January 13: Bonhoeffer and Our Moral Selves in History

For many of us this is a period of heightened awareness of our personal responsibilities on a larger historical stage that includes deep racial, economic, and political divisions, intensifying climate change, and the brokenness laid bare by the pandemic. What does it mean to live in our present moment, yet with a deeper moral sense of our own connections to larger historical events?

Victoria J. Barnett has spent her career exploring this question with regard to Germans during the Nazi era, focusing especially on the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In this reflection she will explore the connections between how we think of our own moral responsibility in light of a historical perspective provided by Bonhoeffer and his times.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021
12 – 1 PM, CST

Did you miss this event? Watch a recording below:

Resources mentioned:

• Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict Hardcover by Christiane Tietz (Author), Victoria J. Barnett (Translator) is now available for pre-orders
• Books by Victoria J. Barnett available on Amazon
• Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus by Reggie L. Williams
• No Difference in the Fare: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Racism by Josiah Ulysses Young
• Learn more about women engaged in the confessing church movement by reading For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler by Victoria J. Barnett
• Review of Eric Metaxas’ book on Bonhoeffer by Victoria J. Barnett
• “Religionless Christianity” is found in the book Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Victoria J. Barnett served as Director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2004-2019. She was also one of the general editors of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, the complete English edition of Bonhoeffer’s writings published by Fortress Press. She has published extensively about the role of religious leaders and institutions during the Holocaust. Her books include Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust (2000), For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (1992), and “After Ten Years”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Our Times.