BET Archive | Volume 2 – Essays on Work, Wealth, and Economics
Title
In Defense of Having Stuff: Bonhoeffer, Anthropology and the Goodness of Human Materiality
Joel Lawrence
Abstract (from the Editorial of BET vol. 2.1)
Joel Lawrence (CPT First Fellowship) offers a corrective to the current popularity of “radical” Christianity that calls on Christians to abandon attachments to the world. These “radical” voices often cite Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous call to costly discipleship. Lawrence, himself a Bonhoeffer scholar, situates Bonhoeffer’s call within the wider context of Bonhoeffer’s theological anthropology. Lawrence shows how Bonhoeffer affirms the material constitution of humanity and the goodness of creation, and so the consequent goodness of “having stuff.”
Download
Joel Lawrence is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastor Theologians. He previously served as the Senior Pastor of Central Baptist Church in St. Paul, MN and as a Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the St. Anselm Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
