As we start to name an aspect of his existence which long remained unspoken, namely his engagement and wrestling with his own identity as inhabiting a white body, interpreting and understanding Dietrich Bonhoeffer today is perhaps more complex than ever. The White Bonhoeffer offers the first serious attempt to understand the theologian’s doctrine and writing through the lens of critical whiteness.
Through ongoing attentiveness to Black theologies of liberation, and the life and thought of Bonhoeffer, and drawing on both theological concepts and the author’s own personal narrative, the book highlights and offers some constructive ways towards living less violently, and more penitently, for those who inhabit White bodies in a White world.
Tim Judson is a Lecturer in Ministerial Formation at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford.