Daring, Trusting Spirit: Bonhoeffer's Friend Eberhard Bethge

Daring, Trusting Spirit: Bonhoeffer's Friend Eberhard Bethge. By John W. de Gruchy, Fortress, 239 pp., $20.00 paperback.

Were it not for Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would likely not have cast such a long shadow over the life and thought of the Christian church. Bethge was Bonhoeffer's student, friend and colleague, and was married to Bonhoeffer's niece. It was to Bethge that Bonhoeffer wrote many of his famous letters from prison, and it was Bethge who organized them and had them published; he eventually became Bonhoeffer's biographer. De Gruchy chronicles Bethge's own development, his friendship with Bonhoeffer, and his postwar work which put the theology of Bonhoeffer on the map.

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