In this paper, I revisit a debate between Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Barth, known as the ‘Barth–Feuerbach confrontation’. I begin by framing the contours of this dispute as it was initiated by Barth and carried forward by his interpreters, who have sought in vain to make Barth's and Feuerbach's positions commensurable. Having narrated the history of this ongoing scholarly discussion and clarified why it remains intractable, I turn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose this-worldly conception of theology, I argue, provides resources for ‘mediating’ the insights of Feuerbach and Barth. By attending to Bonhoeffer's earliest engagements with Barth on the question of divine revelation, and by exploring his striking proximity to Feuerbach on the issue of this-worldliness, we can see how Bonhoeffer helps overcome not only the dichotomies that plague the Barth–Feuerbach confrontation but also those that pervade modern attempts to safeguard this-worldliness by dispensing with divine transcendence.

This essay adapts Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ‘orders of preservation’ to address the sharp rise in species extinctions due to human causes. I argue that Bonhoeffer's creative use of preservation orders to build an international alliance provides the scope required to meet the present biodiversity crisis while pre-empting Karl Barth's criticism of static regionalism and avoiding problematic elements in Carl Schmitt's concept of the ‘restraining force’. Drawing on Bonhoeffer's 1932 address, ‘On the Theological Foundation of the Work of the World Alliance’, I present three convictions to guide the task of preservation today, which include the formation of alliances between ecclesial and scientific communities in order to properly specify God's commandment.

John Webster and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are two theologians invested in prioritising certain conceptions of divine transcendence within their respective theological projects. Specifically, both appeal to conceptions of divine transcendence and agency amidst what they understand to be the problematic naturalisation of theological discourse in modern Protestant theology, particularly within its liberal German traditions. The way they understand transcendence, however, and the doctrinal loci they choose to affect it, leads to different conceptualisations of the possibilities, scope and organisation of systematic theology. Where Webster (especially in his later work) seeks to prioritise God's immanent perfection and aseity through theology proper, Bonhoeffer instead emphasises God's freedom pro me within the person of Jesus Christ. These differences in first theological foundations have important consequences for the shape of theological method and doctrinal architecture within the practice of contemporary systematic theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pursuit of a sanctified life took a significant detour from the way in which he thought it would proceed. In seeking ‘good’ moral choices in the crucible of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer experienced a profound sense of what we now would recognise as moral injury, which proves to be a powerful and reflexive lens with which to examine his understanding of sanctification. Initially embracing pacifism as a fundamental pillar of Christian life, Bonhoeffer eventually became convinced that there are no pure or ‘right’ moral choices, only competing ‘wrong’ ones. He later wrote from prison that to be like Christ, and to come closer to holiness, was not to seek to avoid guilt, but to take on guilt for the sake of others. This recontextualisation of the idea of sanctification through the lens of Christ's substitutionary guilt suggests that for the responsible actor moral injury may be inevitable.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s unfinished and posthumously published Ethics was intended to be his magnum opus. However, its incomplete structure and the distinct ethical approaches evident in its unfinished essays have allowed for considerable debate about its overall coherence and contours, as well as the hermeneutics appropriate to the text. This essay reconsiders prior interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics through close readings that disclose three rival versions of moral reasoning operative in three manuscripts from Bonhoeffer’s Ethics. Retracing his reasoning regarding the ethics of lying, the place of guilt, and the relation between the law of God and God’s will, I argue that Bonhoeffer’s detractors and defenders alike have misconstrued the controversial ethic of “actively embracing guilt” (Schuldübernahme). Far from the paradigmatic expression of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, its organizing theme, or the basis for his participation in the tyrannicide plot against Hitler, Bonhoeffer’s reflection on Schuldübernahme is properly understood as an outlier—a short-lived thought experiment that he critiques and reconceives in two alternative versions of moral reasoning in later chapters.

It is the argument of this article that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's hermeneutical approach understands creaturely existence to be truly held by the Word made flesh as the risen Christ, who is still wholly human and therefore truly present in creation. Therefore, this article argues with Dietrich Bonhoeffer that, for a viable theological hermeneutics, it is critically necessary to consider the kenotic movement of the risen Christ, not only for a proper understanding of holy scripture in its genuine humanness, but also for an understanding of the new creation as taking place in reconciled creatures through the Word.

Following Kristallnacht, Dietrich Bonhoeffer marked the date of the pogrom beside Psalm 74:8 in his personal Bible. This annotation has been frequently cited; however, though scholars have recognised historical implications of associating this psalm text with Kristallnacht, the discourse has yet to examine this annotation thoroughly in the context of Bonhoeffer's figural interpretation of the Psalms during this period. This article will establish the context of Bonhoeffer's figural approach to the Psalter in order to address this question: by connecting Psalm 74:8 with Kristallnacht, what theological claim might Bonhoeffer have been making about the events of November 1938?

This essay examines and compares the treatment of the Decalogue in the theological ethics of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It argues that while both theologians orient their exposition of the Decalogue by attending to its primary character as divine self-revelation, approach it with a view to a Christian ethics of divine command, and frame their understandings in decisively christological terms, they differ markedly on the extent to which the commandments themselves can and ought to be understood as representing concrete divine commands.

This article suggests that the narrative of human community Bonhoeffer described in Sanctorum Communio, following the categories of creation, fall and redemption, provides the framework for understanding the various aspects of human sexuality found in Creation and Fall and Ethics. A comparative study of these texts reveals that marriage and sexuality in Bonhoeffer encapsulates the human drive towards community, preserved from the fall for redemption in Christ. Understanding human sexuality within the structure of this narrative allows for a new way of appropriating and evaluating Bonhoeffer's theological anthropology for contemporary ethical reflection in the Christian community.

Structural similarities have been noted between Dietrich Bonhoeffer's account of ethical responsibility and more recent accounts advocated by philosophers who emphasise responsibility to alterity. Yet, there remains one stubborn difference between Bonhoeffer and these philosophers: his unequivocal embrace of strongly cataphatic speech. This raises the following question: it is possible for contemporary Christian ethicists and theologians to enlist Bonhoeffer in the aim of reconceiving an ethic of responsibility to the ‘other’ when Bonhoeffer himself relies on such concrete, exclusive language? This article will argue that attention to Martin Luther's defence of theological assertions provides a lens through which the performative force of Bonhoeffer's cataphatic language can be better understood as a particular and traditional use of language that teaches an ethical posture of epistemic humility.

In their 1920s expatriate theologies, Paul Althaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer claim to be bound by a conflictual international ‘law’, which mandates violent competition while authorising the strong to displace weaker peoples. We argue that acknowledging such correspondence helps to reveal a surprising turn in their diverging ecclesiological judgements over the 1933 Aryan Paragraph. Ironically, although Althaus holds to the productivity of conflict between peoples, he supports the exclusion of Jewish pastors in Germany as a concession to fragile völkisch identity. In contrast, Bonhoeffer's new pacifist leanings coincide with his incitement to conflict on behalf of Jewish colleagues, overriding the use of Pauline admonition to defer to the ‘weak’ conscience.

The award-winning Belgian film Le huitième jour, about a young man with Down syndrome, begins with static on a television screen. This reflects the current state of disability study: much has been accomplished through the work of Nancy Eiesland, Amos Yong, and John Swinton, but there still is static in the conversation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer rejected the theological discourse of his day regarding the orders of creation and argued instead for the orders of preservation. This turn, in the area of theology and disability, means a move away from questions about God's creating (or not) of disability, and instead moves toward the preservation of life in Christ. In so doing, Bonhoeffer takes a surprising stance as a Protestant by drawing on natural law theology and points to our high calling in life on “the eighth day.”