4.

12 Geffrey B. Kelly, ‘Introduction’, LT, 14.

13 Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer: Exile and Martyr, ed. John W. de Gruchy (London: Collins,

1975), 25.

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sanctity in allowing a religious vision to become central to his life.14 Although there is

clearly not enough scope in this dissertation to thoroughly engage with Catholic

reception of Bonhoeffer, certain works15 on the theology of Bonhoeffer by Roman

Catholic theologians will be considered when they relate to approaching Bonhoeffer’s

ecclesiology, spirituality and the question of theology through biography.

Bonhoeffer and Biography

The key to both the interest of Catholic theologians in Bonhoeffer and the position

of Bonhoeffer as an inspirational figure for Catholics lies in the integral relationship

between his life and thought. It is not merely the case that Bonhoeffer’s biography, a

life which certainly encompassed bold action and the desire to follow Christ, is

appealing to Catholics, but the fact that this life is a mirroring of his thoughts is

central to his appeal.16 Thus, how Bonhoeffer’s theology is to be appreciated in light

of his biography becomes a pertinent question for the investigation at hand.

It is possible to approach the link between Bonhoeffer’s biography and theology in

three distinct ways. The first is to emphasise that, in light of his extraordinary

biography, Bonhoeffer’s life must be prioritised over his thought. The second

approach thus emerges as a reaction to the first: Bonhoeffer’s biography is de-

emphasised in order that his theology is better understood. That both of these

approaches are flawed is evident when Bonhoeffer’s theology is approached always

with an eye to the context of his biography. While detailed investigations into his

theology, either focussing on the whole or particular themes, are obviously needed,

14 See Lawrence S. Cunningham, The Meaning of Saints (San Francisco: Harper and Row,

1980), 167-8, 173.

15 Heinrich Ott, Reality and Faith: The Theological Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1966); René Marlé,

Bonhoeffer: The Man and His Work (1967); William Kuhns, In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1967);

and Ernst Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1985). While none of these works are

exclusively an explicit Catholic reading of Bonhoeffer, they all offer suggestions of where

Bonhoeffer might be close to Catholicism.

16 William Kuhns, ‘A Catholic Looks at Bonhoeffer’, The Christian Century, 84 (1967), 830-2.

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any assessment of Bonhoeffer’s theology must always bear in mind as a

hermeneutical principle the impressive unity of his life and writings.17

Further support for adopting this approach to reading Bonhoeffer can be found in

Bonhoeffer’s own approach to theology. In narrating his ‘conversion’ to seeing his

position of doing theology in the service of the concrete church as a movement from

‘phraseology to reality,’ 18 Bonhoeffer envisages doing theology as not mere

speculation but as living in the decisive history of humanity in the concrete situations

that meet the theologian. This is why Bonhoeffer is able to write in Discipleship, his

first major work after his ‘conversion’, that ‘knowledge cannot be separated from the

existence in which it was acquired’19 – Bonhoeffer’s own experience requires theology

to be released from the shackles of purely abstract speculation so that it can engage

with the concrete experience of the command of Christ in the reality of life.

This is not, however, a dismissal of the works written before Bonhoeffer’s movement

from ‘phraseology to the real’, including Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, as

merely abstract theology devoid of meaningful biographical context. Bonhoeffer’s

theology can only be read in the context of its integral relationship with his biography

as ‘this integration of theology and life’ already takes place in Bonhoeffer when his

theology explores the Christological nature of the church, finding Christ at the centre

of life and the need to learn ‘to have faith by living completely in our history.’20 As

will be argued, Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the church as the presence of Christ in

revelation is in part inspired by Bonhoeffer’s experience of the Catholic Church

during his 1924 visit to Rome. The importance of the biographical context of works

prior to Discipleship is further maintained when the unity of Bonhoeffer’s theology is

17 The recognition of the duality of Bonhoeffer’s witness as unity between his biography and

thought is a driving hermeneutical principle in the first comprehensive study of Bonhoeffer’s

theology in English. See John D. Godsey, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: SCM

Press, 1960).

18 LPP, 275.

19 D, 51.

20 Clifford J. Green, Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality (Revised edn., Grand Rapids, Mich.:

Eerdmans, 1999), 294.

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emphasised. In agreement with Clifford Green’s rejection of John A. Phillips’s

teleological method to reading Bonhoeffer’s theology, it is important that

Bonhoeffer’s earlier theology is understood in its own context, considering the issues

to which it is addressed, rather than simply reading the earlier works through the

theology that emerges in Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison.21 It is because

biographical context is so crucial to Bonhoeffer’s writings that ignoring the

hermeneutical principle of reading his theology in the context of the unity of his life

and work will result in a diluted and distorted understanding of his earlier work: such

an approach would not allow the ecclesiology of the church as Christus als Gemeinde

existierend (‘Christ existing as church-community’)22 to illuminate his later appreciation

of the Christ-centredness of the life of discipleship and the ethical life, or recognise

the principle of the importance of the concrete ethical command in the reality of the

world, so central to his Ethics, as already present in the personal-ethical model of

encountering God in the Gesamtgemeinschaft (humanity as a whole) due to Christ’s

representation of the ‘whole of humanity in his historical life.’23 Therefore, the shift to

emphasising the unity of Bonhoeffer’s theology, be it according to the development

of the theme of sociality,24 a struggle with the problem of reality,25 or through the

framework of Christology,26 is understandable. This investigation into the nature of

the relationship between Bonhoeffer and Catholicism will also take the basic overall

continuity of Bonhoeffer’s theology as a methodological principle.

21 Ibid. 7-11. Phillips argues that Letters and Papers from Prison signals an attempt to escape

from Bonhoeffer’s earlier theology. In his prison writings Bonhoeffer finally ‘broke free

from his intractable ecclesiological theory’ to explore the reality of the revelation of Christ in

worldly life. John A. Phillips, The Form of Christ in the World: A Study of Bonhoeffer’s Christology

(London: Collins, 1967), 30. Likewise Hanfried Müller argues that Bonhoeffer’s theology

developed in ‘qualitative leaps’ with Bonhoeffer’s understanding of ‘religionless Christianity’

being markedly different to his earlier theology. See Hanfried Müller, Von der Kirche zur Welt

(Hamburg-Bergstedt: Reich, 1961).

22 SC, 141.

23 Ibid. 147. Bonhoeffer’s emphasis.

24 Green, Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality, 285-99.

25 Ott, Reality and Faith, 315-24.

26 Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. xx.

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Theology through biography: Methodological considerations Consideration must be given to what exactly is meant by ‘theology through

biography.’ Theology through biography cannot be theology as biography so to mean

that the theological content of a person’s narrative merely needs to be teased out.

Neither can theology through biography remain as simply a reflection of an

individual’s subjective experiences. Instead theology through biography must engage

with the integral relationship between theological thought in its written form and

theological life as it is lived, denying that the theological content of an individual can

be found exclusively in the person’s dogmatics or biography. Therefore, the following

methodological considerations need to be applied. First, theology through biography

takes as its focal point a wide definition of theology as ‘God and person in meeting’,

which for James McClendon is the central vision of theology that emerges from the

Bible. Yet, in the same way that the expression of God’s meeting with man in the

Bible is not merely a reflection of a subjective experience, the basis of the experience

of God for the individual in theology through biography possesses an objective

quality in its expression as theology.27 The objectivity of theology through biography

can then be related to doctrine: biography and dogmatic theology are reconciled by

the raising of the subjective experiences that make up the biography to the level at

which that can ‘become the objective theme of dogmatic theology,’28 especially when

related to the ultimate goal of expressing the meaning of a person’s meeting with the

presence of God in doctrinal theology. As a result, the interplay between expression

of experience in biography and expression in theology articulated in textual form

becomes vital.

Furthermore, the importance of the interaction between theology and biography

requires that theology is not considered as an exact science and purely academic

pursuit. ‘The experienced conviction and instructed experience of faith’, writes

Johann Baptist Metz, ‘cannot be satisfactorily justified by the metalogical rules of 27 James W. McClendon, Biography as Theology (2nd edn., Philadelphia: Trinity Press

International, 1990), 70-1.

28 Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and History in Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology,

trans. David Smith (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 220.

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analytical argument.’29 There is indeed a ‘messiness’ in theology through biography

that recognises that a neat and pure systematic account will not be possible when

investigating the relationship between a biography that is so often the driving force

behind theology. Therefore, theology through biography requires the marriage of a

hermeneutic inspired by Gadamer that denies a theological purity to the biographical

narrative, recognising it as irreducibly infected with historical, social and

psychological concerns, with an attention to the concrete circumstances with which

the biography deals. Theology through biography must recognise that the theologian

in question does not engage with theology in a vacuum but considers the theological

task as a response to the concrete historical moment.

It is clear how relevant these considerations are for a study of Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer’s theology must be understood in light of its, sometimes untidy,

relationship with his biography. The importance of the concrete moment in which

Bonhoeffer found himself is imperative. Indeed, what Metz writes of Karl Rahner,

that a person’s canon ‘is life itself – not life as selected by the theological canon, but

life as it imposes itself and often uncomfortable life,’ 30 is undeniably true of

Bonhoeffer. Approaching Bonhoeffer as theology through biography will recognise

that the interplay between the concrete historical situation and theological concern is

a driving principle behind a theologian who is pressed to ask ‘the question what

Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.’31

The importance of theology through biography will take on even greater significance

when investigating the nature of Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Catholicism,

especially when recognising that ‘Bonhoeffer’s specific references to Roman Catholic

theology and practice are infrequent and peripheral.’32 However, the fragmentary

nature of a wide range of Bonhoeffer’s corpus should not deter the investigation.

Instead, the fragments of Bonhoeffer’s references to Catholicism must be allowed to

challenge the reader’s understanding of Bonhoeffer precisely because they are not 29 Ibid. 222.

30 Ibid. 224.

31 LPP, 279.

32 Kuhns, In Pursuit, 234.

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developed in detail: the task is to see whether a ‘theological attitude’ towards

Catholicism can be established on the part of Bonhoeffer, and fundamental to

interpreting the meaning of these fragments is their relation to their context.

Although Bonhoeffer’s writings on Catholicism cannot on their own lead to a fruitful

construction of the nature of the relationship between Bonhoeffer and Catholicism,

their fragmentary nature underlines the key hermeneutical principle of theology

through biography: that an interpretation of Bonhoeffer’s life and thought together is

needed to make sense of the fragmentary.33 There can be no methodological qualms

therefore with building arguments on the basis of fragmentary texts.

