Time and Space in the Kingdom of God: Exploring Bonhoeffer’s Worldly and Earthly Christianity in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This article considers Bonhoeffer’s treatment of time and space and their relationship to worldly Christianity, and asks how this might be important for life in the Anthropocene. It engages with time and space via aspects of several of his texts including his first published monograph, Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3 (1937) delivered as the ‘Creation and Sin’ lectures at the University of Berlin through 1932–33; the short lecture, “Thy Kingdom Come: The Prayer of the Church-Community for God’s Kingdom on Earth” (19 November 1932); as well as his Ethics (incomplete manuscripts from 1940–43). It applies these findings to Bonhoeffer’s notion of worldly Christianity. In doing so, it pursues a contemporary development of worldly Christianity in the form of Earthly Christianity, one suitable for the demands of the new age, the Anthropocene, characterised by disruption, dissociation with the world, and a loss of hope.