bonhoeffer: cost of discipleship

cheap grace:

• Bonh called ‘cheap grace’ the ‘deadly enemy of the Church’

  • described habit of Christians accepting God’s free God-given gifts but not bothering to become uncomfortable or risky in their Christian lives

  • believed that ppl were imagining that, as Jesus had paid the price for sin, they were ‘off the hook’ and didn’t need to make changes or be sorry or even notice God

  • reliance on cheap grace made Church secular

  • wrote of ‘millions of spiritual corpses’

costly grace:

• Bonh thought that people should be prepped for ‘costly' grace’ » God’s grace is worth sacrificing everything for

• costly as it calls Christians to follow Jesus n make changes to their lives n decisions

• Christians should reflect on how God sacrificed his only Son to save us from sin n we should respond by sacrifice n absolute obedience

sacrifice, suffering n the cross:

• for Bon, the call to Christian discipleship is closely linked to the Passion - Jesus’ rejection, suffering n death

• anyone who follows Jesus must pick up their cross n follow Jesus’ path of rejection, suffering n death

• discipleship n costly grace inc self-denial n endurance

• being Christian is not just ‘being normal’ but is a life of suffering for Christ

solidarity:

• central parts of Bonh’s theology = ‘existing for others’/’solidarity’

• was offered opp to stay in London n learn from Gandhi about principles of non-violence but chose to run Finkenwalde seminary

• could have escaped to USA but stayed only for 3 weeks before returning to Germany, to share in suffering w other Germans

• Christians should not be ‘religious’ but should be in a relationship with God via living for others » allows Christians to participate in the being of Jesus

• solidarity led him into Resistance movement in Germany against Nazis

  • accused of conspiring to assassinate Hitler, sent to conc camp for execution

  • hanged on April 9th 1945, 2 weeks before American liberation of camp

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