It is expected that questioning the nature of the relationship between Bonheoffer and

Catholicism will lead to engagement with further questions relating to Bonhoeffer’s

biography: What effect did Bonhoeffer’s experience of the church in Rome have on

his ecclesiology? What can Bonhoeffer’s quest for church unity in the ecumenical

movement mean for his theological stance on Catholicism? To what extent is the

experience of the life together at the seminary at Finkenwalde linked to Catholic

spiritual exercises? How does Bonhoeffer’s experience of Catholic spirituality fit with

his call for a ‘new monasticism’? The methodological and hermeneutical principles of

theology through biography as outlined above will be applied to answering these

probing question. As a result, the investigation into the relationship between his

ecclesiology and spirituality and Catholicism must consider Bonhoeffer’s biographical

experience of the Catholic Church, and both the positive understanding and critical

stance of his theological engagement with Catholicism. These aspects will be related

where appropriate to a central theme in Bonhoeffer’s life and thought: the concrete

reality of God and the concrete command of the church.

33 For the relevance and challenge of interpreting the fragments of writing left by Bonhoeffer

see Ebehard Bethge, ‘The Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life and Theology’, The Chicago

Theological Seminary Register, 51/2 (1961), 1-30.

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From Rome to unity? Bonhoeffer, the Roman Catholic Church

and ecclesiology.

Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the church and ecclesiology is an area in which the

Lutheran theologian stands accused of being dubiously close to the Catholic Church.

However, Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Catholicism must be understood against a

backdrop in which there was ‘no contact between Germany’s two major churches’,

with the possibility of ecumenical co-operation between Catholics and Protestants

not being desired by the majority on either side of the divide34 (although some

Catholics and Protestants were to work closely together in the resistance.)35 Thus,

that Bonhoeffer’s attitude to Catholicism and particular elements of Catholic

ecclesiology was uniquely more positive than many of his contemporaries is true.

Nevertheless, to claim that Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the church is heavily

influenced by his experience of Catholicism and Catholic ecclesiology is far too

simplistic a reading of Bonhoeffer’s own ecclesiology. A more nuanced and subtle

consideration of the relationship between Bonhoeffer’s own ecclesiology, his writing

on Catholic ecclesiology, and his experiences of Catholicism is needed.

The formative experiences of Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Roman

Catholicism: From Rome to the ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’

Bonhoeffer’s travel diary narrating his experiences in Italy in 1924 reveals a young

Lutheran captivated by Catholic Rome. Not only does Bonhoeffer claim that he is

beginning to understand the concept of the church while in Rome,36 he is impressed

34 Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 257. For a background history of the lack of ‘mixing in

the confessions in Germany’ see Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich I: Preliminary

History and the Time of Illusions 1918-1934, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1987), 3-

20.

35 George Bell documents in 1942 that Lutheran Bishop Theophil Wurm kept in close touch

with the Catholic Bishop of Berlin Konrad von Preysing through the resistance movement.

See ‘George K.A. Bell: Diary Notes’, CI, 290-93.


14

with the Catholic illustration of the ‘universality of the church’ when witnessing at

Mass the presence of different nationalities of clergy ‘in clerical robes united under

the church.’37 Moreover, Bonhoeffer also states that he has become truly found of

Catholicism after an experience of the choral signing of the Te Deum in St. Peter’s,

with his experience in Rome having ‘made an enormous impression’ on him.38

Indeed, letters from Bonhoeffer’s friends indicate that Bonhoeffer was even tempted

to convert to Catholicism following his experience in Rome.39 As this encounter in

Rome is evidently so important for him, the question is raised as to its effect on the

developing ecclesiology of the young Bonhoeffer. Whilst it is possible to detect in the

young Bonhoeffer a passionate interest in new experiences, and whilst it cannot be

denied that to some extent Bonhoeffer’s experiences in Rome have an influence on

the formation of his thought, especially his ecclesiology, the extent of this influence,

whether it can be claimed that Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology is directly influenced by

Catholicism, remains debatable.

It is first worth noting that Bonhoeffer’s reaction to his experiences in Rome is not

the usual response of a German Lutheran in the 1920s. During his travels Bonhoeffer

approached Catholicism ‘in a remarkable unprejudiced manner,’ which would have

been unusual for a Protestant student from Germany. 40 It is interesting that

Bonhoeffer begins to understand the concept of the church in Rome rather than

Tübingen or Berlin, and important that Bonhoeffer reflects on the apparent crisis of

the liberal Protestant Church while in Rome. In contrast to what he sees as the

Catholic Church’s meeting of the concrete needs of its followers, especially in relation

to confession, Bonhoeffer proclaims that Protestantism can no longer captivate the

masses due to its position as a state church. ‘Maybe Protestantism,’ writes

37 Ibid. 88.

38 Ibid. 107.

39 Letter from Delf Albers to Bonhoeffer, 14th April 1929: ‘On my trip I saw a great deal of

Spanish Catholicism – the Roman variety that tempted to you convert.’ Ibid. 181. See also

comments from Julius Rieger, ‘Contacts with London’, I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. Wolf-

Dieter Zimmermann and Ronald Gregor Smith, trans. Käthe Gregor Smith (London:

Collins, 1966), 97.

40 Hans Pfeifer, ‘Afterword’, YB, 566.

15

Bonhoeffer, ‘should not have tried to become an established church,’ suggesting that

Protestantism should have remained a ‘large sect’ in order to retain enthusiastic

adherents, religious life with serious piety, and to avoid ‘the present calamity’ in

which the Protestant Church finds itself. 41 It is the encounter with alternative

attitudes to the church, expressed so clearly for Bonhoeffer in the spirituality of the

Catholic sacramental and liturgical practices he experiences, which provides

stimulation for his fledgling thoughts on ecclesiology. Moreover, it is evident that

what he believes he witnesses in Rome regarding the importance of the church

remains an inspiration in the development of his thought. This is confirmed by the

text of Bonhoeffer’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:27, 26 in Barcelona on 29th July

1928 (twenty months after finishing Sanctorum Communio), in which Bonhoeffer

admonishes the congregation to rediscover the meaning of a word ‘banal, indifferent

[and] superfluous’ for Protestants but evoking ‘tremendous feelings of love and

bliss…the most profound depths of religious feeling’ for Catholics. The word is, of

course, ‘church,’42 a word which Bonhoeffer believed was not being grasped fully by

the nationalistic and provincial thinking of the German Protestant churches.43

Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Catholicism in Rome played a central role in stimulating

several of the themes that would be developed in his ecclesiology. It is whilst in

Rome that Bonhoeffer experiences the universality of the church, witnesses devotion

to the church at a level which leaves a lasting impression, and engages with the

importance of the ecclesia as a living church. Furthermore, it is also significant that

Bonhoeffer’s view of the aspects of Catholicism favourable to his developing

theology are more shaped by his actual experience of the Catholic Church in Rome

rather than a systematic study of Catholic doctrine and ecclesiology. Whilst

Bonhoeffer attended lectures in Rome, though it is not clear where, these were more

focussed on ecclesiastical history rather than dogmatics.44 The appreciation of the


42 ‘Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:27, 26, Barcelona’, BBNY, 505.

43 See Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans. Eric

Mosbacher, Peter and Betty Ross, Frank Clarke and William Glen-Doepel (Minneapolis:

Fortress Press, 2000), 61.

44 ‘Letter to his Parents, Rome’, YB, 122.

16

themes in Catholicism that were engaging to Bonhoeffer came as a result of his

concrete, historical experience of the Catholic Church in Rome. That these

experiences would contribute to Bonhoeffer’s later articulation of his ecclesiology in

Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being confirms the important interplay between

thought and biography. However, it would be wrong to conclude that Bonhoeffer’s

encounter with Catholicism in Rome is the primary influence on his ecclesiology.

Bethge is certainly correct that ‘the origins of the theological themes of his early

period can be discerned’ in the Rome experience,45 yet these experiences must be

understood more as an inspiration to engage further with particular themes rather

than an influence that directly informs Bonhoeffer’s later ecclesiology.46 It is best, in

agreement with Kuhns, to see Rome as stimulating much thought in Bonhoeffer in

the direction of ecclesiology.47

In addition, it would also be misleading not to highlight that Bonhoeffer was critical

of aspects of Catholicism while in Rome. In reporting his theological discussions with

Catholic seminarian Platte Platenius, Bonhoeffer complains of the ‘usual Catholic

vicious circles’ of confusing logical and faith-based knowledge of God in arguing that

the existence of God can be logically proven by the teleology of the world. Yet such

problems with Catholic theology are considered by Bonhoeffer as distinct from his

positive experiences of the Catholic Church as a living church, as is evident in

Bonhoeffer’s complaint against Catholic theology: ‘Catholic dogma veils every ideal

thing in Catholicism, without knowing what it is doing. There is a huge difference

between…‘church’ and the ‘church’ in dogmatics.’48

The distinction between the theology of the Catholic Church and the favourable

aspects of Catholicism in their concrete practice is also evident in Bonhoeffer’s 1927

45 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, 65.

46 Green suggests that though the Rome experience was definitely significant, Bonhoeffer’s

ecclesiology is also influenced by this earlier thought on the relationship of the individual to

corporate solidarity, corporate responsibility and socio-ethical relations. See Bonhoeffer: A

Theology of Sociality, 143 n. 81.



17

‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’ for his confirmation class in Grunewald. In this

paper Bonhoeffer critiques aspects of Catholic theology and soteriology which he

considers legalistic. The relationship between God and humanity in Catholic theology

is pictured as a legal transaction in which God answers the claims of the individual,

and rewards the individual, on the basis of the individual’s merits. For Bonhoeffer,

this idea restricts the freedom of a God who freely comes to the individual’s aid in

grace when the individual has realised their helplessness and guilt before God; thus, it

cannot be claimed that any individual can demand anything of God as in a legalistic

relationship. Following on from his reflection on knowledge of God in his Rome

diary, Bonheoffer claims that God cannot be known through logical knowledge but

only through faith and the full assurance of the state of grace.49 It is clearly evident

that here Bonhoeffer’s criticism of Catholic soteriology is in line with a traditional

Lutheran critique grounded in Luther’s claim that ‘by my reason I cannot grasp that I

am received into grace because of Christ’;50 however, Bonhoeffer is still able to

complement the Catholic Church as it is experienced as a living church. Hence

Bonhoeffer writes, the Catholic Church ‘is a world in itself’ where ‘infinite diversity

flows together…[giving Catholicism] its irresistible charm’ – the Catholic Church is

to be admired by Protestants because it ‘has understood how to maintain unity in

diversity, to gain the love and respect of the masses, and to foster a strong sense of

community.’51 In the same manner that Bonhoeffer’s openness to his experiences of

Catholicism in Rome is surprising given the context of the relationship between

German Lutheranism and Catholicism in the 1920s, Bonhoeffer’s conclusion to the

paper reveals a fresh appreciation of the relationship between Lutheranism and

Catholicism that can view the Catholic Church as a ‘disparate sister’, due to it being a

place where the Word of God is proclaimed, whilst hoping for doctrinal correction in

the Catholic Church when it examines its conscience and focuses on nothing but the

Word.52

49 ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’, ibid. 526-7.

