This book argues that formation lies at the heart of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ethical project. Ryan Huber examines Bonhoeffer's life story and his most influential ethical writings, from his encounter with Jesus Christ in the early 1930s until his arrest in 1943, to illustrate the centrality of Christological formation in both.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is many things to many people—committed pacifist, reluctant revolutionary, Protestant saint but in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation, Ryan Huber argues that Bonhoeffer should be engaged as a Christian ethicist of formation. Huber demonstrates that formation lies at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s ethical project and personal story, providing a third way between virtue and character ethics in contemporary Christian thought concerned with moral growth.

From one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, Ethics is the seminal reinterpretation of the role of Christianity in the modern, secularized world. The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum; what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics. The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Church as distinct from the secular world; such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God’s having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God’s commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world.

A detailed examination of the academic formation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, arguing that the young Bonhoeffer reinterpreted for a modern intellectual context the Lutheran understanding of the 'person' of Jesus Christ and distinguishing Bonhoeffer's theology from that of contemporaries Karl Barth and Karl Holl.

"Since its inception in ancient Greco-Roman culture, the main goal of humanism has been moral formation through education for the attainment of true humanity. Literature and religion have always played a central role in humanistic learning, especially in the Christian humanism that has deeply shaped Western ideals of higher education. Does Christian humanism remain important today? What does Christian humanism have to contribute to the idea of moral formation in contemporary Western culture that has been characterized by many as "a secular age"? This book addresses these questions by examining two prominent Christian humanists: the twentieth-century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the contemporary American writer Marilynne Robinson. In this volume, a group of international scholars, from a variety of disciplines, bring Bonhoeffer and Robinson into conversation with current moral and ethical issues, from the residential school system to our increasingly consumerist and technology-obsessed society. The contributors demonstrate the profound affirmation of human dignity and freedom that characterize the humanism of both Bonhoeffer and Robinson, highlighting their import as resources for the relation of religion, culture and ethics. The essays in this book thus remind us that religious faith will remain relevant as we search for moral consensus in modern, post-Christian societies. The volume also features a new interview with Robinson that reveals her own religious humanism and her appreciation for Bonhoeffer's theology.

The number of ethical issues that demand a response from Christians today is almost dizzying. How can Christians navigate such matters? With an unflinching yet irenic approach, this volume invites engagement with the biggest ethical issues by drawing on real-life experiences and offering a range of responses to some of the most challenging moral questions confronting the church today.

David Dockery, President of Union University, writes: Walt Padelford is to be applauded for this work on BONHOEFFER AND BUSINESS ETHICS, which not only provides fresh perspective on the challenging work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but offers insightful application for the field of business ethics. I can envision this volume making a significant difference in business classes for both professors and students in days ahead. Moreover, this fine book will certainly have a powerful influence for all who seek to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ.Richard Chewning, Emeritus Professor of Christian Ethics at Baylor University, writes: The book is a "wonderful read" for anybody interested in business, business ethics, or practical theology...BONHOEFFER AND BUSINESS ETHICS raises the bar. Dr. Padelford escorts us through the maturing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he journeyed from pacifism to being a participant in the plot to kill Hitler. The lesson: life in the world is the crucible where Christ is manifested, and this is life's highest objective-also for business ethics. Christ takes form in the world of business through the inner struggles of those in whom He lives as they engage in the rough and tumble of the marketplace. Ethical principles, ideas, and formulations are the milk of the classroom but poor substitutes for the real challenges encountered in the fallen world. The centrality of Christ; an understanding of the stresses faced in commerce; and the spiritual formation of the lives of students: these three essentials should be tackled in Christian Business Schools.

Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning investigates the ethics of making new beginnings after devastating moral rupture. The work argues that new beginnings must be made in order to sustain the fundamental convictions that it is good to exist and that life in the world with others should be loved without exclusion. Bonhoeffer’s ethics of new beginning is set in conversation with the thought of four moral philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Glover, and Jonathan Lear. DeCort argues that Bonhoeffer’s ethics of new beginning opens and energizes a more promising, world-affirming moral vision with radical hope for new beginnings vis-à-vis the perceived absence of God in the face of devastation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer publicly confronted Nazism and anti-Semitic racism in Hitler's Germany. The Reich's political ideology, when mixed with theology of the German Christian movement, turned Jesus into a divine representation of the ideal, racially pure Aryan and allowed race-hate to become part of Germany's religious life. Bonhoeffer provided a Christian response to Nazi atrocities. In this book author Reggie L. Williams follows Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he encounters Harlem's black Jesus. The Christology Bonhoeffer learned in Harlem's churches featured a black Christ who suffered with African Americans in their struggle against systemic injustice and racial violence--and then resisted. In the pews of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, under the leadership of Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Bonhoeffer was captivated by Christianity in the Harlem Renaissance. This Christianity included a Jesus who stands with the oppressed, against oppressors, and a theology that challenges the way God is often used to underwrite harmful unions of race and religion. Now featuring a foreword from world-renowned Bonhoeffer scholar Ferdinand Schlingensiepen as well as multiple updates and additions, Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus argues that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's immersion within the black American narrative was a turning point for him, causing him to see anew the meaning of his claim that obedience to Jesus requires concrete historical action. This ethic of resistance not only indicted the church of the German Volk, but also continues to shape the nature of Christian discipleship today.

Jens Zimmermann locates Bonhoeffer within the Christian humanist tradition extending back to patristic theology. He begins by explaining Bonhoeffer's own use of the term humanism (and Christian humanism), and considering how his criticism of liberal Protestant theology prevents him from articulating his own theology rhetorically as a Christian humanism. He then provides an in-depth portrayal of Bonhoeffer's theological anthropology and establishes that Bonhoeffer's Christology and attendant anthropology closely resemble patristic teaching. The volume also considers Bonhoeffer's mature anthropology, focusing in particular on the Christian self. It introduces the hermeneutic quality of Bonhoeffer's theology as a further important feature of his Christian humanism. In contrast to secular and religious fundamentalisms, Bonhoeffer offers a hermeneutic understanding of truth as participation in the Christ event that makes interpretation central to human knowing. Having established the hermeneutical structure of his theology, and his personalist configuration of reality, Zimmermann outlines Bonhoeffer's ethics as 'Christformation'. Building on the hermeneutic theology and participatory ethics of the previous chapters, he then shows how a major part of Bonhoeffer's life and theology, namely his dedication to the Bible as God's word, is also consistent with his Christian humanism.