Church & University

Bonhoeffer's Work in English

London, 1933-1935: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works,

Volume 13
by Keith W. Clements (Editor); Isabel Best (Translator)

 

Release Date: Friday, July 13, 2007
Format: Hard Cover, 550 pages  6 x 9 inches
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9780800683139

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pastoral sojourn in England from October 1933 to April of 1935, which he initially viewed as a withdrawal from the church clashes in Germany, marked instead a new phase in his intensive participation in that struggle. This enlightening volume provides an almost daily documentation of his deepening engagement against the placid backdrop of his two London pastorates. Detailing Bonhoeffer's extensive contacts with German expatriates, ecumenical partners and allies, and friends and family, London: 1933-1935 impressively records both Bonhoeffer's involvement in the rapidly developing clash with the deutsche Christen and the means by which he pursued it. The bulk of the material consists of his wide correspondence but also includes records and minutes of his congregational meetings, excerpts from the diaries of Bonhoeffer's friend and London colleague Julius Rieger, reports from international conferences from 1934, and more than twenty sermons he preached to his London congregations. The wealth of this material, says editor Keith Clements, allows us to experience a dramatic slice of this history and see the many and complex facets of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's personality.

 

"This is an enormously rich resource for anyone interested in Bonhoeffer's life and thought during that earthshaking period in European history."
— John W. DE Gruchy, Emeritus, University of Cape Town

"Beautifully translated, the letters and sermons give us new insights into Bonhoeffer himself."
— Victoria J. Barnett, General Editor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition and Director, Church Relations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

"Taking its place in what has become a definitive series, this splendid new volume captures Dietrich Bonhoeffer busily at work in a lively new landscape. More than this, it yields a vivid glimpse of that bustling, wider realm of opinion, friendship and endeavour which the crisis of National Socialism provoked beyond the borders of Germany itself. It is surely indispensable."
— Andrew Chandler, Director, the George Bell Institute at the University of Chichester

"Action springs 
not from thought,
but from a readiness
for responsibility"