50 Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke XL: I. Band, 2. Galatervorlesung (cap. 1–4), 377 cited

in B.A. Gerrish, Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Martin Luther (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1962).

51 ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’, YB, 528.

52 Ibid. 529.

18

Consequently, it is additionally clear that Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Catholicism is

much more than a theological encounter that has generated the traditional Lutheran

criticism of Catholicism. Instead the nature of the relationship between the young

Bonhoeffer and Catholicism must be seen in terms of the interplay between thought

and experience: Bonheoffer’s concrete experiences of Catholicism in Rome ignite and

stimulate areas of thought which are then developed into a more coherent expression

of thought. The interplay between thought and experience continues in the reflection

on past experiences that is crucial to the developing expression of thought, as is

evident in Bonhoeffer’s ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church.”’ This process of

experience, reflection and expression within the development of thought is central to

understanding Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’ toward Catholicism, which Bethge

summarises as a ‘critical affection and affectionate criticism.’ 53 Such an attitude

toward Catholicism will be important to the following investigations of the nature of

the relationship between Bonhoeffer’s thought and Catholicism, starting with his

ecclesiology in Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being.

Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology: Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being

Before examining the relationship between Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and his

‘theological attitude’ to Catholicism it will be important to briefly outline the main

points of this ecclesiology as expressed in his doctoral thesis, Sanctorum Communio

(1927), and his postdoctoral thesis, Act and Being (1931). The aim of Sanctorum

Communio is stated as the attempt to understand ‘the structure of the given reality of a

church of Christ, as revealed in Christ,’54 from the standpoint of social philosophy

and sociology. Bonhoeffer begins this investigation by considering the concept of

personhood as related to social relations, and thus to social relations in a community.

Importantly, the identity of the individual person can only be understood in relation

to others as human identity takes shape in the ethical claim of the other in which the

“I” encounters the “You” of the other person.55 Even though the “You” is then


54 SC, 33.

55 Ibid. 49.

19

encountered as a barrier, the otherness of the other does not prevent community

because it is a divinely ordained otherness which reflects the ultimate otherness of

God. Therefore, the isolation of the self in sin, that which truly prohibits community,

can be overcome through the other in which one meets the transcendence of God: a

relationship with God becomes embedded in the community in which ‘God or the Holy

Spirit joins the concrete You’ to enable the other to be the You from which the self arises,

and to confirm ‘every human You [as] an image of the divine You.’56 This community is the

church.

To know that the ‘You of the other person is the divine You’ requires the knowledge

of God’s “I” through ‘the revelation of God’s love.’57 This revelation, which comes

through Christ, takes place in the church due to the reality of the church as Christus

als Gemeinde existierend, Christ-existing-as-community.58 Such an understanding of the

church is closely based on the identity of Christ with the Church. As the human

community in the Kollektivperson of Adam is trapped in the sinfulness that affirms the

self and not the other, thereby destroying community, true community can only be

restored through the Stellvertretung [vicarious action] of Christ on behalf of the

community in which the revelation of God, and correspondingly the possibility of

knowing God through the “You” of the other which is the image of God, is revealed.

The vicarious action of Christ grants uniqueness to this ‘new humanity’59 identified as

the sanctorum communio, the church, which is established by Christ in the midst of the

peccatorum communio. The community of the church is hence a unique community

where the meeting of God in the other takes places through the surrendering of

persons to each other through the love of God: the church is comprised of members

who are for each other in the service of neighbour, intercession for others, and the

mutual forgiveness of sins. Moreover, as in Christ the revelation of God has entered

into history and community, the community of the church is ‘simultaneously a

historical community and one established by God’60 – the church is realised in Christ 56 Ibid. 54-5. Bonhoeffer’s emphasis.

57 Ibid. 56.

58 Ibid. 141.

59 Ibid. 156-7.

60 Ibid. 126.

20

so that it is established in revelation with a mission to proclaim the Word of God in

preaching and sacrament, and actualised by the Holy Spirit so that it is the concrete,

empirical church in the world.61

The relation of the transcendence and revelation of God to the social community of

the church is additionally developed in Act and Being, and its criticism of

understanding revelation as purely act or purely being. Bonhoeffer sets out to solve

this problem by attempting to reconcile the Barthian emphasis on God’s freedom in

revelation as the event of faith with the revelation of God in being. The solution is

found in the presence of the Word of God in the church as Christ-existing-as-

community. For Bonhoeffer, God is free to act in the event of revelation in Christ in

which God reveals God’s self freely by coming of out of God’s self. This means that

God is not free apart from human beings but free for them in ‘the covenant in which

God is bound by God’s own action…Christ [as] the Word of God’s freedom.’62

Therefore, God cannot be conceived as being free from humanity as in a withdrawal

from humanity, and thus only accessible through a remote revelatory event; instead,

in God giving God’s self to humanity in Christ, the revelation of God’s being in the

revelatory event of Christ is given where Christ is present in the church. ‘God is

present,’ writes Bonhoeffer, ‘not in eternal nonobjectivity…but “haveable”, graspable

in the Word within the church.’63 God in Christ is still other, yet the otherness and

transcendence of God, as was claimed in Sanctorum Communio, is met in the socio-

ethical encounter with the other in the church community. It is this encounter with

God in the other that enables Christ to be present in the proclamation of word and

sacrament in the church, so that ‘the being of revelation “is”…the being of the

community of persons [the church] that is constituted and formed by the person of

Christ.’64 As a result, being in Christ is not an orientation to the purely individual

experience of the revelatory event, but being in the church where ‘individuals already

find themselves in their new existence.’65 The revelation of God still requires the act 61 Ibid. 280.

62 AB, 90-1.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid. 113.

65 Ibid.

21

of the response of faith; however this response happens in being in the church. In

both Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, Bonhoeffer emphasises the importance of

the church as established by God in Christ, and thus also the presence of God in

Christ in the restored human sociality of the community of the Church, and its

proclamation of the Word of God in word and sacrament.

Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and Roman Catholicism: Positive engagement and criticism

In turning to the nature of the relationship between Bonhoeffer and Catholic

ecclesiology, it is interesting to note Heinrich Ott’s claim that much of what

Bonhoeffer presents in his early ecclesiology appears to be peculiarly “Catholic.”66

Although it would be incorrect to argue that Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology is directly

influenced by Catholic theologians,67 it is possible to suggest points of contact with

ecclesiological themes stimulated by Bonhoeffer’s experience of Catholicism in

Rome. It is in Rome that Bonhoeffer witnesses the sanctorum communio ‘as a living

reality before him’,68 and as his diary indicates Bonhoeffer is beginning to appreciate

in this early encounter with Catholicism the importance of the church, not only as an

abstract concept, but in the reality of the concrete, empirical church community. This

line of thought is carried over to the emphasis in both Sanctorum Communio and Act

and Being on the church as a concrete and historical community of believers in which

the encounter with God and Christ can take place due to Christ’s entering into

history and establishing the church in concrete, empirical history.

Moreover, the link between Bonhoeffer’s experience of the Catholic Church and his

expressed ecclesiology can also be viewed retrospectively in the recognition by

Catholic theologians of ecclesiological themes in Sanctorum Communio and Act and

Being which are close to Catholic interests. Kuhns argues that Bonhoeffer is closest to

66 Ott, Reality and Faith, 62.

67 Bonhoeffer does engage critically with Catholic theologian Erich Przywara in his critique

of the analogia entis and the concept of revelation purely as being in Act and Being. See AB, 27.

68 Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 36.

22

Catholicism where he emphasises the unique relationship of Christ to the church69:

the Christian community is not a vague sentiment or a collection of individuals who

have experienced the revelatory Christ-event; instead the church is given a definite

form and meaning in being established by the same Christ who enters history in the

incarnation. It is this radical integration of the meaning of the incarnation with

ecclesiology that resonates, for many Catholic readers of Bonhoeffer, with the

Catholic Church’s claim to being a sign and sacrament of the presence of Christ in

the world. Indeed, the presence of Christ in the church also retains an incarnational

significance in Catholic doctrine. As was proclaimed in Lumen Genitum at the Second

Vatican Council, the community of the church as an empirical society is one reality

with the ‘Mystical Body of Christ;’ thus it can be ‘compared to the mystery of the

incarnate Word’ in that the visible church serves the Spirit of Christ in the same

manner as ‘the assumed nature inseparably united to [Christ].’70 Similar themes are

also taken up in Benedict XVI’s christo-centric ecclesiology, which claims that the

encounter in the church is with the presence of Christ. For Benedict, the church is so

integrally linked to Christ that the actual life of the church can only be claimed on the

basis of Christ: ‘[The Church] is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly

risen.’71

Yet, whilst this retrospective reading of Catholic themes in Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology

might aid a recognition of themes, in both Bonhoeffer’s experiences in Rome and his

ecclesiology, as thoroughly ‘Roman Catholic,’ it cannot be used to construct a clear

model of Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Catholicism. Due to the interaction between

theology and biography being an ‘untidy’ affair that escapes a neat construction, there

must a continued emphasis on understanding Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’ to

Catholicism. As this attitude includes an ‘affectionate criticism’ of Catholicism, it is

vital that Bonhoeffer’s criticism of Catholic ecclesiology is considered.


70 Second Vatican Council, ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Genitum’, 8.

71 The text of Benedict XVI’s homily during the Mass for the Inauguration of the Pontificate,

Acta Apostolicae Sedis 97 (2005), 708, cited in Brendan Leahy, ‘“Christ Existing as

Community”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Notion of Church’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 73 (2008),

33.

23

Bonhoeffer’s criticism of Catholic ecclesiology begins with the accusation that the

institutionalising of the empirical church hierarchy in Catholicism leads to a

prioritisation of the form of the church over the proclamation of the Word of God in

word and sacrament. In Sanctorum Communio Bonhoeffer is keen to disassociate his

ecclesiology from two other understandings of the church he believes to be a

contradiction to the true nature of the historical, empirical church as Christ-existing-

as-community. The first misunderstanding of the church fails to recognise the

empirical church is actually the new humanity established by God and thus retreats to

psychological ‘religious’ motives, including human desire for sociality and

communication, to explain the empirical community of the church. On the other

hand, the second misunderstanding does not take seriously that the empirical church

is bound by history and instead ‘confuses’ the church with the Kingdom of God by

objectifying and deifying the empirical church.72 For Bonhoeffer, this is the error of

the Catholic Church.

