Searching for Renewal of Christian Faith in India: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Fascination with Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha

Framed in the troubled interwar period leading to National Socialism, Thomas Adam’s essay insightfully focusses on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s (1906–1945) attempt to understand the Gandhian concept of Satyagraha, the precept of non-violent (not meaning passive) resistance. Adam demonstrates how German thinkers, especially Bonhoeffer, attempted to apply the concept to European thought during the turbulent Weimar era. In this context and in innovative fashion, Adam’s work explores the nature of intercultural transfer and thus his work transcends older concepts of diffusion and perspicaciously illustrates how the “receiving culture” conveys and interprets concepts and ideas from elsewhere to assert their own designs.