Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

       Dietrich Bonhoeffer
       1906-1945
      
       Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. He was also a participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, a founding member of the Confessing Church. His involvement in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler resulted in his arrest in April 1943 and his subsequent execution by hanging in April 1945, shortly before the war's end.
      
       Overshadowed by his life and death, his theology and his view of Christianity's role in the secular world has nevertheless remained very influential.
      
       He seems to have undergone something of a personal conversion from a theologian primarily attracted to the intellectual side of Christianity to a dedicated man of faith, resolved to carry out the teaching of Christ as he found it revealed in the Gospels.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.     Topics: Character, Excellence It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.     Topics: Character As a fresh start, the church should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy.     Topics: Charity Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.     Topics: Christianity, Discipleship A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world.     Topics: Christians, Suffering At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.     Topics: Death     Source: Prison doctor witness to Bonhoeffer's death God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.     Topics: Death, Goals, Justification Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack's wares. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.     Topics: Enemies, Grace Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.     Topics: Faith, Obedience Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.     Topics: Faithful, Service, Responsibility A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.     Topics: God, Idolatry God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.     Topics: God