In a seminar paper on ‘Church and Eschatology’ in preparation for his doctorate

under the supervision of Reinhold Seeberg, Bonhoeffer contests that the Catholic

Church has identified the kingdom of God with itself as the empirical church, so as

to claim the kingdom of God on earth as ‘realised in the organised church,’ and the

external forms of the church as ‘immediately sanctioned, stabilised and holy in

themselves.’73 Such claims, as is clarified in Sanctorum Communio, fail to take seriously

the true claim of the church that the church can only be viewed ‘from the standpoint

of the Gospel,’ and in its place identifies the nature of the church with the claims of

an institutionalised church.74

Furthermore, the criticism of the institutionalism of the Catholic Church intensifies

in Act and Being. As Catholicism identifies the being of the revelation of God as being

in the institution of the church, whoever is in the institution of the Catholic Church is 72 SC, 125.

73 ‘Paper on Church and Eschatology’, YB, 317. One wonders what Bonhoeffer would have

made of Henri de Lubac’s insistence in Catholicism that the empirical church is not to be

identified with the Kingdom of God.

74 SC, 33.

24

considered as being in the being of revelation and so is being in God. This negates the

aspect of revelation that is concerned with faith as a response to the act of God, and

suggests that grace is merely infused into a person as a habitus entitativus, the addition

of the condition of grace to the person, without the habitus operativus, grace as

disposing the person to the act of faith, so that the person remains untouched by the

accidental quality of grace.75 Moreover, as it is within the community of the church

that a person comes to recognise the sinfulness of the self in the encounter of God in

the other person, the being of revelation in the church cannot be ‘conceived as an

institution’ because the realisation of sin needed for faith can only be found in the

encounter with persons. Whilst ‘the orientation of the interpretation of the being of

revelation toward the concept of the church is justified’, Bonhoeffer argues that the

‘concept of the church is to be developed not in terms of institutions but in terms of

persons.’76 It is in Bonhoeffer’s critique of the ‘institutional Catholic church’ that it is

evident how far Bonhoeffer believes ‘he is from Catholic ideas, as he understands

them.’77

Bonhoeffer and the ecumenical movement: Questions of church unity

If the nature of Bonhoeffer’s relationship to Catholicism is to be understood through

the method of theology through biography in addition to considering his theological

engagement, it will be essential to examine Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on the Catholic

Church during his involvement in the Bekennende Kirche [Confessing Church] and

ecumenical movement. Importantly, the strong critique of Catholic

institutionalisation appears to continue in Bonhoeffer’s early involvement with the

Confessing Church. This is clear in the second edition of the 1933 Bethel Confession,

penned by Bonhoeffer, Hermann Sasse and others, which states a rejection of the

‘false doctrine that makes the ministry an order that would take precedence over

75 AB, 105. Bonhoeffer elaborates on the problem of understanding grace in relation to the

church as an institution in a course paper for Reinhold Niebuhr on ‘The Religious

Experience of Grace and the Ethical Life’, BBNY, 446-451.

76 AB, 105.

77 Marlé, Bonhoeffer, 51.

25

Word and sacrament and would be their source,’ especially ‘in the form of the Roman

church hierarchy.’78 Interestingly this statement is qualified by a reference to ‘those

who aspire to be like’ the Catholic Church in its prioritisation of the order of the

ministry over the Word, which is almost certainly a polemical reference to the

Deutsche Christen [German Christian] movement and what Bonhoeffer perceives as its

attempt to establish a ‘Reich church for Christians of the Aryan race’79 over and

against the church’s mission to proclaim Christ in word and sacrament to all.80 It is

significant that Bonhoeffer’s references to, and engagement with, Catholicism from

the time of his involvement with the Confessing Church are increasingly made in

relation to the concrete situation facing Bonhoeffer: the nature of the Kirchenkampf

[Church Struggle] and the question of the church in relation to the ecumenical

movement.81 As will be evidenced, the concrete reality of the actual situation facing

Bonhoeffer will further shape his theological and ecclesiological engagement with

Catholicism.

Bonhoeffer became involved in the ecumenical movement through attending a

meeting in Cambridge of the Life and Work movement of the World Alliance for

Promoting Friendship among the Churches in September 1931. It is notable that

Bonhoeffer was involved with the Life and Work group and not the Faith and Order

movement, as the work of the former in the eyes of Bonhoeffer signifies what he sees

as the purpose of the ecumenical movement: to focus the life and work of the church

on addressing ‘with authority God’s commandment of peace to a world which had

78 ‘The Bethel Confession’, B, 410.

79 Ibid. 420

80 Larry Rasmussen suggests that Bonhoeffer saw the German Christians as a ‘pseudo-

Romanising’ movement. Ibid. 410 n. 71.

81 In a lecture on ‘The Führer and the Individual in the Younger Generation,’ Bonhoeffer

also compares the individual’s surrender to the ultimate responsibility of the Führer, in the

Führerprinzip, to Catholics’ faith in the Catholic Church as including ‘belief in the justness of

its commandments and its guarantee for obedience.’ Ibid. 277.

26

lost its sense of a viable order.’82 As a result, Bonhoeffer does not pursue an abstract

theology of the ecumenical movement but instead focuses on the concrete situation

facing the church and the basis of the church’s authoritative concrete command in

response to this situation. The basis of the authority of the church to speak the

concrete command is necessarily linked to Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology: as Christ-

exiting-as-community the church is given the commission to proclaim the Word of

God, which confers on the church the authority to proclaim the Word as the

concrete command of the church in the concrete situation. The church cannot simply

proclaim generalising statements of God’s will for all but must address the will of

God for the concrete situation in the same empirical history into which Christ

entered in the incarnation. The ecumenical movement must produce theology as

‘theology is the Church’s self understanding of its own nature…[in] the revelation of

God in Christ’; yet this theology must concern the participation in the concrete

struggle facing the church if the ecumenical movement is truly to participate in what

it means to be church. ‘No one requires a theology of such an organisation’, writes

Bonhoeffer, ‘but simply quite definite concrete action in a concrete task.’83

Therefore, as with the principle of theology through biography, the theology of the

ecumenical movement must have an integral relationship to the concrete experiences

of the church, especially in the struggle of the Confessing Church: hence

Bonhoeffer’s contention that the question of the Confessing Church has moved

beyond the stage of ‘theological conversation’ and now requires ‘clear church

decision.’84 This decision for Bonhoeffer, in light of the Confessing Church’s claim

that that the German Christian movement has set itself up over and against the

proclamation of the Word, which renders the movement anti-church, must consider

further what consists of the true church through recognition of its boundaries. In a

lecture on the church union in 1936 Bonhoeffer claims that the boundaries of the

church are revealed in whatever-is-not-what-the-church-has-been-called-to in the 82 Konrad Raiser, ‘Bonhoeffer and the Ecumenical Movement’, Bonhoeffer for a New Day:

Theology in a Time of Transition, ed. John W. de Gruchy (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,

1997), 321.

83 ‘A Theological Basis for the World Alliance’, NRS, 32.

84 ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, Ibid. 333.

27

reality of the concrete circumstance. Thus, the boundaries of the church cannot be

defined as a priori ‘theoretical knowledge.’85 For the ecumenical movement this

should mean that the German Christians are considered as outside the church due to

their failure to recognise the concrete commission of the Gospel to proclaim the

Word of God. Thus Bonhoeffer writes: ‘Extra ecclesiam nulla salus…Whoever

knowingly cuts himself off from the Confessing Church in Germany cuts himself off

from salvation.’86

It is clear in Bonhoeffer’s speech on ‘The Question of the Boundaries of the Church

and Church Union’, especially in its criticism of the approach of ‘Protestant

orthodoxy’ and ‘Pietism’ to theoretically defining the relationship of denominations

within the church, that Bonhoeffer does not conceive the church as a collection of

the various confessions as different branches of the one catholic church; rather,

Bonhoeffer asserts that, in contrast to where the church is not in the ignoring of its

commission from God, the church can only be identified where it proclaims the

Word of God in word and sacrament.87 The exclusive claim of the church can be the

only grounds for church unity. Importantly this definition, especially in light of

Bonhoeffer’s declaration in ‘The Paper on “The Catholic Church,”’88 enables the

Lutheran theologian to consider the Catholic Church as a legitimate Church. As

Bonhoeffer asserts in August 1935, the Confessing Church and the ecumenical

movement do not witness against Rome for ‘the Antichrist sits not in Rome, or even

in Geneva, but in the government of the National Church in Berlin.’89

Unity with the Roman Catholic Church? The concrete command of the church as the essential criterion Bonhoeffer’s intense involvement with the Confessing Church and ecumenical

movement clearly effects a deeper engagement with the meaning of the reality and

85 ‘The Question of the Boundaries of the Church and Church Union’, WTF, 75-96.

86 Ibid. 93-4.

87 Marlé, Bonhoeffer, 60-1.

88 ‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’, YB, 528.

89 ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, NRS, 338.

28

identity of the church. In building upon the academic presentation of ecclesiology in

Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, Bonhoeffer considers the identity of the church

in view of the situation facing it, which is paramount if the commission of the church

is to speak the Word of God in the concrete situation. It is in light of this practical

ecclesiology that a further construction of Bonhoeffer’s conception of the

relationship between the church catholic and the Catholic Church is established.

Whilst Bonhoeffer considered when reflecting on his experiences in Rome that

unification between the Catholic Church and Protestant churches, though desirable,

would be an ‘impossible’ development for the church, 90 Bonhoeffer’s maturing

ecclesiology, in both its academic guises and its practical relation to the experiences

of the Confessing Church, is able to propose a potential basis for the unity of the

Christian church: the concrete command of the church.

For Bonhoeffer, the unity of the church does not originate in agreement on abstract

theological confession but in the active confession of Christ as Lord in word and

sacrament in the concrete moment. Knowing God, as is articulated in Sanctorum

Communio, cannot be conceived as kennen, knowing God as knowing an object, but

only anerkennen, recognition of God in the encounter of God in the present

situation91: ‘God is always God to us “today.”’92 Consequently, as it is both the act

and being of the concrete reality of God, revelation also can only be encountered

concretely. This is confirmed in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ in which ‘truth

is spoken in the concrete moment,’93 meaning that God’s entering into world in the

incarnation is an entrance into empirical history and not a mere abstract timeless

truth. Therefore, the command of the Gospel cannot remain a general truth but a

command made concrete: ‘only as a concrete saying is the Word of God to me.’94

The commission of the church is to proclaim the Word of God by speaking this

concrete command, and it is only from this concrete command that the church can

claim its authority. As the church’s authority is always relative to its obligation to 90 ‘Letter to his Parents, Rome’, YB, 111.

91 SC, 54-7.

92 ‘A Theological Basis for the World Alliance?’, NRS, 162.

