Becoming Like Bonhoeffer by Bradley Brisson

Bible Study

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled to reconcile his private and public selves.

ietrich Bonhoeffer spoke out against Hitler, wrote books that even today are considered classics, was a caring pastor, and ultimately was put to death for saving Jews and attempting to stop Nazi terror. Yet Bonhoeffer was not fooled by his press clippings. “Who am I?” he asked himself. “This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?” Few, if any, of us could match his résumé, yet he struggled with understanding himself—seeing the wide disparity between his public and private personae. We have the same struggles and need Scripture to help us deal with these deep questions.

S c r i pture: 1 S amuel 16: 1–13; Prover bs 2 0: 5– 6 ; 2 1: 2; Lu k e 2 2: 31 – 34 ; R oma ns 7: 14–25; R evelat io n 2: 12 – 17 B ase d on: The ar ticles “Dietrich Bonhoeffer ” (Christianhistor y.net); and “ Who Am I,” by John Or tberg (L e a d e r s h i p J o u r n a l ).

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C h r i s t i a n i ty Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

How to use this resource for a group study

How to use this resource for a group study This Bible study can be used for an individual or a group. If you intend to lead a group study, follow these simple suggestions.

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Make enough copies of the articles for everyone in the group. If you would like your group to have more information, feel free to copy the leader’s guide for them as well.

Don’t feel that you have to use all the material in the study. Almost all of our studies have more information than you can get through in one session, so feel free to pick and choose the teaching information and questions that will meet the needs of your group. Use the teaching content of the study in any of these ways: for your own background and information; to read aloud (or summarize) to the group; for the group to read silently.

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Make sure your group agrees to complete confidentiality. This is essential to getting people to open up.

When working through the questions, be willing to make yourself vulnerable. It’s important for your group to know that others share their experiences. Make honesty and openness a priority in your group. Begin and end the session in prayer.

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

L e a d e r ’s G u i d e

Part 1

Identify the Current Issue

Note to leader : Before meeting, provide each person with the ar ticles included at the end of this study. We are not God, but knowledge of God leads to knowledge of self, and vice-versa. Protestant Reformer John Calvin said in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God. Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. . . . The knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him. Later, Calvin adds, Without knowledge of God there can be no knowledge of self. Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. Calvin understood that you cannot divorce knowledge of God from knowledge of self. This makes sense, as we have been made in God’s image. Yet plumbing the depths of our personality and character is no snap, as the Bible freely and repeatedly acknowledges. Pastor, speaker, and author John Ortberg admits that he struggles with his true identity. There is the “public me,” the “private me,” and the “real me.” Ortberg knows the first two, and the gap between them. The third, he says, is a mystery. “I do not know this real me,” Ortberg writes. “I often do not know what my real motives are. In some ways, the other people in my life see the real me better than I do.” Yet if we are to know God better, we need to get a better handle on who we are. Let’s take a look at some key Scriptures that will help us begin to plumb our personal depths.

Discussion Starters:

[Q] Describe yourself as you think others see you. • How is this different from how you see yourself ?

[Q] Do you ever feel as if you are play-acting in your public roles? If so, why? [Q] What was the most dangerous thing you ever did out of a sense of duty? 3

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Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

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[Q] What do you see as Bonhoeffer’s legacy? • What about yours?

[Q] What is the biggest incongruity you see between the private you and the public you?

Part 2

Discover the Eternal Principles

Teaching Point One: We need others if we are to understand ourselves and change. John Ortberg was brought up short by someone in his church. Ortberg says, “I talked with a man recently who has attended our church for a long time, someone I respect and admire. He said that sometimes he got the feeling that I cared more about trying to get people outside our church to start attending than I care about the people who are actually here. And I found this pricked something tender inside me in ways that other criticisms might not.” Painful words . . . but potentially fruitful words. Read Proverbs 20:5–6.

[Q] Verse 5a implies that we sometimes have to get below the surface to understand

ourselves or others. Do you think this depth is intentional or unintentional? Explain.

[Q] Describe some experiences or situations in which someone helped you understand

yourself better. Were there any common elements—such as listening, Scripture, questions, etc.?

