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This summer I had a chance to go to Berlin, so I decided to brush up on some Bonhoeffer reading. I decided to go back to Discipleship, a book to which my seminary students often respond with enthusiasm.

The excellent editorial introduction to the new edition places this book in the broad scope of Bonhoeffer's work, defending the view that it represents his mature theology.

I first read The Cost of Discipleship as a much younger man, not trained to read Euro-American texts as embedded in a culture of white supremacy.  Even learning that Bonhoeffer criticized the National Socialist agenda and the German Christians, I little awareness that his work addressed race issues.

What a difference the decades have made, not only for my reading, but also for Bonhoeffer scholarship.  This time, working through Bonhoeffer's arguments revealed his theological agenda challenging the dominant structures of theologians and churches of his day which had accommodated the doctrines of Aryan racial superiority.

Participating in the Confessing Church used to seem to me the natural outgrowth of the kind of Baptist ecclesiology that I had grown up with.  But his was not separation based on a list of prohibitions, such as no drinking alcohol or dancing.  For Bonhoeffer, confessional separation demonstrated a witness over against the powers that were employing deadly force to eliminate the outliers of their society.

I was able to see some of the places where Bonhoeffer served the church and worked to resist the Third Reich.  The legacy of Bonhoeffer there remains important, and Bonhoeffer studies have come into a new era of flourishing.

—Mikael Broadway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at Shaw Divinity School, Durham, NC

Sherman treats his characters with respect and love, yet is gently honest about their shortcomings. His description of life on the reservation is painful, and funny. The self-deprecating nature of the protagonist, Arnold, AKA “Junior,” makes his character very likable. His description of his fellow residents of the reservation also reflects some of the known issues for native peoples in many parts of our country.

He says that the worst thing about being poor is the inability to help those you love. He talks about his best friend, Oscar the dog, becoming critically ill. His parents cannot take him to the vet, because they don’t have the money to.  He hates the powerlessness that comes from not being able to affect a change in your circumstances.

“…I can’t blame my parents for our poverty…it’s not like my mother and father were born into wealth. It’s not like they gambled away their family fortunes. My parents came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.”

He discovers that his textbooks are older than he is, and becomes angry that the opportunities on the rez aren’t anywhere near those elsewhere. His teacher convinces him that if he doesn’t get away from the limitations of the rez his life will be no different than that of generations of Spokane Indians. So he decides to go to the public school in the town nearby that is all white.

Sherman Alexie neither romanticizes nor condemns natives or whites. He reports what life is like for his people, and offers them a chance to look at ways to remain true to their culture yet gain skills that lead to an ability to escape poverty and all the ailments that come with it.

—Lezlie Christian is a high school English teacher and freelance writer in Oklahoma City, OK

This small book is potent. During the decisive early years when everyone and every institution had to express a Nazi orientation and perspective, these sermons were preached by pastors who knew what was at stake. Dean Stroud’s remarkable 50 page introduction gives the background for the sermons and provides the context for the church struggle. Stroud, emeritus professor of German Studies at the University of Wisconsin in LaCrosse, pays particular attention to Nazi rhetoric and language and its conflict with Christian rhetoric and language and shows how every sermon faithful to Christ left the pastor open to arrest and worse. Besides well known preachers like Bonhoeffer, Barth and Niemoller included are courageous sermons by others like small-town pastor Paul Schneider, who became the first pastor martyred by the Nazis.

Discernment about what was going on was essential. It still is.

“Throughout the Reich, the Church Struggle took place in both pulpit and pew. Preaching in Hitler’s shadow was risky business. But always Jesus Christ was real and uncompromising in his claim on preacher and congregation alike. “ (p. 48)

—Kyle Childress, pastor, Austin Heights Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, TX

Written in particular for priests and other worship leaders in The Episcopal Church, Liturgical Sense: The Logic of Rite focuses on historical developments in the theology and practice of presiding at the Eucharist, with special attention to how the Eucharistic rites and rubrics of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church represent a significant if not complete recovery of early Christian liturgical celebration in general and presiding in particular.

I am aware of no other book, anywhere, that provides so clear and thorough while also brief a review of the history of the pivotal changes in how Western Christians, ecumenically and worldwide, have approached celebrating and presiding in worship beginning in the second half of the 20th century.

“The liturgy is the common prayer of the Church . . . [o]ur common faith is nourished through that very commonality . . . and . . . by placing us on familiar ground, to remind us . . . of what God has done from Creation to this very day.” (Kindle Location 1380)

—Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources, Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church