Tag Archives: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Word of the day: ‘godforsakenness’ – Bonhoeffer on Good Friday
A few years back, Stephen Colbert made news by making a new word – ‘truthiness’ – and successfully entering the word into the cultural zeitgeist. Often we find ourselves at an impasse of reason and emotion where language shows its limits and the ‘perfect’ word to express our deepest thoughts, fears, and emotions escape us.
Good Friday has always been such a time.
I honestly never know how to feel … There’s more to read here.
U2 and Bonhoeffer’s cantus firmus: why we need music in our theology
In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, he develops an amazing reflection on the power of music to shape and transform theology. Given that I just finished a book on pop music and that I think most naturally in metaphors and similes (perhaps one of the reasons why parables of Jesus always made sense to me and the Epistles of Paul leave me generally dry and parched) Bonhoeffer’s … There’s more to read here.
Easter: Fantastic Mr. Fox, St. Augustine, Calvin and Bonhoeffer on why the Cross remains
At the beginning of Wes Anderson’s animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mr and Mrs Fox are trapped by a farmer and perceiving that this might be the end, they have the following interchange:
Mrs. Fox: This story’s too predictable.
Mr. Fox: Predictable? Really? Then, how does it end?
Mrs. Fox: In the end, we all die. Unless you change.
There is something in the simplicity of this exchange that … There’s more to read here.
Lenten music: Bonhoeffer, Dead Poet’s Society and the gift of being an alternative song
I wanted to share a portion of a letter from Dietrich Bonhoeffer written to his friend Eberhard Bethge while Bonhoeffer was in prison. Taproot Theatre is currently showing a marvelous dramatization of Bonhoeffer’s last days called “The Beams are Creaking” and it led me to re-read his Letters and Papers from Prison. Given that I just finished a book on pop music and that I think most naturally in … There’s more to read here.