93 C, 50.

94 A Theological Basis for the World Alliance?’, NRS, 162.

29

orientate itself to the Word from God for the concrete situation, and then proclaim

this Word in concrete command, identification with the church can only remain a

question related to the concrete command.

The concrete command as ‘the binding force of the empirical church’95 is therefore

the only criterion for church unity and the basis for potential unity between the

Catholic Church and Protestant churches. The significance of this conclusion for

Bonhoeffer is further evidenced in a letter to Eberhard Bethge written during

Bonhoeffer’s stay at Ettal in November 1940. In this letter Bonhoeffer suggests that

the unity of Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism in Die Evangelische Kirche der

altpreußischen Union [The Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union] exists

‘untheologically’ through the determination of history rather than theological

solution.96 Accordingly, the principle of unity that undergirds the Old Prussian Union

should be understood as a reaction to the concrete guidance and command of God in

a particular historical situation, which can only be acknowledged as the subordination

of doctrine to the demands of the reality of the presence of Christ, rather than

theological union. This model of church unity can hence be related to the question of

the Catholic Church: ‘Would not both of these things also be possible in relation to

the Catholic Church: recognition of the “guidance” of God in recent years and

recognition of the objectivity of the presence of Christ.’97 Whilst it would be incorrect

to argue that Bonhoeffer is actively pursuing unity with the Catholic Church – in the

same letter Bonhoeffer actually scalds fellow Confessing Church leader Hans

Christian Asmussen for preaching at a Catholic service – it is clear that Bonhoeffer

does not reject unity with the Catholic Church. Instead, ‘how we have acted,

practically speaking, in the Confessing Church,’ responding to the concrete demand

of God in the present situation, becomes the possibility for unity with the Catholic

Church: ‘churches unite not primarily theologically but rather through faith-based

decisions.’98 Therefore, what ‘divides the churches today,’ must be acknowledged as

being historically formed and thus potentially not ‘divisive tomorrow.’99 95 Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 40-1.

96 ‘Letter to Eberhard, Ettal’, CI, 84.

97 Ibid.

98 ‘The Question of the Boundaries of the Church and Church Union’, WTF, 75f.

30

Summary Examining the nature of the relationship of Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and practical

view of the church with Catholicism through both consideration of his theological

expression and the methods of theology through biography, it has been possible to

recognise in Bonhoeffer a ‘theological attitude’ to Catholicism. This attitude

combines a positive disposition to elements within the Catholic Church, notably its

vitality and the universality of the church, with a respectful critical distance that

retains aspects of traditional Lutheran critiques of Catholic theology and ecclesiology.

Moreover, Bonhoeffer’s attitude to Catholicism is formed from his experiences of the

Catholic Church, especially during his 1924 stay in Rome: these experiences are

integral to the formation of Bonhoeffer’s approach to Catholicism. However, it is

misleading to conclude that Catholicism provides a direct influence on Bonhoeffer’s

expressed ecclesiology; rather his experiences of Catholicism must be viewed as

helping to orientate Bonhoeffer in the direction of thinking about ecclesiology and

the identity of the church. In addition, the interaction of Bonhoeffer’s attitude to

Catholicism, ecclesiological understanding of the concrete command and the church,

and the importance of the reality of the concrete situation, combine in his

involvement in the Confessing Church and ecumenical movement to suggest a

grounding for the potential unity between the Catholic Church and Protestant

Churches through ‘faith-based decisions.’

99 Ibid. 82.

31

A ‘new monasticism?’ The relationship between the discipline of

spiritual practices, Bonhoeffer and Roman Catholicism.

Following an earlier emphasis on Bonhoeffer’s biography and theology in the classic

studies of his work and thought, the last two decades of English-speaking Bonhoeffer

scholarship have witnessed an increasing interest in comprehending and articulating

the Lutheran theologian’s spirituality.100 Through this work Bonhoeffer has come to

be recognised by many as a great spiritual writer whose spirituality is especially

relevant to living as a Christian in the contemporary world. It is this relevance,

coupled with a fascination with the manner in which Bonhoeffer’s spirituality

develops in relation to the Church Struggle, which has led to a surge in the publishing

of devotional editions of Bonhoeffer’s writings101 and the inclusion of Bonhoeffer in

anthologies of devotional classics. In agreement with Haynes, ‘the image of

Bonhoeffer as a spiritual guide is more than a reflection of his “enlightened pietism”’:

the significance of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality must be found in its mirroring of the

‘“impressive unity” of [his] life and thought’102 as it ‘challenges the dichotomy

between faith and daily life in all its complexities.’ 103 The assessment of the

relationship of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality with Catholicism will be focussed on the

expression of his spirituality in the spiritual disciplines promoted in Life Together and

the establishment of the preacher’s seminary at Finkenwalde. It must also take into

consideration Bonhoeffer’s experiences of Catholic spiritual practices and liturgy and

the wider biographical context of his spirituality. Through this approach it will be

100 John Godsey, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christian Spirituality’, Reflections on Bonhoeffer:

Essays in Honor of F. Burton Nelson, ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and C. John Weborg (Chicago:

Covenant Publications, 1999); Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson, The Cost of Moral

Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).

101 The first edition of selected texts reflecting Bonhoeffer’s spirituality was actually

published in German in 1963 as Bonhoeffer Brevier, ed. Otto Dudzus (Munich: Christian Kaiser

Verlag, 1963). Such editions by English-speaking editors have become increasingly prevalent

from the 1990s onwards.

102 Stephen R. Haynes, The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint (London: SCM

Press, 2004), 106.

103 Kelly and Nelson, The Cost of Moral Leadership, 2.

32

possible to answer the charge that Bonhoeffer attempts to influence the spirituality of

the Confessing Church movement as a ‘Catholicizer.’

Bonhoeffer’s spirituality: A definition

As the term ‘spirituality’ has a wide variety of usages, from reference to the subjective

experience of a person’s faith to spiritual exercises within a particular religion, it is

essential that its use in relation to Bonhoeffer is explained. Though ‘Bonhoeffer left

no theological legacy dealing with “spirituality” designated as such,’104 it is possible to

suggest three foundational principles for an examination of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality.

The first principle concerns the acknowledgement of the importance of maintaining a

private discipline of engagement with spiritual exercises focussed around the ‘reading

and meditation on the Word of God in Scripture, in prayer and in intercession.’105

Bonhoeffer’s spirituality in this instance is concerned with the individual’s systematic

practice of a prayerful, devout and disciplined Christian life, and in order to facilitate

this life, Bonhoeffer is interested in the exploration, understanding and practice of

particular ‘spiritual exercises’, most notably meditation on the Bible, as is clear from

his descriptions of these exercises in Life Together.

However, such spiritual exercises are not only to be reserved for the private life of

devotion but must be central to the spiritual life as lived in the community of the

church. Thus the second principle of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality is focussed on the life

of the Christian in the church as the community in which God is encountered

through the meeting of God in the other person. Hence, for Bonhoeffer, the spiritual

discipline of confession, as encountering God through confessing sins to one’s

brother, must be central to the life of the Christian in the church. Yet, with the third

principle it is also vital to note that Bonhoeffer’s spirituality is not concerned solely

with an ‘interior’ Christian life but also the life of the Christian in the world. As

Bonhoeffer expresses in several of his Letters and Papers from Prison, the Christian must

104 Kelly and Nelson, The Cost of Moral Leadership, p. xiii.

105 Godsey, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christian Spirituality’, 79.

33

suffer with Christ in the world in living wholly in the world as ‘the church is only the

church when it exists for others.’106 It cannot be the mere participation in ‘the

religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in

the secular life.’107

The investigation into the relationship of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality with Catholicism

must begin by chiefly considering the first and second principles outlined above, and

thus focussing on the importance placed by Bonhoeffer on the practice of certain

spiritual exercises. As it is the establishment of a preacher’s seminary built around the

Word encountered in communal life and the discipline of spiritual exercises that

principally raises concerns that Bonhoeffer has come under the influence of

Catholicism, it will be essential to examine the practice of confession and meditation

on Scripture at the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde. Yet, it must be

noted that the preachers seminary at Finkenwalde cannot be seen as an indulgent

exercise of experimenting with different forms of Christian community and

spirituality; rather Finkenwalde is a reaction to the Word of God for the church, a

response to the concrete situation of the Church Struggle which requires the training

of pastors able to live wholly Christian lives in their individual devotion, communal

life and existence in the world. Perhaps Bonhoeffer’s spirituality is thus best

summarised in a comment written in a letter to his brother Karl: ‘The restoration of

the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in

common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ

according to the Sermon on the Mount. I believe the time has come to gather people

together and do this.’108 This ‘new monasticism’ must comprise of the discipline of

spiritual exercises, communal life in the church and life for the world if it is to

respond to God’s commission to obediently proclaim the Word of God.

106 LPP, 282

107 Ibid. 361.

108 ‘Letter to Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer, London’, L, 285.

34

Life Together: The Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde

Bonhoeffer accepted a call to the position of director of a Confessing Church

preacher’s seminary while in London in 1935. The communal life at this seminary at

Finkenwalde109 arose from Bonhoeffer’s concern that the church must be ‘a living

community of persons’ rather than a loose collection of ‘justified individuals.’110 Thus

Bonhoeffer sought to establish a community where the focus would not be on

individual self-fulfilment but hearing and speaking the Word of God from and to the

other person. The need to form a Christian community in which the other person

must be encountered through the mediation of Christ required the community at

Finkenwalde to establish a strict rule for daily life guided by the direction of six

permanent brothers, including Bonhoeffer, who stayed at the Bruderhaus. The day at

Fineknwalde thus followed a set pattern: beginning with a service of common prayer,

the day continued in individual meditation on scripture, study, and recreation, until its

conclusion in an evening prayer service. Yet, importantly for Bonhoeffer,

Finkenwalde did not act as a ‘monastic seclusion’ for its seminarians but instead

prepared them for their ‘outgoing service’ in the world;111 indeed, members of the

public were welcomed to the community’s Sunday service, with seminarians also

serving in local parishes. Nevertheless, several Protestant theologians still remained

suspicious of a Catholic monastic influence on Finkenwalde because the structure of

its life around a daily rule was unprecedented in modern German Lutheranism;

indeed, as Plant clarifies, ‘living communally was a new and daring departure’ for a

denomination founded by a man who had left the cloister to reform the church.112

109 The first seminary course directed by Bonhoeffer actually took place at Zingsthof. After

two months the seminary moved to an estate at Finkenwalde, a neighbourhood in the city of

Stettin (now Szczecin in modern-day Poland), which provided a base for the seminary until

its closure by the Gestapo in late September 1937.

110 John W. De Gruchy, ‘Introduction’, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ (London:

Collins, 1988), 27.

