Bonhoeffer and King

This collection of new essays by the two editors and eighteen invited authors offers an extensive set of comparative studies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. as “quintessential models of the ways in which theological conception and social context can merge to foster a passion for social justice and reconciled community” (Richard W. Wills Sr., 148). It is because Bonhoeffer and King “lived their theology” in the public and political life of their nations—even though both clearly recognized the danger of doing so—that these two otherwise very different Christian ministers are paired and held up for emulation. In her introduction, Jennifer M. McBride observes that “the contributors to this volume share my concern that Christian social thought work in the service of transformative action” (4). Thus, the adversary implicitly addressed is the person who conceives of religious faith simply as a matter of private spirituality or corporate worship, and the book is designed to encourage and support Christian social activism and, to some extent, the reform of church bodies themselves (though the latter is less emphasized than one might expect, given the critiques both Bonhoeffer and King lodged against the churches of their time).

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