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Book Review: Old Testament Introduction

No less than his theological writings, Bonhoeffer’s biography generally, and his political life in particular, have always been matters of fascination. These two books, each quite different from the other in aim and scope, offer readings of Bonhoeffer which closely connect questions of theology with those of biography and social and political engagement. Rasmussen’s book is a reprint of his 1972 study of the same title. His thesis, as interesting and compelling still now as then, is that Bonhoeffer’s distinctive Christology is the key to his ethics, and further that his ‘own resistance was in fact his Christology enacted with full seriousness’ (92). Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the decisive centrality of Christ in determining reality and so orienting ethics remains constant: ethics ever involves conformity with the Gestalt Christi. What changes is the nature of the periphery, expanding, Rasmussen argues, from the Christian community, to ‘Christian civilization’ and finally to a religionless ‘world come of age’. This last shift is said to constitute a sharp ‘break’ in Bonhoeffer’s development. This expansion of ethical attention, it is argued, is closely connected with Bonhoeffer’s experiences in the resistance. The book includes extended critical consideration of Bonhoeffer’s pacifism and his view of tyrannicide, as well as the nature and failure of the resistance itself. The case is closely argued throughout, making extensive use of what were in the 1970s archival materials, but which now are readily available in the publication Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. It is thus regrettable that the extensive apparatus of footnotes and references should have been left entirely unaltered, rather than being updated to take account of the new critical edition. Roberts’ book is at once a more personal and discursive work, emerging as it does from the author’s own formative encounters with the theology and political witness of both Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. over a career as a theological educator in America. The argument is also highly personal in the sense that Roberts accounts for the development of their distinctive theological convictions and social activism, by tracing their respective biographies beginning with their formative childhoods. Roberts sees significant parallels between the two figures while emphasizing the distinct contours of their ‘contexts of decision.’ He explores these parallels at length, considering in turn the lineaments of their ethics, the role of race and ethnicity in their thought, and their common commitment to non-violence. A reader will find here interaction with Bonhoeffer’s best known writings and King’s most important speeches and other works, though the book’s brevity and tenor exclude detailed and critical interpretations. This study is an accessible ‘recommendation’ of the importance of the legacies of Bonhoeffer and King, two increasingly historical figures whose ‘greatness,’ Roberts contends, ‘is expressed most in their public theology’ (29).