111 GS III, 449.

112 Stephen Plant, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Continuum, 2004), 106.

35

One of the features of the common life at the preacher’s seminary so disquieting for

Protestant theologians was Bonhoeffer’s advocating of prayerful meditation on the

Bible; as is evidenced in a letter from Barth to Bonhoeffer concerning the practice at

Finkenwalde: ‘I am disturbed by an indefinable odour of the eros and pathos of the

cloister.’113 Several of the seminarians were also initially weary of the practice;114 yet,

Bonhoeffer persisted in the prescription of meditation on Scripture understood as ‘a

daily, personal communion with the crucified Jesus Christ.’115 The seminarians were

instructed to meditate daily (although this was later reduced to twice weekly) on

Losung, short passages from Scripture, as a means to exposing themselves to the

Word of God as it addresses the concrete individual personally. For Bonhoeffer,

meditation cannot be the attempt to understand the meaning of a text as exegesis, but

a discipline of faith which trusts that the text from Scripture will have something

personal ‘to say to us for this day’: Scripture ‘is not only God’s Word for the

community of faith, but also God’s Word for me personally.’116 However, meditation

should also not be approached as a completely introspective act focussed only on the

individual, because in meditating on Scripture one is alone with the Word and not in

the void of a ‘bottomless pit of aloneness [Alleinsein].’117 Being alone with the Word in

meditation, encountering the concrete Word as it is addressed to the individual,

necessarily leads to prayer, especially intercessory prayer for others. As Bonhoeffer

counsels, when one’s thoughts wanders towards others during meditation the

opportunity is presented to ‘draw into our prayer those people and events towards

which our thoughts keep turning.’118 Moreover, if meditation is to be an encounter

with the Word, Bonhoeffer recognises that the spiritual discipline cannot be

considered as automatically gratifying if it is truly founded upon the hope ‘that God

113 GS II, 290.

114 Geffrey Kelly explains that many of the seminarians simply did not know what to do

when confronted with engaging in the spiritual discipline of meditation: ‘Some read, some

slept, some smoked their pipes, some let their minds wander.’ ‘Introduction’, LT, 14.

115 GS III, 43.

116 LT, 87.

117 Ibid. 86.

118 Ibid. 89.

36

may send the Holy Spirit to us through the Word, and reveal God’s Word to us’119 –

meditation requires a waiting for God through the ‘hours of emptiness and

dryness.’120 As a result of such guidance in the practice of meditation, many of the

initially sceptical seminarians were able to abandon their opposition to the practice

and embrace meditation. The circular letters sent between the seminarians after the

closure of Finkenwalde reveal that the exhortation to meditation remained a

continual priority.121

The spiritual discipline of the confession of sins between the seminarians was also a

foundational basis for the life of the community. Bonhoeffer encouraged the practice

of confession at the preacher’s seminary as a fulfilment of the biblical exhortation to

‘confess your sins to one another.’122 The practice was to take the form of confessing

one’s sin to a fellow member of the community without a formal liturgical structure

in order that, not only might a person recognise their sins, the desire for forgiveness

can be realised in the confessor’s speaking of the words of absolution to the penitent.

Following from his understanding of the encounter with Christ in the meeting with

the other person, Bonhoeffer considers that in confession ‘other Christians have

become Christ for us in the power and authority of Christ’s commandment’ for the

church.123 Consequently, in the confessing of sins to the fellow Christian, the penitent

meets Christ in the other person, enabling the confessor ‘to forgive sins in Christ’s

name’ by speaking the words of forgiveness, which confirms the authority granted to

Christians in John 20:23. ‘When I go to another believer to confess,’ writes

Bonhoeffer, ‘I am going to God’124 – as with meditation, confession of sins to a

fellow Christian is a concrete encounter with God.

119 Ibid. 87.

120 Ibid. 88.

121 Bonhoeffer was sent requests for help in meditation from former students who were sent

to the front following the start of World War II. See ‘Letter of March 1, 1942’ in Geffrey B.

Kelly and Fr. Burton Nelson, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

(San Francisco: Harper. 1990), 457.

122 James 5:16 (NRSV).

123 LT, 109.

124 Ibid.

37

Bonhoeffer suggests that the practice of confession is beneficial to both the

individual life of the penitent and the life of the community. The individual’s

confession to the other shatters the feeling of pride and emphasises the shame of sin

in being a ‘profound spiritual and physical pain of humiliation before another

believer’ – suffering in this guilt permits the penitent to ‘experience the cross of Jesus

as our deliverance and salvation.’ 125 In relation to the community, hearing the

confession of a fellow Christian enables the confessor to share in the burden of the

other and thus establishes love for the other through the mediation of Christ in

standing in the place of Christ for that person. Correspondingly, the confessor, in

speaking the words of forgiveness to the penitent, also fulfils the commission granted

to the community of the church: speaking the concrete command to the other.

Moreover, the community is restored when the sin that separates the penitent from

the community is forgiven, meaning that, for Bonhoeffer, confession is as a

‘breakthrough to community.’ 126 Nevertheless, as with meditation, the practice of

confession at times proved problematic for many seminarians at Finkenwalde who

simply believed ‘that sort of thing was not usually done in the Protestant Church.’127

Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Roman Catholic spirituality in Rome

In order to assess whether Bonhoeffer’s approach to the spiritual disciplines of

meditation and confession can be regarded as formed by Catholic spirituality, it is

important to examine Bonhoeffer’s experiences of Catholic spirituality and the

interaction of such biographical experiences with the formation of Bonhoeffer’s

thought. As with the question of the relationship between his own understanding of

the church and Catholicism, Bonhoeffer’s primary formative experience of Catholic

spiritual practices takes place during his 1924 stay in Rome. On witnessing the

prayerful preparation of people readying themselves to participate in the sacrament of

reconciliation at St. Maria Maggiore, Bonhoeffer is struck by the seriousness of

Catholics in their approach to confession and is impressed that ‘for many of these

125 Ibid. 111-2.

126 Ibid. 110. Bonhoeffer’s emphasis.


38

people confession has not become an obligation, but a necessity.’128 Furthermore,

Bonhoeffer considers that the practice of confession has become for Catholics more

than scrupulousness, but rather the only way for them to speak about God due to the

nature of the experience of confession as an encounter with God. It is evident here

that Bonhoeffer is engaging with a line of thought that became crucial to

understanding the practice of confession at Finkenwalde: when a person confesses

their sins to another person who stands before them as representative of Christ, God

is encountered in the practice of confession.

It is additionally important to note that Bonhoeffer’s realisation of the living reality of

the church in Rome takes place primarily through his exposure to Catholic liturgical

and spiritual practices. As Bonhoeffer remarks, ‘Catholicism first becomes lucid and

distinctive when one studies the Missal closely’129 – once again, the emphasis is not

on theological engagement with Catholicism but a concrete encounter with

Catholicism as it is practiced: in these experiences of Catholic liturgy and spirituality,

Bonhoeffer meets the sense that ‘ritual [is] truly no longer ritual’ but ‘worship in the

true sense.’130 Moreover, Bonhoeffer’s grasping of the concreteness of the church

whilst in Rome is specifically undergirded by the possibility of the concrete encounter

with God Bonhoeffer believed he witnessed in the liturgical and spiritual practices of

the Catholic Church. Hence Bonhoeffer is able to write that he is beginning to

understand the concept of the church after attending vespers,131 further indicating the

importance of Bonhoeffer’s experiences in the formation and development of his

thought.


129 Ibid. 111.

130 Ibid. 89.

131 Ibid.

39

Finkenwalde: The influence of Roman Catholicism or Lutheran

spiritual renewal?

Although its is possible to establish a link between Bonhoeffer’s experience of

confession in Rome, and its practice at Finkenwalde, as grounded in the concrete

encounter with God, the question still remains whether the expression of

Bonhoeffer’s spirituality proceeds from his experience of Catholic spiritual practice

and liturgy, especially in relation to confession and meditation on Scripture. As his

‘Paper on “The Catholic Church”’ indicates, it cannot be denied that Catholic

spirituality retained a certain charm for Bonhoeffer; indeed, an appreciation of

aspects of Catholicism can be detected throughout Bonhoeffer’s writings relating to

spirituality and spiritual practices. At points in his writings Bonhoeffer is keen to

praise the wisdom of what he has learned from Catholic spirituality, as is evidenced in

a letter to his parents from prison which praises the ‘most effective expositions of

Scripture’ from the contemplative orders within the Catholic Church.132 Indeed,

Bonhoeffer also commends Bethge’s willingness to experience Catholic liturgy,

ceremony and spiritual practices while in Rome, despite the fact that ‘some pig-

headed Lutherans will put it down as a blot in [Bethge’s] biography.’133

It is also possible to detect a more implicit engagement with Catholic spirituality in

some of Bonhoeffer’s writings. For example, Bonhoeffer’s description of meditation

as requiring an embrace of the ‘emptiness and dryness’ the practice often presents,

thus not simply expecting a joyful encounter with the Word when meditating, echoes

with the exhortation of Thomas à Kempis in The Imitation of Christ that one cannot

approach God through the desires of the self but only in rejoicing and hoping for

Christ alone.134 As Kelly confirms, Bonhoeffer’s counsel in Life Together to ‘seek God,

not happiness’ appears as a ‘succinct amalgamation’ of thoughts expressed by à

Kempis concerning the need to seek God whether in consolation or in the midst of

132 LPP, 40.

133 Ibid. 216.

134 Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo-Sherley Price (London: Penguin,

1952), ix.

40

spiritual desolation135 - though it cannot be assured that Bonhoeffer fully endorses

these concepts at the heart of the Imitation of Christ, it is interesting to note Kelly’s

appraisal of Bonhoeffer’s connection to a work identified by many Catholics as

essential to Catholic spirituality.

Nevertheless, to suggest that Bonhoeffer’s promotion of the practice of spiritual

disciplines such as meditation and confession is formed primarily from his encounter

with Catholic spirituality is inaccurate. Bonhoeffer’s experiences of Catholic liturgy

and spiritual practices certainly play a role in the development of his spirituality;

however, remembering that Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’ towards Catholicism

retains a critical distance in addition to its critical affection, it would be more

judicious to recognise that Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Catholicism acts as an

experience to stimulate thought rather than as a direct influence. An appreciation of

Catholic spirituality does not drive the communal life at Finkenwalde but instead

provides a helpful resource on which to draw inspiration for the practical necessities

of forming a community around the Word of God. This becomes clear when

acknowledging the Protestant background to the spiritual practices of the community

at Finkenwalde, including meditation on the Losung of the Moravian Daily Texts and

Luther’s teaching on confession. Bonhoeffer is especially adamant in Life Together that

the practice of confession must not be confused with the ‘legalistic’ Catholic

sacrament136 but understood as Luther’s recommendation for confession between

Christians as brothers. Luther’s conception of confession is interpreted as a spiritual

practice offered as a ‘divine help for the sinner’: in meeting God in the encounter

with the confessor, the grace of God breaks through the guilt of sin to reassure faith

when the words of personal absolution are received. Therefore, for Bonhoeffer,

confession is not a legalistic exercise in which the confessor absolves sin through the

135 Kelly, LT, 89 n. 14. It is important to note however that Bonhoeffer’s model of

discipleship is very much distinct from the imitatio model in its depiction of Christian life as

following [Nachfolge] the command of Christ in obedience rather than imitation.

