Reviews for A Time for Confessing

The average rating for A Time for Confessing based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-06 00:00:00 Ifjdfdif Ikipkph Whilst I hadn't heard of Bertram prior to reading this book, as a Lutheran Pastor (in Australia) the contents sounded fascinating - so it wasn't a difficult choice to add this to my reading list. I was taken by surprise upon reading the Foreword that Bertram had never published a book - since I thought I was reading his book :) However this is well explained and I encourage other readers to ensure that you do read the foreword to put things well in context. I struggled with the first chapter (and still a bit with the second), thinking that perhaps I had chosen poorly. The Author was appearing to have arguments and descriptions that were above my abilities. That I wanted to read the chapters on Bonhoeffer and the American Civil Rights Movement, encouraged my persistence and I praise the Lord for that. Chapters 3 onwards were (for me) far easier to follow and digest, and I was rewarded by some good coverage of the German Church during the Nazi years, and of Martin Luther King / Civil Rights of the 60s. The chapter on the Philippines was quite surprising - and still need to give that more thought... The real gem, I found, though was the Appendix: "Postmodernity's CRUX: A Theology of the Cross for the Postmodern World". This is laid out as simple Theses (think Luther and the 95 Theses though many more here) and covers about 60 pages. This has given me much to think about and I will be re-reading the Appendix in the future. A nice addition is the comprehensive Bibliography on Bertram that is included. The book is quite scholarly in parts, and is well referenced.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-29 00:00:00 Emmanuel Gutierrez This looks like a future set-book reader for my advanced students, because Bertram addresses various situations of confessing in a thoughtful if somewhat provocative way: Augsburg Confession, Martin Luther King II's letter from Birmingham Prison, Apartheid in SA, Bonhoeffer's battle for Christendom at Barmen/Dahlem, the Philippine Revolution and finally: "When is the Church a confessional movement?" His ideas of vicarious suffering, characteristic ambiguities in confessors, the risk of apostasy, temptation of silence and of heresy - all these are worthwhile topics for discussion and further thought.