Quotes About Bonhoeffer

Whenever there was a dilemma, I just left it in abeyance and—without really consciously dealing with it intensively—let it grow toward the clarity of a decision. But this clarity is not so much intellectual as it is instinctive. The decision is made; whether one can adequately justify it retrospectively is another question. "Thus" it happened that I went. Bonhoeffer was always thinking about thinking.

Bonhoeffer recognized that standard-issue "religion" had made God small, having dominion only over those things we could not explain. That "religious" God was merely the "God of the gaps," the God who concerned himself with our "secret sins" and hidden thoughts. But Bonhoeffer rejected this abbreviated God.

There was one activity that Bonhoeffer would enjoy in Barcelona, but could never enjoy in Berlin. That was the arte taurina (bull fighting). Though an aesthete and an intellectual, Bonhoeffer was neither effete nor squeamish. His brother Klaus arrived for a visit on Easter Saturday, and on Easter afternoon—Bonhoeffer preached that morning—they were "dragged" by a German teacher, presumably Thumm, to the "great Easter corrida." He

Bonhoeffer's theology had always leaned toward the incarnational view that did not eschew "the world," but that saw it as God's good creation to be enjoyed and celebrated, not merely transcended.

In October Bonhoeffer sent a novelty postcard to Rüdiger Schleicher. It pictured him behind a life-sized cardboard picture of a matador and a bull so that his head was on the matador's body: "The quiet hours in which I cultivated the Arte taurina, have, as you can see, led to tremendous success in the arena. . . . Greetings from the matador. Dietrich.

The Bonhoeffers were sincerely patriotic, but they never exhibited the nationalistic passion of most other Germans. They maintained a sense of perspective and a coolness, which they taught their children to cultivate.

Bonhoeffer's experiences with African American community underscored an idea that was developing in his mind: the only real piety and power that he had seen in the American church seemed to be in the churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering.

Describing Bonhoeffer's demeanor on returning to danger in Germany rather than safety in America, with "with a strong and joyful firmness such as only arises out of realized freedom.

The church is to be set apart (sanctified) not by possessing a special religious piety but by participating in and manifesting the perfect eternal love of God. As Bonhoeffer said, "Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.

We could summarize all of this background to Bonhoeffer's christology in one sentence, albeit a complex one: The cross was a stumbling block to the Romans; the cross was a stumbling block to the Nazis; the cross was a stumbling block to moderns; and—unless we are humbled and brought low beneath the cross to see its power and beauty—the cross can be a stumbling block to us.

Bonhoeffer has both christology (the doctrine of Christ) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) at the center of his theology, like the hub of a wheel. It might even be better to say that Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology flows from, naturally and necessarily, his christology

Bonhoeffer and Luther draw on Christ's paradox of gaining one's life by losing it. So we come to the ultimate paradox: by service—and ultimately, by sacrifice—we are free, we are happy, we live the good life. True freedom is only freedom in Christ. True freedom, as Luther points out, is found in serving others. Bonhoeffer echoes that notion.

To understand Bonhoeffer, we must first and foremost understand living by faith.

His ecclesiology, though, is never an independent topic. It always flows from and back to Christ and his christology. Neither is Bonhoeffer content with mere academic work on ecclesiology. For his ecclesiology is never independent of practice or action. Christ always and necessarily stands before and above and over Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology; and ethics, which for him can be summed up in love, always and necessarily pours out from and surrounds his ecclesiology.

This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer's christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian

This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer's christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian life.

Leaning on Augustine's insight, Bonhoeffer sees the sanctorum communio as "the community of loving persons who, touched by God's Spirit, radiate love and grace."17

I offer this succinct synopsis of Bonhoeffer on the Christian life: We live in love by grace as the church-community—in, through, and toward Christ.

Perhaps Bonhoeffer shapes us best by showing us in word and in deed, as a theologian and in his life, how to live the Christian life, how to be a disciple of Christ, how to live in the Christuswirklichkeit.

Bonhoeffer did not write a political theology nor was he much given to discussing politics in his letters, sermons, and lectures. He has at times been criticized by scholars as apolitical—which is an odd claim to make of one of the few ministers murdered in the concentration camps on charges of political conspiracy.

But exploration of Bonhoeffer's career under Hitler also revealed troubling data, particularly in his essay "The Church and the Jewish Question" (1933). In addition to its bold assertion that Christians have an unconditional obligation to aid victims of the state, the essay gave credence to the ancient view that "the 'chosen people,' which hung the Redeemer of the world on the cross, must endure the curse of its action in long-drawn-out suffering.

Bonhoeffer's emphasis on the deep this-worldliness of Christianity does not lead to de-escahtologizing the gospel.

Bonhoeffer's emphasis on the deep this -worldliness of Christianity does not lead to de-eschatologizing the gospel.

Bonhoeffer's thought is not determined by the ultimacy of this world but by his opposition to 'the separation ... (of) the two spheres of the sacred and secular' and his insistence that 'faith is always ... an act involving the whole life