Being and Action Coram Deo: Bonhoeffer and the Retrieval of Justification's Social Import(T&T Clark New Studies in Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Ethics)

Koert Verhagen not only provides the first in-depth treatment of how the doctrine of justification crucially frames Bonhoeffer’s approach to questions surrounding human being and action, he also addresses the ethical implications of retrieving this perspective for the Church today. Drawing on his early academic theology and his later ethics of discipleship, Verhagen argues that Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the social implications of justification leads to an understanding of human existence that is fundamentally relational. Along the way, he draws Bonhoeffer’s thinking on this front into conversation with Luther, German idealism, the Nazi Weltanschauung, and contemporary Pauline scholarship. With an eye to the contemporary, practical value of Bonhoeffer’s theology, Verhagen concludes by making the case that the retrieval of justification’s social implications provides a critical corrective to ecclesial responses to white supremacy.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Backgrounding Bonhoeffer: Martin Luther on Justification’s Import for Anthropology Chapter 2 Justified in Christ and Church: The Shape of Bonhoeffer’s Early Anthropology Chapter 3 Justification Against Weltanschauung: Bonhoeffer’s Evaluation of Competing Anthropologies Chapter 4 From Anthropology to Ethics: A Pauline Case for Continuity in Bonhoeffer Chapter 5 Justification and Witness-Bearing: Discipleship as Embodied Participation in Christ Chapter 6 Reconciling Church and World: Justification’s Coordination of the Ultimate and Penultimate Chapter 7 Justification Against White Supremacy: Retrieval as Critical Corrective Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Koert Verhagen is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University, USA

Review :
Verhagen’s clearly structured, well-written and intelligently argued monograph, the first to tackle the central evangelical doctrine of justification in Bonhoeffer’s thought, is an excellent addition to T&T Clark’s steadily expanding New Studies in Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Ethics series. In this in-depth treatment of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s doctrine of justification, Koert Verhagen provides a brilliant discussion of the centrality of justification in shaping Bonhoeffer’s thought. In particular, he indicates convincingly how Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the social implications of justification informs his relational and embodied account of human existence and discipleship. Hereby this fine study makes an invaluable contribution for our engagement today with the crucial question what justification has to do with justice. The heated disputes between partisans for the New Perspective on Paul and contemporary defenders of classic accounts of the doctrine of Justification are socially and ethically sterile, as Koert Verhagen brilliantly displays. Bonhoeffer both insists on the ethical importance of the doctrine of Justification, and does so in a way that cuts through today’s academic stalemate to offer a renewed vision of Christian action as self-critical confession of sinful implication, and repentant and engaged ethical response. Koert Verhagen’s work epitomizes what Bonhoeffer scholarship in the 21st century can and should be – a careful analysis of Bonhoeffer’s theological thinking in light of pressing contemporary concerns. In Being and Action Coram Deo, Verhagen establishes the ways in which Bonhoeffer is committed to an understanding of human existence as embodied existence, then demonstrates the way Bonhoeffer’s use of the doctrine of justification challenges the white supremacy endemic to the Western church. This book is necessary reading.