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
prayer odds vanity
It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
jesus matter significance
Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.
hero son pay
The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God.
healing people advent
Advent creates people, new people.
hands desire sake
Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.Lack of desire is poverty.
men order law
Man seeks, in his manhood, not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas, but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness and faithful in friendship, making man free.
goal end-of-life ends
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.
strong people opinion
It is the nature of strong people that they can bring out crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them.
life-changing might world
After death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might.
mean men offering
The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.
mean temptation being-free
Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free
whole
What we are in ourselves, and what we owe to others makes us a complete whole.
christian prayer children
The child asks of the Father whom he knows. Thus, the essence of Christian prayer is not general adoration, but definite, concrete petition. The right way to approach God is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
christian reality brotherhood
Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.