Read on Twitter
Indulge me a long thread (my first, fingers crossed) in which I show readers the absurdity of this tweet. A more lively response (imho) can be found in my book, “Strange Glory. A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” (Knopf, 2014)
1/Bonhoeffer’s life-changing encounters with the American organizing tradition initially came through two largely forgotten teachers at Union, Harry Ward and Charles Webb. (First of a dozen or so,)
21/And we haven’t even spoken about Binhoeffer’s deep immersion in African-American Christianity and culture. Or explored the implications of his parting observation, “I heard the gospel preached (only) in the church if the outcasts of America.”
Almost done. Sorry if I skipped some numbers and things are out of order.
2/Methodist minister, professor of practical theology Christian socialist, Webber was known to friends & foes alike as the chaplain of organized labor. Bonhoeffer loved his book, “A History of the Development of Social Education in the United Neighborhood Houses of New York”.
3/Bonhoeffer wrote, “I paid a visit almost every week to settlements, Y.M.C.A., co-operative houses, playgrounds, children’s courts, night schools, socialist schools, asylums, youth organizations, Association for advance of coloured people [sic]…. It is immensely impressive!”
4/In Webber’s courses DB went deep with the National Women’s Trade Union & the Workers Education Bureau of America and wrote reports on labor, selective buying campaigns, civil rights, “restriction of profits,” juvenile delinquency, “the activity of the churches in these fields.
10/Bonhoeffer took Ward’s popular class, “Ethical Interpretations” (jointly taught with Reinhold Niebuhr), on developing the ethical and theological skills needed to interpret/evaluate “current events in light of the principles of Christian ethics.”
5/Webber introduced DB to the Southern Tenants Farmers Union, the Delta Cooperative, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the British cooperative movement. The last he visited a few years later while praying and making plans for the illegal seminary at Finkenwalde.
9/Ward combined an old-time Methodist zeal for righteous action with a crusading Marxist critique of economic inequality.
13/Next let’s meet Bonhoeffer’s classmate and interlocutor James Dombrowski and consider that DB read and admired his Columbia dissertation, “The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America.”
