CHRIST FOR US, In The Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The substance of this exploration of the thought of Bonhoeffer was developed as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Glasgow. In seeking a premise upon which to organize Bonhoeffer's thought, the author rejects the popular thesis that Bonhoeffer's theology was shaped largely out of his reaction to the social and political events through which he lived, and likewise he rejects Ecclesiology as an adequate organizing principle. The center of his subject's theology he finds, rather, a liberated and many-sided Christology . In examining the sources and formative influences bearing upon this central principle and its development in Bonhoeffer, the author discusses a number of theologians who had close relationships at one time or another with his subject--Troeltsch, Barth, Gogarten, among these. He rightly identifies the problem of Revelation as a major concern with which Bonhoeffer wrestled. This is a well-grounded and judicious study. Only now and then does it betray the academic legerdemain characteristic of doctoral theses. It will be useful to students of Bonhoeffer and of contemporary theology; and should be read especially by those who have taken up some of Bonhoeffer's key phrases, such as ""a religionless Christianity,"" without understanding the scope and the limits he himself put on these terms.