Lecture given by Charles Marsh at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA (September 29, 2021). Marsh discusses the first of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s two dissertations, Sanctorum Communio, which Karl Barth called “a theological miracle.” In his dissertation, 21-year-old Bonhoeffer states that the task of Christian theology is to explicate the church’s distinctive social practices and commitments. Marsh argues that Bonhoeffer, as the theologian of the concrete, shows how the doctrine of God comes to expression in lived social experience and only by this concept of revelation can the Christian concept of the church be uncovered.
