Customer Reviews

Christ the Center (Harper's Ministers Paperback Library)

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After seminary taught me how to dissect the Bible and faith, this pre-WWII work by the disciple of "costly grace" helped me put it back together. It is thoroughly academic, and it is unswerving in its insistence that questions of Biblical criticism cannot be placed before and above the question of our relationship to Christ. When Christ is the center, the world looks different than we arrogantly thought it would when looking from the outside in.

The book is very philosophical and filled with the language of theology. It pushes toward the question of all Christian theology: where is the place of Jesus of Nazareth in our faith? I think that Bonhoeffer's deductions are right on.

This is an amazing book which will challenge the way you think about Christianity. Bonhoeffer brings up issues of grace, faith, and obiedence which will compel anyone to reflect on their faith in Jesus Christ. It is a wonderful and intellectual book for anyone who wants to know what REAL Christianity is.

I had never heard of this book of Bonhoeffer's but saw the title and immediately decided to pick it up. I had previously read Cost of Discipleship and Ethics, which I greatly appreciated. From all the Bonhoeffer writings I have read one thing is very clear: Christ is indeed the center of his thought. Thus, to understand Bonhoeffer, one needs to understand his view of Christ.
As a conservative Christian, there were certain things that I do disagree with in Bonhoeffer, such as his acceptance of some historical critical ideas. Nonetheless, the good far outways the bad. In the first section of the book, Bonhoeffer contends that we must not ask the question "how?" when talking of Christ, but of "Who?" The question of how is not to be understood by us, however the question of who is answered when we understand that God was incarnate as man for us. We can only understand Him in so far as he reveals Himself to us and for us. Bonhoeffer contends that Christ is present in the church today through the preaching of the word and the sacraments. Christ is to be the center of all theology, but also of historiography and all other disciplines.
The second part of this book contains a very detailed discussion of Christological heresy. Bonhoeffer defends Chalcedonian Christology, arguing against monophysitism, docetism, nestorianism, arianism and ebionism. There is also a detailed discussion of Lutheran Christology and the communicatio idiomatum. Bonhoeffer defends against liberalism that Christ is indeed a real historical figure, but not only a historical figure. He is the ever present Godman.

In his book (lecture), Christ the Center, the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer seeks to show a Christology that emphasizes a new angle from which to view Christ, while keeping Christ at the center of all consideration and study. For Bonhoeffer, the key to the new understanding of Christ is to change from asking "How" he is what he is to asking "Who" he is. The decisive question is always; Who is Christ? In Mark 8:29 Jesus asks this crucial question to his disciples. The asking the `who' question rather than the `how' moves Christ closer to the center. Bonhoeffer's theology radiates from Christ at the center. Christ can be found in the Word (logos), in the sacraments and members of the church, and is also the mediator of all earthly existence and history. Christ is always the center, and the only center. Bonhoeffer's style is very German. I found the book in places to be superfluously worded, a bit erudite, and dogmatic. I felt he used the "proof by repeated assertion" method to make his point. I agree with his suggestion to view Christ from different perspectives, breaking down the barriers that some views might impose. Still, I feel that when all "who" questions are asked, we still come around to needing to ask the "how" questions. It can not be avoided in a post-Enlightenment, scientific thinking world. I feel the need to ask `how'" the "who" will answer all my question. Maybe it is just the semantics that confused me.

It is nice to get a book that is in the condition that is advertised. I am looking forward to the opportunity to read this book, but I have a couple in front of it.
Thank you for the accuracy and shipping expedience. I assure you that I appreciate it very much. I may buy used but I do like to make my own notes so a good clean copy is what I look for in a used book.

The new critical edition of Bonhoeffer's 1933 Christology lectures that appear in Christ the Center come out Sept 1, 2009 in Berlin: 1932-1933 (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 12)

This is not a book for the ordinary seeker after truth. It is much too philosophical, more for graduate school exercises in religious thought.