The Cross of Reality investigates Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s interpretation and use of Martin Luther’s theology in shaping his Christology. In this volume, H. Gaylon Barker uses the “theology of the cross” as a key to understanding the characteristic elements that make up Bonhoeffer’s theology and shows how Bonhoeffer’s conversation develops with his teachers and contemporaries.
Bonhoeffer’s thought was radical and revolutionary because of its adherence to the classical traditions of the church, especially Luther’s theologia crucis. When his theology is understood in light of this tradition, his “nonreligious interpretation” is not a radical departure from his earlier theology, but is the mature expression of his theology of the cross.
Bonhoeffer’s Lutheran roots would not allow him to turn his back on the problems and tragedies of the world. In fact, because God had turned toward the world, had entered into the world, and identified with suffering individuals, the only proper sphere for theological reflection was this world. Theology properly conceived, therefore, is very this-worldly. It is this worldly character that gives it its power to speak.
Further explore the topic of Lutheran Christology with Incarnation: On the Scope and Depth of Christology.
No theologian left a deeper imprint on Bonhoeffer than Luther. And no locus of theology permeated his life and thought more profoundly than Luther’s theologia crucis. The beauty of The Cross of Reality is to show its formative power from beginning to middle to end in Bonhoeffer’s consistent turn to the tumultuous reality that engulfed his own life and that of his nation, family, and church.
—Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary