Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Formation Through The Oxford Group

This thesis examines historical evidence regarding the Swiss Oxford Group’s development and its impact on the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner credited Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group movement with reshaping his pastoral practice. Inspired by the OG, Brunner transformed Church-based bible-study groups into teams fostering pastoral conversations as the key to a renewal of individual faith, renewal of the Church community and renewal of ethical relations in the wider secular society. Was Bonhoeffer’s embrace of a similar communal-social approach to pastoral care in part inspired by the Oxford Group?