A documentary compilation of the theologian’s teaching and preaching across two decades
What the Work Is
Seminare, Vorlesungen, Predigten, 1924 bis 1941 is a German-language compilation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s academic teaching and preaching, first published in 1972. As its title indicates, it gathers material spanning the years 1924 to 1941 — seminars, lecture courses, and sermons — drawn from Bonhoeffer’s career as a university lecturer and ordained pastor. Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a Lutheran theologian, a leading figure in the Confessing Church, and a participant in the German resistance to National Socialism.
What the Book Is About
The volume documents Bonhoeffer’s work as a teacher and preacher rather than presenting a single sustained argument. Its contents belong to the period in which he lectured in theology at the University of Berlin and, later, trained candidates for the ministry of the Confessing Church. The material reflects the range of his academic instruction — from the history of modern systematic theology to the nature of the church and the person of Christ — alongside the preaching he undertook as an ordained pastor. Because the collection is organized around the forms of his teaching and proclamation, it offers a record of how his theological thinking was communicated in the classroom and the pulpit over roughly seventeen years.
Key Ideas and Themes
The source material documents several of the lecture courses Bonhoeffer gave at Berlin, which indicate the subjects treated in this period. In the winter semester of 1931/1932 he delivered his first lecture, on the history of systematic theology in the twentieth century, together with a seminar on the idea of philosophy and Protestant theology. In 1932 he lectured on the nature of the church, deliberately setting his treatment against Adolf von Harnack’s Wesen des Christentums. In 1933 he lectured on Christology. These lecture topics represent the academic side of the material gathered in the volume.
A distinctive feature of Bonhoeffer’s teaching was its devotional character. His courses were well attended and, unusually for the setting, were opened with a prayer. He also addressed contemporary events in a manner that set him apart from his colleagues on the faculty, insisting that the coming war had to be rejected out of obedience to God’s command that war should no longer be, because it obscures the revelation.
The preaching represented in the collection belongs to Bonhoeffer’s pastoral work. He was ordained on 15 November 1931 in the St. Matthäus Church in Berlin-Tiergarten and quickly gained a reputation as a capable preacher, extending beyond his own congregation. He took charge of a confirmation class in the Zionskirche, in a working-class district of Berlin-Mitte, and in the summer of 1931 wrote a new catechism with Franz Hildebrandt for his confirmands, titled Glaubst du, so hast du. In it the two spoke out against a holy war and in favor of praying for peace. In 1932 Bonhoeffer established a youth center for unemployed young people, which the National Socialists dissolved in 1933 as “communist.”
The themes that run through this body of work connect to the convictions Bonhoeffer held throughout his ministry: the present Christ in the worldwide community of Christians, the significance of the Sermon on the Mount and of following Jesus, and the unity of faith and action. These concerns, which he lived out personally, especially during the Nazi period, are the substance of the teaching and preaching collected here.
Structure and Approach
The work is a compilation rather than a monograph, bringing together three kinds of material named in its title: seminars, lectures, and sermons. Its chronological span, 1924 to 1941, covers Bonhoeffer’s years as a student, lecturer, and pastor. The collection thus preserves both the academic instruction he gave at the university and the preaching he carried out in congregations, presented as a documentary record of his teaching and proclamation across those years.
Significance and Influence
The volume’s value lies in making available the primary material of Bonhoeffer’s teaching and preaching from a formative period of his career. It documents the lecture courses through which he engaged the theological questions of his day — the history of systematic theology, the nature of the church, and Christology — and the sermons through which he addressed congregations. As a record of how his theology was taught and preached between 1924 and 1941, it complements his published books and provides insight into the development of his thought during the years that preceded and accompanied his involvement in the church struggle and the resistance.
The source material records that Bonhoeffer was appointed to lead the Predigerseminar of the Confessing Church in Finkenwalde in 1935, an institution that continued, later illegally, until 1940. Around 1938 he joined the resistance circle around Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. In 1940 he received a ban on speaking, and in 1941 a ban on writing. On 5 April 1943 he was arrested, and two years later he was executed by express order of Adolf Hitler, as one of the last opponents of the Nazi regime connected with the assassination attempt of 20 July 1944.
The Author’s Broader Work
Beyond the teaching and preaching gathered in this volume, Bonhoeffer’s other writings are noted in the source material. His dissertation Sanctorum Communio was completed under Reinhold Seeberg, and his habilitation, Akt und Sein, treated transcendental philosophy and ontology in systematic theology. During his time at the Predigerseminar Finkenwalde he produced Nachfolge, which Karl Barth after the war called by far the best work written on its subject, and he reflected on his Finkenwalde experiences in Gemeinsames Leben. His unfinished major work Ethik was written in parallel with his involvement in the military-political resistance, from 1940 until his arrest in April 1943. In his prison letters he developed influential, though fragmentary, thoughts for a future orientation of the church outward in solidarity with those in need, and toward a non-religious interpretation of the Bible, church tradition, and worship.
