Less than two decades since Bonhoeffer's execution in 1945, a symposium of scholars was held to rescue the real Bonhoeffer from the so-called "Bonhoeffer mystique" that was popular in the 1960's. Martin Marty, who planned and edited this symposium, writes in his Introduction: "Here, for the first time in the U.S., a number of Christian thinkers gather to analyze Bonhoeffer's theological achievement.… The eight writers of this book try to locate his methods and emphases in the various disciplines of theological study." These disciplines include biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, ethics, sociology, philosophy, and liturgy and devotion.
Altogether, these seminal essays serve to reinstate the central question, continually reiterated by Bonhoeffer, "Who is Christ for us today?"