[Q] Do you see yourself more as the person who is helped, or the one who helps? [Q] Read Proverbs 21:2. This implies that motives are very important when judging our actions. It also suggests that our hearts must ultimately conform to the character of God. What does this say about the character of our discipleship? [Q] How might we seek God’s help to know and change our own hearts? Optional Activity: Photocopy the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7) and pass out copies to the members of your group. Have each person use a yellow highlighter to note an outward per formance standard and a blue highlighter to mark an inner one. Discuss why the inner aspect of the hear t is so impor tant to Jesus. From these chapters, describe attitudes you need to give to him. Then pray about it as a group. 4

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Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

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Teaching Point Two: Deliverance from sin must come from above. Paul said, “I do not understand what I do.” Ortberg said, “Many of Paul’s teachings elude me, but not that one.” Let’s look at a key passage where the apostle details his spiritual confusion—and what the answer is. Read Romans 7:14–25.

[Q] Paul contrasts himself with the law (vv. 14–17). What words does he use for each? Optional Activity: On a whiteboard or poster board, make two lists, one headed “law” and the other “humanity.” Write down the adjectives Paul uses for each.

[Q] How does Paul’s status as a slave to sin keep him from doing what he wants? Why

is sin such a barrier to our good thoughts and actions?

[Q] In verses 18–20, Paul acknowledges his sinfulness, which he says prevents him

from doing what his higher self knows he must do. How do you contend with this inner dichotomy? How and when do you discern it in your own life?

[Q] In verses 21–23, the apostle describes two laws. What are they? [Q] In verses 24–25, Paul throws up his hands and acknowledges that his case is

hopeless—apart from Christ. How do we appropriate Christ’s deliverance so that it is actual in our lives rather than theoretical?

Teaching Point Three: God responds to us based on what’s inside, not outside. John Ortberg notes this inner tension we all feel and realizes his outer self is, in many ways, a cheat, even when he has the best of motives. “There’s the public me. I prepare talks, and lead meetings, and say words that I want others to hear. This public me isn’t deliberately false. But I am always aware, when I am in the presence of other people, of how they will hear what I say. This awareness is a kind of filter that I cannot put away. This public me will always be gauging other peoples’ responses and adjusting accordingly.” So we ought not put too much stock in how we appear to others, however good or bad. Read 1 Samuel 16:1–13.

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

L e a d e r ’s G u i d e

[Q] Samuel has received his orders to anoint a new king, as the outwardly impressive Saul

has failed miserably due to fatal character flaws (1 Sam. 15). How do our outward actions indicate our inner state? • What does Jesus say about this (see Luke 6:44)?

[Q] How does 1 Samuel 16:7b challenge us? • How is it a comfort?

Teaching Point Four: God sees past our sin and failure. Peter’s public self was full of bravado. He confidently predicted during the Last Supper, “Even if all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:29). Yet Jesus saw past the public self to the real Peter, something the impetuous disciple was unable to do. But the Lord also saw past Peter’s sin to what he could do with him. Christians today have the same hope. Read Luke 22:31–34.

[Q] Jesus lets Simon Peter know what is to come, but Peter rejects the warning, believing

he can face anything, even prison and death. What temptation do you think you can resist? Lust? Greed? Fame? Are you sure? Why or why not?

[Q] In the midst of his somber warning to Peter, Jesus says two encouraging things in verse 32. What are they? Le a der ’s N ote: He prays for Pe te r and pre dic t s his e ve ntual re storatio n. • What does this say about Jesus and about following him? • What does it say about our own spiritual journeys?

Teaching Point Five: Faithfulness in the Christian life is worth it. God builds his kingdom with broken people who become increasingly aware of their sin and turn from it and to him. This is hard work—but well worth the exertion. “The formation of real souls is the one process going on in the universe that really matters,” Ortberg says. “The sanctification of my own soul is the primary task with which I am charged by God.” Sanctification is a process; we don’t “arrive” all at once. But if we hang in there and are faithful to what we know, we will get to the finish line. Read Revelation 2:12–17. 6

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

L e a d e r ’s G u i d e

[Q] The risen Jesus speaks words of encouragement (v. 13), yet serious problems remain (vv. 14–15). What does this say about the nature of our spiritual victories? [Q]

What do you think Jesus wants us to learn from this church?

[Q]

What two things does Jesus promise in verse 17? What do they have in common?

Le a der ’s N ote: Th ey are b ot h k now n only to the p e r son and to G o d. • What might this fact say about God’s response to our spiritual struggles?

[Q]

Part 3

What might your new name be if you overcome the spiritual challenges before you?

Apply Your Findings

John Ortberg wonders how to line up his public, private, and real selves. More than that, he wonders whether churches are doing their job in assisting Christians with their sanctification: “Is our church producing people like Bonhoeffer? Really? Or are we just aiming to have more and more people come to more and more events?” We know that people are flawed, confused, sinful, and—ultimately—helpless to do this vital task on their own, or even in the company of godly friends. But the good news is that we are not left to our own devices. God stands ready to give us his presence and power to help us become all that we are called to be.

Action Point: Take an hour this next week to read Scripture, pray, and jot down any insights about following Jesus—and repor t back what God might be saying.

— Stan Guthrie is author of All That Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us (Baker Books) and coauthor of The Sacrament of Evangelism (Moody Publishers). A CT editor at large, he writes a monthly column for BreakPoint.org and Crosswalk.com. Stan blogs at stanguthrie.com.

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Becoming Like Bonhoeffer

L e a d e r ’s G u i d e

Recommended Resources ¿ For more studies like this, go to ChristianBibleStudies.com ¨ Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas (Thomas Nelson, 2010). Presenting a deeply moving narrative, using previously unavailable documents—including personal letters, detailed journal entries, and first-hand personal accounts—Metaxas reveals dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s life and theology never before seen. Furthermore, Metaxas presents the fullest accounting of Bonhoeffer’s heart-wrenching 1939 decision to leave the safety of America for the lion’s den of Hitler’s Germany, and, using extended excerpts from love letters and coded messages written to and from Bonhoeffer’s Cell 92, we are allowed to see for the first time the full story of Bonhoeffer’s passionate and tragic romance. ¨ The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Touchstone, 1995). Bonhoeffer speaks of “cheap grace”: preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. “Costly grace” is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. “It’s costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.” ¨ Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (HarperOne, 1978). This story of a unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul’s letters. It gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups. The role of personal prayer, worship in common, everyday work, and Christian service is treated in simple, almost biblical, words. Life Together serves as bread to all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship. ¨ The Me I Want to Be, by John Ortberg (Zondervan, 2009). If God has a perfect vision for your life, why does spiritual growth seem so difficult? John Ortberg has some intriguing answers to that question, and he has organized his thoughts and God’s words into a straightforward and timely guide for living your best life. Ortberg urges you to recognize your brokenness, understand that God is the project manager, and follow his directions.

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Ch r i s t i a n i ty Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Article

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Who was the German theologian and resister?

The Editors of ChristianHistory.net

So despondent had been the German people after the defeat of World War I and the subsequent economic depression that the charismatic Hitler appeared to be the nation’s answer to prayer—at least to most Germans. One exception was theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was determined not only to refute this idea but also to topple Hitler, even if it meant killing him.

