Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We are moving towards a completely religionless time people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience-and that means the time of religion in general. Bonhoeffer's first mention of 'religionless Christianity' came in a letter in 1944: What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The book is probably most famous, and most important, for its idea of 'religionless Christianity'-an idea Bonhoeffer did not live long enough fully to develop, but whose timeliness only increases as the lines between secular and ecclesial life blur. Letters and Papers from Prison is a collection of notes and correspondence covering the period from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in 1943 to his execution by the Gestapo in 1945. de Gruchy to clarify the theological meaning and social importance of Bonhoeffer’s prison writings. Barnett and an insightful introduction by John W. Using the acclaimed DBWE translation, adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. This splendid volume, in some ways the capstone of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, presents the full array of Bonhoeffer’s 1943–1945 prison letters and theological writings. The materials gathered and selected by his friend Eberhard Bethge in Letters and Papers from Prison not only brought Bonhoeffer to a wide and appreciative readership, especially in North America, they also introduced to a broad readership his novel and exciting ideas of religionless Christianity, his open and honest theological appraisal of Christian doctrines, and his sturdy, if sorely tried, faith in face of uncertainty and doubt. Despite Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s earlier theological achievements and writings, it was his correspondence and notes from prison that electrified the postwar world six years after his death in 1945.

Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer