Second, Bethge portrays Bonhoeffer as having shifted rather dramatically in his theology by the beginning of the 1940s—becoming a practical realist in the last phase of his life. I have come to realize that this problem with Bethge’s interpretation is the most serious. For it entails Bonhoeffer’s having fundamentally changed from a Barthian to a Niebuhrian-type realist, which would entail a dramatic shift from his Christ-centered theology.
