Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoefferwas a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship became a modern classic...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth4 February 1906
CountryGermany
crosses knows
The cross is God's truth about us, and therefore it is the only power thatcanmakeustruthful.Whenwe know the cross we are no longer afraid of the truth.
jesus prayer grace
But they all stood beneath the cross, enemies and believers, doubters and cowards, revilers and devoted followers. His prayer, in that hour, and his forgiveness, was meant for them all, and for all their sins. The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies. It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour.
jesus able praying
Only in Jesus are we able to pray, and with Him we also know that we shall be heard.
jesus mean simple
Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience - not interpreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean for us to discuss it as an ideal. He really means for us to get on with it.
next generations righteous
A righteous person is one who lives for the next generation.
differences community silence
The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.
reality thinking opposites
Thinking in terms of two realms understands the paired concepts worldy-Christia n, natural-superna tural, profane-sacred, rational-revela tions, as ultimate static opposites...and fails to recognize the original unity of these opposites in the Christ-reality.
blessed temptation together
It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together.
christian heaven world
God wants to see human beings, not ghosts who shun the world. . . . Our marriage must be a 'yes' to God's earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too.
world have-faith this-world
It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.
responsibility sober neighbor
When we come to a clearer and more sober estimate of our own limitations and responsibilities, that makes it possible more genuinely to love our neighbor.
clever men genius
What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men.
christian world spheres
There is not a place to which the Christian can withdraw from the world, whether it be outwardly or in the sphere of the inner life. Any attempt to escape from the world must sooner or later be paid for with a sinful surrender to the world.
christian light evil
The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.