This remarkable book is the latest addition to the vast literature on the life and literary legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, following as it does on the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (DBW), the collection of Bonhoeffer's works in new translations and editions. The achievement of editor Isabel Best cannot be underestimated. Already a seasoned translator of two volumes of the DBW and portions of other volumes, Best has provided readers with an indispensable tool for understanding more fully Eberhard Bethge's monumental biography through her selection of sermons preached by Bonhoeffer at crucial points in his pastoral ministry.
The timeless quality of this collection is highlighted in Victoria Barnett's foreword. Barnett, the general editor of the DBW, points out that it is impossible to understand Bonhoeffer the “German resistance movement” hero or Bonhoeffer the theologian without understanding Bonhoeffer the preacher. Best has organized Bonhoeffer's sermons chronologically, beginning with his sermon “God Is With Us,” delivered in 1928 during his internship in Barcelona, and concluding with “Death Is Swallowed Up in Victory,” delivered on Remembrance Sunday in November 1939. The collection is enhanced by Best's careful analysis of the historical setting of each sermon, as well as the probable mood, hopes, and concerns of Bonhoeffer's audience. Best's introduction illuminates Bonhoeffer's connections with the cares and, at times, the anxieties of the German people, whether they were graduating students, seminarians, veterans of the Great War, worried Germans living abroad, ordinary people overwhelmed by the demands on their faith in troubled times, or, especially, pastors in training to live and minister in the midst of their enemies.
Best captures the vibrancy and passion that Bonhoeffer invested in his sermons in both her selection and her analysis of each. The sermons have been taken with care from the DBW and benefit from that collection's authentic and accurate translations, coupled with its careful annotations that are faithful to Bonhoeffer's original German and his personal intent.
What is additionally remarkable in Best's collection is the relevance, depth, and continuing application of Bonhoeffer's sermons, whether offering analyses and insights based on the Bible or pointed challenges to the faith of his people. Bonhoeffer's sermons transcend the times and audiences of their delivery. In a late sermon in the London phase of his ministry, for example, Bonhoeffer makes this timeless declaration: “Christianity stands or falls by its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and by its apologia for the weak. . . . Christianity. . . should give much more offence, more shock to the world than it is doing” (169). There is no question that Bonhoeffer's sermons, now made accessible through Isabel Best's superbly edited collection, continue to captivate.
