Re-thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Lecture "Spiritual Care"

Re-thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Lecture “Spiritual Care”

Andres S. TANG

This paper aims to re-think the lecture “Spiritual Care” of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the contemporary German theologian, in the political context of the 1930s Germany. Bonhoeffer already foresees the threats of Nazi government to the churches when Hitler seizes the political power of the state. However, before the church struggle, Bonhoeffer is concerned with the reformation of the German Protestant Church, which has to repent to be the true church by hearing the Word of God. For the sake of preparing pastors and leaders for the church of the future, Bonhoeffer accepts the invitation of the Confessing Church to lead the Preacher's Seminary at Finkenwalde. The curriculum of the seminary, including biblical study, preaching, spiritual care, is designed with the Word of God as its center. It is only against Bonhoeffer's theological understanding of what makes the church true that the nature and design of the lecture “Spiritual Care” could be fully grasped. It is in this direction that this paper tries to investigate the lecture “Spiritual Care,” taught by Bonhoeffer himself in almost every semester from 1936-1937.