Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker

A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together

Andrew Root

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2014 by Andrew Root

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Root, Andrew, 1974–

Bonhoeffer as youth worker : a theological vision for discipleship and life together / Andrew Root.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8010-4905-7 (pbk.)

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 1906–1945. 2. Church work with youth. I. Title.

BX4827.B57R66 2014

259′.23092—dc23

2014011051

To Owen,

who is so much like the ten-year-old

who lost Mr. Wolf

Contents

Preface

1. Youth Ministry and Bonhoeffer: Finding a Forefather

Part 1 The History of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Youth Worker

2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Youth Worker

3. The Origins of the Youth Worker

4. The Fracture of the Idyllic: The Death of Walter and the Adolescence of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

5. From a Youth to Doing Youth Ministry: The Theological in Sanctorum Communio

6. Tears for Mr. Wolf: Barcelona and After

7. The Child as Eschatological: Back to Berlin and On to New York

8. Back to Berlin—Again

9. They Killed Their Last Teacher! The Wedding Confirmation Class

10. The Younger Generation and the Führer: Into the Political

11. “Eight Theses on Youth Work”: In London Exile

12. Finkenwalde: From Youth Ministry into Intentional Community

13. Back to Youth Ministry

14. Toward a Destiny: From Youth Pastor to Spy

Part 2 A Youth Worker’s Guide to Discipleship and Life Together

15. Youth Ministry and Discipleship

16. The Youth Worker and Life Together

Index

Preface

Books are always written for someone. Usually the best books are written for the author. Especially theological books, I believe, need to be written for the author by the author. The reader is blessed by participating in the ministry of the theologian who is brave enough to wrestle with God for faith as he or she writes. The very classic theological texts of the Christian tradition like Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, Augustine’s Confessions, Luther’s Freedom of the Christian, and even Barth’s Epistle to the Romans seem to be written first and foremost for the author.

This book you hold promises none of the impact of those listed above. Yet this book too was written first and foremost for me. This book comes out of great joy. It allowed me to sketch out something that I had seen in the life of Bonhoeffer that no other Bonhoeffer thinker had directly addressed. In this project I devoted the time and concentration to dive headlong into the ...