Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation

Ryan Huber is adjunct professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Bonhoeffer’s life and writings as a pastor and an educator and his imprisonment and death in a Nazi prison are well known to many interested in Christian ethics. Even so, readers are likely to be unfamiliar with the many scholarly studies of Bonhoeffer's writing, including writing in which he articulates his concept of how formation can provide a bridge between Catholic virtue ethics and Protestant character ethics. Huber (Fuller Theological Seminary) provides a helpful survey of how the theologian's ethics were formed by and influential in each stage, and he supports this with a review of many of the textual studies of Bonhoeffer's work published in the decades since his death, at the hands of the Nazis, in 1945. Huber concludes by explaining why he considers Bonhoeffer’s ethics of formation important for contemporary Christian ethics. A solid resource for scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.

• 1. Roots of Formation in Discipleship and Life Together2. Bonhoeffer’s Ethics as Formation 3. Bonhoeffer’s Personal Story of Formation 4. Bonhoeffer’s Education for Formation 5. Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation: A Third Way between Christian Virtue and Character Ethics