During the harsh winter of 1939-40 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eberhard Bethge, and eight candidates for ministry in the Confessing Church lived and studied together during the tenth and final session of Bonhoeffer’s seminary work. This was one of Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church’s shining moments. There was no prestige to be gained, no careers to be [...]
Maria von Wedemeyer: Hiding in Plain Sight
While researching Dietrich Bonhoeffer and women, I was tantalized by a line from Maria’s sister Ruth-Alice von Bismarck in Love Letters from Cell 92: The Correspondence between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer: 1943-45: “In 1974 … She [Maria] also gave an interview about her relationship with Bonhoeffer for a television documentary.” (354)An interview? Why had [...]
Topics:
Women in Bonhoeffer’s Life
Alice Bond 
A Death Row Inmate Finds Common Ground With Theologians
A lot of convicted felons find God while in prison. Some of their stories rise to the level of literature — Oscar Wilde, Malcolm X. Others are less sincere; parole boards around the country are treated to a lot of conversion stories. Few are anything like Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, who is scheduled on Monday [...]
Topics:
Political Life and Theology
Georgia death row inmate finds path back to hope with ‘costly grace’
I met Kelly Gissendaner in January 2010 in a nondescript classroom at Metro State Prison for Women in Atlanta. She arrived for class beaming with excitement about the journey she was about to begin — participation in a yearlong academic theology program sponsored jointly by four Atlanta seminaries. Since she has been sentenced to the [...]
Earth-Honoring Faith and Resisting Structural Evil
Earth-Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key. Larry L. Rasmussen. New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-19-991700-6. xi + 462 pages. $45.00 -and- Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4514-6267-8. xix + 315 pages. $19.80 (E-book 978-1-4514-2639-7 $12.00) _____________________________ Ed. Note: This review article [...]
Topics:
Creation and Ecotheology