EN
Among Bonhoeffer scholars, it is well known that Bonhoeffer regards being and becoming truly human as the goal of his Christ-centered theology. What has been largely overlooked, however, is that this “humanistic” interpretation of the Gospel aligns Bonhoeffer with the incarnational focus of patristic Christology and its central idea of theosis or deification. In this paper, I argue that Bonhoeffer’s focus on God taking human form allowed him to transcend his own particular Lutheran theological context and thus to become a truly ecumenical theologian in the same incarnational humanist tradition that was inaugurated by the church fathers.