From pacifist to co-conspirator

Bonhoeffer was not raised in a particularly radical environment. He was born into an aristocratic family. His mother was daughter of the preacher at the court of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his father was a prominent neurologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Berlin. All eight children were raised in a liberal, nominally religious environment and were encouraged to dabble in great literature and the fine arts. Bonhoeffer’s skill at the piano, in fact, led some in his family to believe he was headed for a career in music. When at age 14, Dietrich announced he intended to become a minister and theologian, the family was not pleased. Bonhoeffer graduated from the University of Berlin in 1927, at age 21, and then spent some months in Spain as an assistant pastor to a German congregation. Then it was back to Germany to write a dissertation, which would grant him the right to a university appointment. He then spent a year in America, at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, before returning to the post of lecturer at the University of Berlin. During these years, Hitler rose in power, becoming chancellor of Germany in January 1933, and president a year and a half later. Hitler’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions intensified—as did his opposition, which included the likes of theologian Karl Barth, pastor Martin Niemoller, and the young Bonhoeffer. Together with other pastors and theologians, they organized the Confessing Church, which announced publicly in its Barmen Declaration (1934) its allegiance first to Jesus Christ: “We repudiate the false teaching that the church can and must recognize yet other happenings and powers, personalities and truths as divine revelation alongside this one Word of God. … “ In the meantime, Bonhoeffer had written The Cost of Discipleship (1937), a call to more faithful and radical obedience to Christ and a severe rebuke of comfortable Christianity: “Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” During this time, Bonhoeffer was teaching pastors in an underground seminary, Finkenwalde (the government had banned him from teaching openly). But after the seminary was discovered and closed, the Confessing Church became increasingly reluctant to speak out against Hitler, and moral opposition proved increasingly ineffective, so Bonhoeffer began to change his strategy. To this point he had been a pacifist, and he had tried to oppose the Nazis through religious action and moral persuasion. Now he signed up with the German secret service (to serve as a double agent—while traveling to church conferences over Europe, he was supposed to be collecting information about the places he 9

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Article

visited, but he was, instead, trying to help Jews escape Nazi oppression). Bonhoeffer also became a part of a plot to overthrow, and later to assassinate, Hitler. As his tactics were changing, he had gone to America to become a guest lecturer. But he couldn’t shake a feeling of responsibility for his country. Within months of his arrival, he wrote theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, “I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.” Bonhoeffer, though privy to various plots on Hitler’s life, was never at the center of the plans. Eventually his resistance efforts (mainly his role in rescuing Jews) was discovered. On an April afternoon in 1943, two men arrived in a black Mercedes, put Bonhoeffer in the car, and drove him to Tegel prison.

Radical reflections

Bonhoeffer spent two years in prison, corresponding with family and friends, pastoring fellow prisoners, and reflecting on the meaning of “Jesus Christ for today.” As the months progressed, be began outlining a new theology, penning enigmatic lines that had been inspired by his reflections on the nature of Christian action in history. “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross,” he wrote. “He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. [The Bible] … makes quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering. … The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.” In another passage, he said, “To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man—not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.” Eventually, Bonhoeffer was transferred from Tegel to Buchenwald and then to the extermination camp at Flossenbürg. On April 9, 1945, one month before Germany surrendered, he was hanged with six other resisters. A decade later, a camp doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s hanging described the scene: “The prisoners … were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued in a few seconds. In the almost 50 years that I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” Bonhoeffer’s prison correspondence was eventually edited and published as Letters and Papers from Prison, which inspired much controversy and the “death of God” movement of the 1960s (though

Bonhoeffer’s close friend and chief biographer, Eberhard Bethge, said Bonhoeffer implied no such thing). His Cost of Discipleship, as well as Life Together (about Christian community, based on his teaching at the underground seminary), have remained devotional classics.

Adapted from “Dietrich Bohoeffer,” by the editors of ChristianHistory.net 10

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Ch r i s t i a n i ty Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Who Am I?

Article

Who Am I?

Our public personas often overshadow our true identity.

