Douglas W. Stott

In the spring of 1935 Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned from England to direct a small illegal seminary for the Confessing Church. The seminary existed for two years before the Gestapo ordered it closed in August 1937. The two years of Finkenwalde's existence produced some of Bonhoeffer's most significant theological work as he prepared these young seminarians for the turbulence and risk of parish ministry in the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer and his seminarians were under Gestapo surveillance; some of them were arrested and imprisoned. Throughout, he remained dedicated to training them for the ministry and its challenges in a difficult time. This volume includes bible studies, sermons, and lectures on homiletics, pastoral care, and catechesis, giving a moving and up-close portrait of the Confessing Church in these crucial yearsthe same period during which Bonhoeffer wrote his classics, Discipleship and Life Together.

Volume 11 in the sixteen-volume Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, Ecumenical, Academic, and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932, provides a comprehensive translation of Bonhoeffers important writings from 1931 to 1932, with extensive commentary about their historical context and theological significance. This volume covers the significant period of Bonhoeffer's entry into the international ecumenical world and the final months before the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship. It begins with Bonhoeffer's return to Berlin in June 1931 after his year of study in the United States. In the crucial period that followed, Bonhoeffer continued his preparations for the ministry, began teaching at Berlin University, and became active at international ecumenical meetings. His letters and lectures, however, also document the economic and political turbulence on the European and world stage, and Bonhoeffer directly addresses the growing threat of the Nazi movement and what it portends not only for Germany, but for the world. Several of the documents in this volume, particularly the student notes of his university lecture on "The Nature of the Church" and his lectures on Christian ethics, give important insights into his theology at this point. His ecumenical lectures and reports are significant documents for understanding the ecumenical debates of this period.

"Then came the crisis of 1933." This is Bonhoeffer's own phrase in a letter that documents a turning point in his own life as well as that of the nation. Of Bonhoeffer's own life at this time, his biographer writes, "The period of learning and roaming" from 1928 until 1931 "had come to an end" as the young lecturer, age 26, began to teach "on a faculty whose theology he did not share" and to preach "in a church whose self-confidence he regarded as unfounded." Bonhoeffer was becoming part of a society "that was moving toward political, social, and economic chaos."Events moved quickly at the onset of 1933 in Berlin. In only one hundred days the path was cleared by the German Parliament and the Nazi Party for the establishment of the fascist dictatorship. These one hundred days, as well as the preceding and succeeding months, are reflected in the materials in this volume: in letters, in sermons, in Bonhoeffer's university teaching, in manifestos and a church confession, and in his proactive engagement in the developing church struggle. The vast majority of these are translated here for the first time.

The period 1928 to 1931, whichfollowed completion of his dissertation, was formative for Bonhoeffer's personaland pastoral and theological direction.Almost all of these nine hundred pagesof writings appear in English herefor the first time. They document theintense four-year period that includedpreparation of his postdoctoral thesis;a vicarage in Barcelona; occasionallectures; his postdoctoral academicyear at Union Theological Seminary;travel around the United States, Cuba, and Mexico; and his re-entry into theGerman academic and ecclesial scene.

The first of the chronological volumes in this acclaimed critical edition of Bonhoeffer's work gathers his one hundred earliest letters and journals from after the First World War through his graduation from Berlin University. It also contains his early theological writings up to his dissertation. These seventeen works include, for example, works on the patristic period for Adolf von Harnack, on Luther's moods for Karl Holl, on biblical interpretation for Professor Reinhold Seeberg, as well as essays on the church and eschatology, reason and revelation, Job, John, and even joy. Rounding out this picture of Bonhoeffer's nascent theology are his sermons from the period, along with his lectures on homiletics, catechesis, and practical theology.In translation for the first time, these writings show Bonhoeffer as pastor and theologian alert to his times and developing the formative themes of his religious worldview.