Proclamatation, Pacifism and Resistance

Authors

  • Prof. Dr. Barry Harvey Baylor University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22351/et.v64i1.2709

Abstract

For there to be a clear and convincing project of social and political transformation, people need to be for something, not simply against what they deplore, but the ability to imagine viable alternatives. It is necessary to imagine a future that makes resistance worthwhile, but that ability is lacking because we humans have forgotten who we are. Dietrich Bonhoeffer contends that the primary task for theology is to understand the world better than it understands itself, from the gospel and from Christ. At the heart of the gospel is the Sermon on the Mount, which he summarizes as “the proclamation of the incarnate love of God” that “calls people to love one another, and thus to reject everything that hinders fulfilling this task,” foremost among which is the failure to love one’s enemies and renounce violence. Together proclamation and pacificism provide the basis for a political theology for the church: the recapitulation of all creation in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Bonhoeffer emphasizes the role of imagination to sustain meaningful resistance to evil, and he connects links the church’s current lack of imagination to the loss of moral memory. The traits that humans need to flourish—justice, truth, and beauty in particular—require the time and steadfastness that are only cultivated within a living moral memory.

Author Biography

Prof. Dr. Barry Harvey , Baylor University

Barry Harvey is Professor of Theology in the Honors College at Baylor University, USA. He has two degrees in music, the Master of Divinity degree, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Duke University. He is author of five books (Politics of the TheologicalAnother CityCan These Bones Live?Taking Hold of the Real, and Baptists and the Catholic Tradition), a co-author of a sixth, (StormFront), and is currently working on two more volumes, the first entitled Madness, Theocracy, and Anarchism: Church, Imagination, and Politics, and the second tentatively entitled De Musica Dei: The Lord’s Song in a Discordant World. He has published numerous articles in collections and scholarly journals such as Modern TheologyThe Scottish Journal of Theology, The Bonhoeffer Legacy: An International JournalPro Ecclesia, Theologica Wratislaviensia, and Theology Today.  He is an emeritus member of the Board of the International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, and a founding member the Ekklesia Project.

Published

2024-07-05

How to Cite

Harvey , B. (2024). Proclamatation, Pacifism and Resistance . Estudos Teológicos, 64(1). https://doi.org/10.22351/et.v64i1.2709

Conference Proceedings Volume

Section

Dossiê- A atualidade de Dietrich Bonhoeffer para o contexto brasileiro