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Stand With Ukraine 🇺🇦
A Bonhofferian Response to Russia’s Invasions For one of the first times in history, the world is watching, in real-time, an invasion of a free and peaceful country by a cruel, war-mongering despot. Thanks to the internet and cell phones, we are vicariously experiencing the suffering of Ukrainians with up-to-the-moment detail. Of course, Ukraine is…
“Introducing Christian Ethics: Core Convictions for Christians Today”
Introducing Christian Ethics: Core Convictions for Christians Today Every few decades, a philosopher enters the annals of history after promulgating breakthrough ideas. Just as often, those historic contributions are only posthumously recognized because contemporaries either dismiss them or under-appreciate their value. Fortunately, neither has been the case with Professor David Gushee! Since achieving well-deserved notoriety…
Start Lent with Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Savior by Henry Ossawa Tanner, ca. 1900–1905 Lent is Near For many Christians throughout the world, the season of Lent starts this week. Since the seventh century, Lent has been a forty-day penitential exercise, corresponding to the forty days Jesus spent in the desert. Beginning with Ash Wednesday, it leads to the celebration of Christ’s…
Why Black History Month?
Why Black History Month? Rev. Dr. Van Gayton No people can be healthy and mature without knowing their own history. According to Berea College, sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that means know history. The symbol is a mythic bird and the literal translation of the word is “it is not taboo to…
Happy 116th Birthday Dietrich Bonhoeffer!
This week admirers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer will mark his 116th birthday. His birth date of February 4, 1906 sounds like the distant past, but in the scope of history, it’s really not so long ago. While Dietrich’s earthly life came prematurely to an end, some 77 years ago, he remains among us in so many ways.…
Gun Violence Survivors Week
“The church can be a part of the solution to gun violence by being the church. The mission of the church is to preach and teach the gospel, and to live it out. The church should fight injustice, seek to transform communities, be a place where people are being changed and equipped to make a…
Senior Fellow Spotlight – Dr. Tobias Cremer
Senior Fellow Spotlight – Dr. Tobias Cremer “I regularly hear people ask, Where are our Bonhoeffers for today? TDBI is always on the lookout for them: brilliant, insightful, morally courageous leaders who are meeting the ethical challenges and human crises of our time. And we’ve found one in our Senior Fellow, Tobias Cremer of Pembroke College, Oxford…
Christianity and COVID-19
Image: Chelsea Stahl / NBC News Christianity and COVID-19 COVID-19 and all that has happened in its wake are about much more than a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. It’s about more than maintaining one’s health or preventing the spread of disease. COVID-19 has laid bare a great human failing – self-centeredness. Our namesake, Bonhoeffer, spoke of centering the “other” and…
Remember MLK Jr. By Ending the Death Penalty
 Image: AP Photo This weekend, two sacred observances will meet – The celebration of the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a gathering of death penalty abolition advocates in Washington, DC. The convergence of these two momentous occasions is not coincidental. Dr. King was an ordained minister, consummate preacher, and prophetic voice in the public square. MLK’s powerful moral mission included opposition…
Bonhoeffer and the Jan. 6th Insurrection
“Be sober-minded; be watchful.” 1 Peter 5:8a  Image: AP Photo/John Minchillo It’s been one year since thousands of American citizens attempted to overthrow our duly elected representatives and senators actively working to carry out their constitutional responsibility. On that now infamous and inescapable day, only twelve months ago, a violent mob aimed to intimidate the…