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Theology for a World Come of Age: The Meaning of Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Doing Systematic Theology Today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Natalie Knödel
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What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or simply pious, is over, and so is the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time: people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more.

These words from a letter of the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer mark one of the turning points in the history of systematic theological thinking in this century.

Hardly any other theologian has provided as strong a challenge to post-war theologians as Bonhoeffer. In this article I want to give an introduction to Bonhoeffer’s theology as a whole and his concept of ‘religionless Christianity for a world come of age’ in particular. Then, in the final section, I want to discuss the relevance of Bonhoeffer for doing systematic theology in the changing theological landscape of today.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 76 , Issue 898 , November 1995 , pp. 491 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison (ET) (London: SCM, 1971), 279Google Scholar.

2 The separation of Jesus from the Christ is in fact what Bonhoeffer criticises as the failure of liberal theology. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Christology (ET) (London: Collins, 1966), 71Google Scholar.

3 Bonhoeffer, Christology, 40.

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5 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Ethics (ET) (London: SCM, 1955), 64Google Scholar.

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12 Bonhoeffer, Letters, 286.

13 A.T., John Robinson, Honest to God (London: SCM, 1963).Google Scholar

14 Cox, Harvey, The Secular City. Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (London: SCM, 1965)Google Scholar.

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