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Dietrich Bonhoeffer first became widely known not for his thought but for his actions. He was talked about as the German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis for resisting the racial and military policies of Hitler's totalitarian regime. Only gradually did the church and world become aware of the rich theological legacy of this modern Christian martyr.

In May of 1924, Bonhoeffer had just completed a year of theological studies at Tübingen. That fall he began studies at Berlin University, including seminars under famous scholar Adolf von Harnack.

Bonhoeffer's thought cannot be divorced from his life.

Turbulent Times: He grew up in Berlin during the era of the Weimar Republic. He lost a brother in the First World War. He experienced the rise to power of Hitler's National Socialists, and he helped establish the "Confessing Church" during the German church struggle of the 1930s. Finally, toward the end of the Second World War, he was hanged as a conspirator against Hitler. His theology was forged amid these turbulent times.

Cultured Family: Bonhoeffer's family deeply influenced his character and thinking. He and his twin sister were the sixth and seventh of the eight children of a prominent physician and his wife. His father was a neurologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Berlin. Dietrich was reared in this educated, cultured family.

The Bonhoeffers embodied the best of the German liberal tradition that prized personal integrity and civic duty. Dietrich grew to combine the analytical objectivity of his father and the piety and practical realism of his mother. Nourished and supported by this loving family, he grew to love life. He valued honesty and self-discipline, rejoiced in human ties and human pleasures, and enjoyed literature, music, and art.

Varied Experiences: Often overlooked as significant influences on Bonhoeffer are certain life experiences, mainly outside Germany. A trip to Rome during university days quickened his interest in the church. He took an excursion to Islamic North Africa. He spent a year as a vicar in Barcelona and a year as a student at Union Seminary in New York. For a year and a half he served as pastor of two German-speaking congregations in London. These immersions into different cultures greatly widened his perspective on life.

For example, while at Union Seminary, Bonhoeffer encountered the black church in Harlem. Here he began to see things "from below," from the perspective of those who suffer oppression—a perspective that would later be his own when he was imprisoned.

Bonhoeffer's passion was for the concreteness of revelation—in Jesus of Nazareth, in the church. The Word became flesh, Bonhoeffer stressed, and dwelt among us: living, teaching, dying on a cross, being raised to new life, taking form in a new community. From the outset Bonhoeffer emphasized the "this world" quality of revelation.

Because God has entered human history, new relationships are engendered. Those who respond to this revelation bear a responsibility. Bonhoeffer insisted on the social intention of every Christian doctrine.

This became evident in his 1927 dissertation at the University of Berlin, The Communion of Saints. In it, Bonhoeffer used sociology and social philosophy to aid in his theological interpretation of the church. (This "social" emphasis also reflected the ongoing influence in Berlin of the liberal tradition; the same strand runs from Schleiermacher and Hegel to Troeltsch and Toennies.) Crucial to Bonhoeffer's social analysis is the concept that the transcendence of God is moral and social. Thus, it is not an abstract idea. God is as close as the nearest neighbor in need!

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