136 Bonhoeffer voiced disquiet with the ‘Catholic dogma’ of confession, thought not its

practice, in his Rome diaries. ‘Italian Diary’, YB, 93.

41

authority conferred on him in holy orders137; instead, confession is a healing grace

that supports faith and so can be deemed as authentically Christian. ‘Therefore when

I urge you to go to confession,’ writes Bonhoeffer quoting Luther, ‘I am urging you

to be a Christian.’138

Finkenwalde and the concrete situation facing the church

Undoubtedly, Bonhoeffer’s concern at Finkenwalde is for a spiritual renewal for the

Confessing Church that would enable it to meet the concrete demands it faced in the

Church Struggle. Finkenwalde was not a monastic sanctuary but an expression of the

‘new monasticism’ that would help the church realise its commission to speak the

Word of God into the concrete situation. In this respect, Bonhoeffer’s aim for the

preacher’s seminary resonated with what the he saw as the desire of early

monasticism to recover ‘costly grace’: the communal life must be focussed on

following ‘Jesus’ strict commandments through daily exercise.’ 139 Moreover,

Finkenwalde cannot be for Bonhoeffer what he sees as the subsequent relativizing of

monasticism, the idea that concrete obedience of the commands Christ is ‘the

extraordinary achievement of individuals, to which the majority of the church

members need not be obligated.’140 Rather, the life of the community at Finkenwalde

involves the whole church in readying pastors to lead the church to speak the concrete

command to the world. As would be further expressed in his Ethics, Bonhoeffer

remained committed to the concept that the church’s commission to proclaim the

Word of God must be spoken in the reality of the concrete situation. Thus the

137 ‘Absolution proper is that act of the priest whereby, in the Sacrament of Penance, he frees

man from sin. It presupposes…on the part of the minister, valid reception of the Order of

Priesthood and jurisdiction, granted by competent authority, over the person receiving the

sacrament.’ ‘Absolution’, New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01061a.htm> See also Catechism of the Catholic Church,

II:2.2 Article 4 §1461-1467.

<http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm>

138 Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, sec. 32 cited in LT, 114.

139 D, 46.

140 Ibid. 47.

42

seminarians at Finkenwalde were being prepared for pastoral life through the

realisation that their existence in the church is two-fold. The Christian must be

formed into a community that gathers around the Word of God, but they must also

live as someone in the world.

If the church is really Christ-existing-as-community, the presence of Christ in the

world, then the Christian must accept that they exist for others, as ‘deputies for the

whole world.’141 The spiritual exercises at Finkenwalde are therefore validated by their

importance in preparing the seminarian to realise the necessity of the concrete

command of God, which might also demand future concrete action in a life lived

wholly in the world, particularly in response to worsening of the situation in Nazi

Germany. Bonhoeffer is therefore happy to draw on the resources of Catholic

spirituality if they are useful for achieving the spiritual renewal required to meet the

needs of the church in the Church Struggle. Consequently, spiritual renewal and the

rediscovery of the joy of spiritual practice, as Bonhoeffer preaches in a sermon on 1

Peter 1:7-9 in 1933, though it might ‘sound Catholic,’ is ‘archetypically Christian.’142

The accusations of ‘Catholicizing’ at Finkenwalde are simply unfounded.

Summary

The suggestion that the nature of the positive relation of Bonhoeffer’s thought to

Catholicism is centred in his experiences of the practice of the church, rather than a

theological engagement, has been upheld in examining the spirituality of Bonhoeffer.

In his experience of the Catholic practice of confession in Rome, Bonhoeffer begins

to contemplate the nature of spiritual practice as relating to a concrete encounter with

God. This line of thought becomes for Bonhoeffer lived spiritual practice through his

leadership of the communal life of the preacher’s seminary at Finkenwalde, and the

practice of meditation on Scripture and confession to the fellow Christian. In Life

Together Bonhoeffer promotes an understanding of both meditation, in the exposure

to the Word of God addressed to the individual, and confession, in hearing the words

141 E, 265.

142 ‘Sermon on 1 Peter 1:7b-9, Berlin’, B, 470.

43

of absolution from the confessor, as a concrete encounter with God. Yet, the

structured life of the community at Finkenwalde, and the practice of meditation and

confession, cannot be viewed as a direct influence of Catholic spirituality. Although

Bonhoeffer clearly appreciates aspects of Catholic spirituality, Finkenwalde is

primarily an exercise in spiritual renewal to meet the needs of the church and not a

‘Catholicizing’ of Lutheran spirituality. Catholic sources may be drawn upon in

building the communal life of Finkenwalde; however, Bonhoeffer’s aim for the

seminary is essentially Christian. It is here that the theme of the concrete situation

facing the church, and the commission of the church to speak the concrete command

of God to the world, is again especially relevant: the driving impetus behind

Bonhoeffer’s spirituality, particularly its emphasis on spiritual practice, is the reality of

the situation facing the church.

44

Conclusion: Recognising Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’

towards Roman Catholicism with theology through biography.

By examining Bonhoeffer’s life, both in his experiences of Catholicism and the

specific contexts of his writing, alongside his theology, it has been evidenced that the

nature of the relation of Bonhoeffer with Catholicism is best summarised as a

‘theological attitude.’ This relation can be labelled as ‘theological’, even though

Bonhoeffer’s encounter with Catholicism is primarily through the medium of lived

experience rather than systematic study, because of the integral relationship between

Bonhoeffer’s life and thought. For Bonhoeffer, life must be lived ‘theo-logically’ in

obedience to the concrete command of Christ; likewise, theology can only be done

for the church, which means for the community of believers as they exist in living in

the world. Moreover, the relation to Catholicism is an ‘attitude’ as it represents more

of a particular disposition to Catholicism than a conclusive engagement: Bonhoeffer’s

experiences of Catholicism are far from exhaustive, yet they retain a significant

relation to his theology. The ‘theological attitude’ is thus the stance of Bonhoeffer

towards Catholicism as ‘critical affection and affectionate criticism.’143

Essentially, this ‘critical affection’ towards Catholicism stems from Bonhoeffer’s

actual experiences of Catholicism as a lived religion. As has been highlighted, the

experience of the concreteness and reality of the church as witnessed in the spiritual

practices of the Catholic Church in Rome, plays a significant role in orientating

Bonhoeffer’s theological thought in the direction it would take in relation to

ecclesiology and spiritual formation. For example, what Bonhoeffer believes he

witnesses in Catholic devotion to the church stimulates the ecclesiology of Sanctorum

Communio in underlining the concrete reality of the church as Christ-existing-as-

community; likewise, the observation of the seriousness of Catholics in their

approach to the sacrament of confession helps to form an appreciation of spiritual

practices as a concrete meeting with God. Yet, the encounter with Catholicism

cannot be claimed as a direct influence on Bonhoeffer’s thought. As has been proved,

any suggestion of Bonhoeffer as a ‘Catholicizer’ must be rejected due to the fact that


45

Bonhoeffer retains at a critical distance from Catholicism. Bonhoeffer remains a

decidedly Lutheran theologian144 who clearly articulates a rejection of the institutional

basis of the Catholic Church and dismisses the Catholic doctrine of confession as a

sacrament.

It is additionally clear that the impact of biography and context regarding the relation

of Bonhoeffer with Catholicism should not be restricted to Bonhoeffer’s first-hand

engagements with the Catholic Church. Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the Confessing

Church and ecumenical movement in relation to the Church Struggle also plays a

fundamental role in shaping Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Catholicism. This is

undoubtedly evident where Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological attitude’ is at its most striking

and unique: Bonhoeffer is able to envisage the grounds for potential unity between

the Catholic Church and Protestant churches because of the concrete situation facing

the Confessing Church. Although the churches will not be united theologically,

Bonhoeffer makes the radical claim that they can be united in speaking the concrete

Word of God into the reality of the situation facing the churches.

Moreover, the theme of concreteness not only confirms Bonhoeffer’s ‘theological

attitude’ to Catholicism, but also validates the method of theology through biography

as essential for approaching a study of Bonhoeffer’s life and theology. Such a

conclusion resonates with Bonhoeffer’s own approach to understanding theology. In

moving from phraseological theology to the real encounter with faith, Bonhoeffer

argues that theology can only be carried out in obedience to the commission from

God that the concrete command of the Word is spoken into the concrete situation.

As theology can never retain its full power without the recognition of the encounter

with the concrete, any assessment of Bonhoeffer that ignores the context of his life

can never be fruitful. Indeed, it would not be possible to conclude that Bonhoeffer’s

relation to Catholicism takes place through a ‘theological attitude’ without

recognising that such an attitude is primarily formed in the experiences and

144 Importantly, accounts of Bonhoeffer’s theology by Catholic theologians have been very

keen to stress Bonhoeffer as a Lutheran. See Marlé, Bonhoeffer, 140 and Feil, The Theology of

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. xx.

46

encounters of his biography. Bonhoeffer’s ‘own life provides the commentary on his

theology’145 – thus, Bonhoeffer’s theology can only be fully appreciated when it is

read in the context of the concrete moment in which Bonhoeffer found himself.

Moreover, it is in Bonhoeffer’s affirmation of the centrality of concreteness for the

Christian life that the reader can grasp the true relevance of Bonhoeffer’s encounter

with Catholicism. Truly theo-logical life, for Bonhoeffer, must be grounded in the

concrete: this life takes places not only in the concrete encounter with God, but,

crucially, in the Word proclaimed by the church, and the situation facing the church.

In his encounter with Catholicism, Bonhoeffer is calling the Christian to realise the

demands of faith by living concretely in both the church and the reality of the world:

thus Bonhoeffer is calling us to a new way of being in the church. However, this

poses an important challenge: we need to grasp the radical message that ‘the

designation of Catholic or Protestant is unimportant’ in the authentic church.

Therefore, the new way of being in the church must realise that the only ‘important

thing [for the church] is God’s Word.’146

145 Godsey, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 281.

146 ‘Paper on the “Catholic Church”’, YB, 529.

47

Table of Abbreviations

SC Sanctorum Communio: Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church

ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Rheinard Krauss and Nancy

Lukens (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 1, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998)

AB Act and Being

ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd and Hans-Richard Reuter, trans. Martin H.

