Taking Hold of the Real

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Profound Worldliness of Christianity

Barry Harvey

TAKING HOLD OF THE REAL

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Profound Worldliness of Christianity

Copyright © 2015 Barry Harvey. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-844-0

EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7356-5

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Harvey, Barry, 1954–

Taking hold of the real : Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the profound worldliness of Christianity / Barry Harvey.

xiv + 342 p. ; 23 cm. —Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-844-0

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 1906–1945. I. Title.

BX4827.57 B445 2015

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

• Title Page

• Acknowledgments

• Abbreviations

• Introduction: The Great Wager

• Chapter 1: A Sacramental This-Worldliness

• Chapter 2: The Ironic Myth of a World Come of Age

• Chapter 3: The Future of a Technological Illusion

• Chapter 4: The End(s) of “Religion”

• Chapter 5: Culture, or Accounting for the Merely Different

• Chapter 6: A Social Economy of Whiteness

• Chapter 7: Reading the New in Light of the Old

• Chapter 8: Polyphonic Worldliness

• Chapter 9: A Tale of Two Pastors

• Bibliography

To Rachel Ann

Acknowledgments

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been a constant companion of mine for nearly three decades. I have written on some aspect or other of his life and work on several occasions, the fruits of which supply both the framework and some of the content for the present volume. Even when I have not written explicitly about him, something he said or did frequently acts as a catalyst for my reflections. My interest in his life and work is both descriptive and constructive, as I seek to discern what his theology has to show and say to the church in our time and place. My aim is not simply to arrive at the best understanding of what he said and did in his context (though that is important), but to enlist his help in our efforts to spell out a theological grammar that is adequate both to scripture and tradition, and to the particularities of the time and place in which we currently live, move, and have our being. I hope that this book repays a small part of my debt I owe to a friend I did not have the chance to meet.

The title of this book is derived from a line from a poem Bonhoeffer writes from prison, “Stations on the Way to Freedom”: “Hover not over the possible, but boldly reach for the real.” The verb in the German is ergreifen, to seize or grasp, not merely to contemplate what is real.1 The nature of reality, as Bonhoeffer understands it, is grounded in God’s becoming human in Jesus Christ, ...