We cannot find the Cross of Jesus if we shrink from going to the place where it is to be found, namely, the public death of the sinner. For more see: The Courage to Confess Sin—What Bonhoeffer Still Teaches Us.
Sunday Afternoon Musings I try to read Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, once a year, some years, twice. Sometimes obscure, sometimes on the fringe of orthodoxy, it is always thought provoking and powerful. Both practical and deep, I have found it to be helpful in corralling all my disappointments about wheat the church is and isn’t as well … More Bonhoeffer on Burden Bearing Fellowship
Here is a link you will not want to miss if you have any suspicion that you are swimming in a sea of information and making relatively little progress in your growth in grace. Bonhoeffer’s Life Together is one of those small books that is worth reading over and over. For about 30 years, I … More Why Aren’t You Listening?
Sunday Musings I have been slowly working my way through Eric Metaxes’ biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is well written, even if it lacks the documentation and footnotes that some would like. (Maybe Metaxas and the publisher will add that to later additions.) I am up to 1937 and the Nazi’s are beginning to get … More Numbering Days with the Bonhoeffer Family
Friday is for History and Inspiration Every age has its own challenges to faithfulness to the gospel. Most of what inconveniences and discomforts Christians in America does not rise to the level of persecution. But all persecution starts somewhere and that somewhere often involves much smaller compromises and subtle shifts in perspective. Martin Niemöller, a … More Is it Time to “fall into the spokes of the wheel” in America?
Monday is for Discussion Renate Wind teaches at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer School in Weinheim, Germany. Her biography of Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: a Spoke in the Wheel, is much shorter than the modern opus Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxes and I am not far enough along in the book to give an opinion on it. But there … More “Be More than You Appear”
“I never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . . of the cross, of sin and forgiveness, of death and life (while) in New York . . . only an ethical and social idealism which pins its faith to progress.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer … according to Bonhoeffer, a congregation without mutual confession of sin is … More The Courage to Confess Sin—What Bonhoeffer Still Teaches Us
Something we definitely need right now with the heavy assault of the media on Christians, is a real show of Christian charity and love. Bonhoeffer can help us see what the Spirit desires for our age. The reality is that without some challenge, our love for one another remains superficial and unremarkable. But what we … More Bonhoeffer’s Take on Christian Unity
Bonhoeffer reflected on the surprising discovery of Martin Luther in the cloister. Martin went into the cloister to appease God, to find God, to keep a promise to God for saving his life in a thunder storm. He hoped to find God in the cloister’s separation from the world. Ironically, when God opened Luther’s eyes … More The Voice of Bonhoeffer
Weekend Musings Bonhoeffer is endlessly challenging. This is my fourth reading of his book, The Cost of Discipleship and again my spirit reels from his analysis and perspective on what he calls “cheap grace.” “Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the … More Bonhoeffer Wrecks Me on Nearly Every Page
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