By John Ortberg

I often do not understand who I am or what I do. Calvin said that it is impossible to know myself without coming to know God—and impossible to know God without coming to know myself. Yet I find in some ways the older I grow, the more a mystery I am. I talked with a man recently who has attended our church for a long time, someone I respect and admire. He said that sometimes he got the feeling that I cared more about trying to get people outside our church to start attending than I care about the people who are actually here. And I found this pricked something tender inside me in ways that other criticisms might not. Am I a visionary, an innovator, a leader boldly calling people on an adventure of change and mission? Or am I selfishly ambitious? Do I want to be pastor of a large church so I can feel successful and significant? Or am I both? And if I am—what are the percentages? Paul said once, “I do not understand what I do.” Many of Paul’s teachings elude me, but not that one. I find myself a tale of three persons, kind of an anti-Trinity. There’s the public me. I prepare talks, and lead meetings, and say words that I want others to hear. This public me isn’t deliberately false. But I am always aware, when I am in the presence of other people, of how they will hear what I say. This awareness is a kind of filter that I cannot put away. This public me will always be gauging other peoples’ responses and adjusting accordingly. I often do not like this dynamic. But I cannot flip it off as if it were a switch. There is the private me. This is the me who watches and listens and feels. I sometimes avoid this me, especially in seasons of great busyness. When I slow down, and bring the private me before God, I often become aware of my inadequacies or sense of lack. I sometimes can slow down to a level of deep peace, or of awareness of my longing for God. This private me often seems surprisingly conflicted—moved some times by genuine desires to serve and grow, and other times by reflexive habits of greed or resentment. There is the real me. This is true person who inhabits my life; the mixture of what is admirable and what is squalid and what is small. This me must exist, and must be fully known if justice is to prevail. But I do not know this real me. I often do not know what my real motives are. In some ways, the other people in my life see the real me better than I do. The formation of real souls is the one process going on in the universe that really matters. The sanctification of my own soul is the primary task with which I am charged by God. One of the ironies of church ministry is it can cause me to neglect what matters most, in the name of doing what matters most.

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Ch r i s t i a n ity Tod ay Bi b le S t udy

Who Am I?

Article

I have just finished reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; one of the most challenging books I have read in a long time. I found myself asking myself questions repeatedly as I read it. Am I becoming someone like Bonhoeffer? Would I make the thousands of small and large choices he made that led to his martyrdom at Hitler’s hands? Or would I be like the many pastors who could smoothly rationalize their collaboration with evil rather than risk failure, disgrace and death? Is our church producing people like Bonhoeffer? Really? Or are we just aiming to have more and more people come to more and more events? Shortly before he was martyred, Bonhoeffer wrote a poem that has haunted people ever since. It gives voice to the struggle of a sensitive soul grappling with the tension between the public and the private and the real self. It is a gift to all of us who aspire to follow in the steps of the One who went before us. Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell’s confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house. Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win. Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all. Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

Adapted from “Who Am I?,” by John Ortberg, Leadership Journal

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Pondering Ou Next Move r October 2009

Do even Christia interacting with ns operate from ‘brazen self-int others and with erest’ God? By John Wilson in

h game of “What he Makes Us weighing Human?”—or what H alternative possibilitie made us pating s. By anticihuman at some h what might be, point in our we hope—within modest sphere our long evolutiona lo of influence—to ry history, shape what is. Bruce Bueno de so the story goes—con Mesquita—let that to pro tinues name provide ide enter entertainment. roll off your tongue Richard Wranga couple ham’s Catching of times—differs Fire: How Cooking from most of us Us Human, published Made in that he makes his living doing must have gladdened earlier this year, what humans typically many a kitchen. do in a whatever else we But less systematic are—forked radishes, fashion. ing Neanderth als, political animals, sing- invites us into his workshopHe and so The Predictione on—we are also in predictioneers, er’s Game: Using all of us, in a way that distinguish the Logic of Brazen es Self-Interest creatures. (Prediction us from our fellow to See and Shape the + engineer = predicFuture tioneer.) Like chess (Random House) players, we look ★★★★★. ahead, As the cheesy subtitle

choice”) by all parties. But he differs from Nash in that he’s primarily engaged in applying the theory to negotiations or potential negotiation s in many settings, ranging from political conflicts to corporate mergers and litigation. (To introduce and demystify the strategic thinking the heart of game at theory, he spends the entire first chapter telling us how to get the best possible deal when buying a new car.) Whatever the nature of the problem hand, Bueno de at Mesquita and his associates conduct extensive interviews with expert observers, identifying the parties with nificant stake in a sigthe outcome and clarifying what they say they want, what their preferences are (how they would rank various possible outcomes), and who among the players might be particularly influential in the negotiation process. The information thus gathered is fed into a mathematical model that he has refined over the years, and based on the results, he will advise his clients (the cia, various other government bodies, corporate boards) how to proceed.

Decembe

r 2009

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