Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Arnold Köster

Discipleship is the heartbeat of the Christian Church. This book explores how «following Jesus» was understood and lived by the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Baptist Arnold Koster during the Third Reich era.

Baptists and Lutherans often define the tension of being in the world but not of it in terms of two separate realms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. However, their understanding of these and their delicate connection is quite nuanced. Within the Lutheran tradition, the two kingdoms are held in tension, which in turn leads to a precarious interaction of state and church. In the (Ana)Baptist tradition, a much stricter duality is emphasized, resulting in a more radical and separatist stance. This book seeks to understand and compare the historical development of these two viewpoints and to discover how these traditions, represented in the lives of two individual followers, responded to the ideological onslaught of neopaganism and the enforced political conformity of the Third Reich.

Compared to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, little is known of the Baptist preacher Arnold Koster. His ministry as a pastor of the Baptist church in Vienna lasted from 1928-1960. During the Nazi regime, he consistently preached critically and prophetically against its underlying ideology.