Rumscheidt (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 2, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996)

CF Creation and Fall

ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans. Douglas Stephen Bax (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 3, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997)

D Discipleship

ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, trans. Barbara Green and

Reinhard Kraus (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 4, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003)

LT Life Together; Prayerbook of the Bible

ed. Geffrey B. Kelly, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch and James H.

Burtness (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 5, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005)

E Ethics

ed. Eberhard Bethge, trans. Neville Horton Smith (London: SCM

Press, 1955)

LPP Letters and Papers from Prison

ed. Eberhard Bethge (3rd edn. enlarged, London: SCM Press, 1971)

GS II Gesammelte Schriften II

ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1959)

48

GS III Gesammelte Schriften III

ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1960)

NRS No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1928-1936

ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John

Bowden (Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1, London: Collins, 1965)

WTF The Way to Freedom: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1935-1939

ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John

Bowden (Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 2, London: Collins, 1966)

C Christology

trans. Edwin H. Robertson (London: Collins, 1978)

YB The Young Bonhoeffer: 1918-1927

ed. Paul Duane Matheny, Clifford J. Green and Marshall D. Johnson,

trans. Mary C. Nebelsick and Douglas W. Stott (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 9,

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003)

BBNY Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931

ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Dietrich


L London: 1933-1935

ed. Keith W. Clements, trans. Isabel Best (Dietrich


CI Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940-1945

ed. Mark Brocker, trans. Lisa E. Dahill (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 16, Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2006)

49

B Berlin: 1932-1933

ed. Larry Rasmussen, trans. Isabel Best, David Higgins and Douglas

W. Stott (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 12, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009)

50

Bibliography

Works by Bonhoeffer: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Sanctorum Communio: Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church,

ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Rheinard Krauss and Nancy Lukens (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 1, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) (Sanctorum Communio first

pub. 1930).

----- Act and Being, ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd and Hans-Richard Reuter, trans.

Martin H. Rumscheidt (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 2, Minneapolis: Fortress Press,

1996) (Akt und Sein first pub. 1931).

----- Creation and Fall, ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans. Douglas Stephen Bax

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 3, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) (Schöpfung und Fall

first pub. 1933).

----- Discipleship, ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, trans. Barbara Green

and Reinhard Kraus (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 4, Minneapolis: Fortress Press,

2003) (Nachfolge first pub. 1937).

----- Life Together; Prayerbook of the Bible, ed. Geffrey B. Kelly, trans. Daniel W.

Bloesch and James H. Burtness (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 5, Minneapolis: Fortress

Press, 2005) (Gemeinsames Leben first pub. 1939; Die Psalmen – Das Gebetbuch der Bibel

first pub. 1940).

----- Ethics, ed. Eberhard Bethge, trans. Neville Horton Smith (London: SCM

Press, 1955) (Ethik first pub. 1949).

----- Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (3rd edn. enlarged, London:

SCM Press, 1971) (Widerstand und Ergebung: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft first

pub. 1952).

51

----- Gesammelte Schriften I, ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag,

1958).

----- Gesammelte Schriften II, ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag,

1959).

----- Gesammelte Schriften III, ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag,

1960).

----- No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1928-1936, ed. Edwin H.

Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John Bowden (Collected Works of

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1, London: Collins, 1965).

----- The Way to Freedom: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1935-1939, ed. Edwin H.

Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John Bowden (Collected Works of

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 2, London: Collins, 1966).

----- Christology, trans. Edwin H. Robertson (London: Collins, 1978).

----- The Young Bonhoeffer: 1918-1927, ed. Paul Duane Matheny, Clifford J. Green

and Marshall D. Johnson, trans. Mary C. Nebelsick and Douglas W. Stott (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 9, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) (Jugend und Studium 1918-

1927 first pub. 1986).

----- Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931, ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Douglas W.

Stott (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 10, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008) (Barcelona,

Berlin, Amerika 1928-1931 first pub. 1991).

----- London: 1933-1935, ed. Keith W. Clements, trans. Isabel Best (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 13, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007) (London: 1933-1935 first

pub. 1994).

52

----- Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940-1945, ed. Mark Brocker, trans. Lisa E. Dahill

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 16, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006) (Konspiration und

Haft first pub. 1996).

----- Berlin: 1932-1933, ed. Larry Rasmussen, trans. Isabel Best, David Higgins and

Douglas W. Stott (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 12, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009)

(Berlin 1932-1933 first pub. 1997).

----- Theological Education Underground: 1937-1940, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans.

Victoria J. Barnett, Claudia D. Bergman, Peter Frick and Scott A. Moore (Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Works 15, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012) (Illegale Theologenausbildung:

Sammelvikariate 1937-1940 first pub. 1998).

Secondary texts: ‘Absolution’, New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

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Ballor, Jordan J., ‘The Aryan Clause, the Confessing Church, and the Ecumenical

Movement: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Natural Theology, 1933-1935’, The Scottish

Journal of Theology, 59/3 (August 2006), 263-280.

Barth, Karl, Theology and Church: Shorter Writings 1920-1928, trans. Louise P. Smith

(London: SCM Press, 1962).

----- Fragments Grave and Gay, ed. Martin Rumscheidt, trans. Eric Mosbacher (The

Fontana Library Theology and Philosophy, London: Collins, 1971).

Bethge, Eberhard, ‘The Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life and Theology’, The

Chicago Theological Seminary Register, 51/2 (1961), 1-30.

----- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans. Eric Mosbacher,

Peter and Betty Ross, Frank Clarke and William Glen-Doepel (Minneapolis: Fortress

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53

----- Bonhoeffer: Exile and Martyr, ed. John W. de Gruchy (London: Collins, 1975)

Bosanquet, Mary, The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Hodder and

Stroughton, 1968).

Busch, Eberhard, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John

Bowden (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994).

Catechism of the Catholic Church, II:2.2 Article 4 §1461 1467.

<http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm>

Copeland, M. Shawn, ‘Bonhoeffer, King and Themes in Catholic Social Thought’,

Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought, ed. Willis Jenkins

and Jennifer M. McBride (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010).

Cunningham, Lawrence S., The Meaning of Saints (San Francisco: Harper and Row,

1980).

De Gruchy, John W. (ed.), Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ (London: Collins,

1988).

----- ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer as Christian Humanist’, Being Human, Becoming Human:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Social Thought, ed. Jens Zimmerman and Brian Gregor

(Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2010).

Feil, Ernst, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. Martin Rumscheidt (Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1985) (first pub. 1971).

Fuller, Reginald, ‘The Christian in the Church Responding to the Answer in Jesus

Christ: Liturgy and Devotion’, The Place of Bonhoeffer, ed. Martin E. Marty (London:

SCM Press, 1963).

54

Gerrish, B. A., Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Martin Luther (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1962).

Godsey, John D., The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: SCM Press, 1960).

----- ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christian Spirituality’, Reflections on Bonhoeffer: Essays

in Honor of F. Burton Nelson, ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and C. John Weborg (Chicago:

Covenant Publications, 1999).

Green, Clifford J., ‘Sociality and Church in Bonhoeffer’s 1933 Christology’, Scottish

Journal of Theology, 21/4 (December 1968), 416-434.

----- Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality (Revised edn., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,

1999).

----- ‘Human Sociality and Christian Community’, The Cambridge Companion to

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. John W. De Gruchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999).

----- ‘Sociality, Discipleship and Worldly Theology in Bonhoeffer’s Christian

Humanism, Being Human, Becoming Human: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Social Thought, ed. Jens

Zimmerman and Brian Gregor (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2010).

Guardini, Romanao, The Saints in Daily Christian Life (New York: Chilton Books,

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Harvey, Barry, ‘The Narrow Path: Sociality, Ecclesiology and the Polyphony of Life

in the Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’, Being Human, Becoming Human: Dietrich

Bonhoeffer and Social Thought, ed. Jens Zimmerman and Brian Gregor (Cambridge:

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55

Kelly, Geffrey B., ‘Freedom and Discipline: Rhythms of A Christocentric Spirituality’,

Ethical Responsibility: Bonhoeffer’s Legacy to the Churches, ed. John D. Godsey and Geffrey

B. Kelly (Toronto Studies in Theology 6, Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1981).

---- ‘Prayer and Action for Justice: Bonhoeffer’s Spirituality’, The Cambridge

Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. John W. De Gruchy (Cambridge: Cambridge

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----- and Nelson, F. Burton (ed.), A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (San Francisco: Harper. 1990).

----- The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Grand Rapids,

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Kempis, Thomas á, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo-Sherley Price (London: Penguin,

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830-2.

----- In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Burns and Oates, 1967).

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Church’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 73 (2008), 32-59.

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History, Church, and World’, The Place of Bonhoeffer, ed. Martin E. Marty (London:

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Marlé, René, Bonhoeffer: The Man and His Work, trans. Rosemary Sheed (London: G.

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56

Marty, Martin E., ‘Introduction: Problem and Possibilities in Bonhoeffer’s Thought’,

The Place of Bonhoeffer, ed. Martin E. Marty (London: SCM Press, 1963).

------ Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison (Lives of Great Religious

Books, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

McClendon, James W., Biography as Theology (2nd edn., Philadelphia: Trinity Press

International, 1990).

Metz, Johann Baptist, Faith and History in Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology,

trans. David Smith (London: Burns & Oates, 1980).

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The Journal of Religious History, 24/1 (June 2000), 196-212.

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(March 2012), 43-51.

Northcott, Michael, ‘“Who Am I?” Human Identity and the Spiritual Disciplines in

the Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’, Who Am I? Bonhoeffer’s Theology through his Poetry,

ed. Bernd Wannenwetsch (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2009).

Ott, Heinrich, Reality and Faith: The Theological Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. Alex A.

Morrison (London: Lutterworth Press, 1971).

Phillips, John A., The Form of Christ in the World: A Study of Bonhoeffer’s Christology

(London: Collins, 1967)

Plant, Stephen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Continuum, 2004).

Raiser, Konrad, ‘Bonhoeffer and the Ecumenical Movement’, Bonhoeffer for a New Day:

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57

Schlingensiepen, Ferdinand, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of

Resistance, trans. Isabel Best (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2012).

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Illusions 1918-1934, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1987).

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promulgated 21st November 1964.

<http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-

ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html>

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Thinker for the Ecumenical Movement’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 57/4 (November

2004), 434-450.

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(January 1969), 2-25.

----- ‘Bonhoeffer: Church in Conflict’, The Heythrop Journal, 10/2 (April 1969), 162-

179.

Willmer, Haddon, ‘Costly Discipleship’, The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

ed. John W. De Gruchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

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trans. Käthe Gregor Smith (London: Collins, 1966).

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