Cruickshank, D. D. (2023) 'To our earthly view Dietrich is dead’: George Bell’s Eulogy for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Studies in Church History, 59, pp. 446-470. (doi: 10.1017/stc.2023.19)
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Abstract
This article considers the eulogy given by George Bell, then bishop of Chichester, at the London remembrance service held in July 1945 for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bell's eulogy offers a unique form of marking a death. On the one hand he presented a traditional biography of Bonhoeffer, whilst at the same time he depicted Bonhoeffer's life as not over, but as having moved into a stage of glorified martyrdom. The article explores how Bell argued that Bonhoeffer's death offered the potential for life to a post-war Europe, raising issues with van Gennep's understanding of the relationship between the living and a dead person who had had no proper funerary rites. The article thus seeks to explain how Bell marked Bonhoeffer's death by presenting him as a man, a potential assassin and a martyr, in an attempt to secure an eternal earthly legacy for a man Bell believed had offered the world life through his death. The article is followed by an edition of the text of Bell's eulogy in full.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, grant no. AH/R012717. |
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Cruickshank, Dan |
| Authors: | Cruickshank, D. D. |
| College/School: | College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > Theology and Religious Studies |
| Journal Name: | Studies in Church History |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| ISSN: | 0424-2084 |
| ISSN (Online): | 2059-0644 |
| Published Online: | 22 June 2023 |
| Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2023 The Author |
| First Published: | First published in Studies in Church History 59:446-470 |
| Publisher Policy: | Reproduced under a Creative Commons License |
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