Quotes about Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the observation that when lust takes control, "At this moment God . . . loses all reality. . . . Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God."5

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

Bonhoeffer sketched what would in reality become his own virtue and fate: "But their peace will never be greater than when they encounter

This command, as Bonhoeffer routinely observes, is anchored in the cross that Jesus himself bore. This is why Bonhoeffer can also say, "Only those who there, in the cross of Jesus, find faith in the victory over evil can obey his command.

Bonhoeffer's rule never to speak about a brother in his absence. Bonhoeffer knew that living according to what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount was not "natural" for anyone.

It had been Luther's idea that Christians should confess to one another instead of to a priest. Most Lutherans had thrown that baby out with the bathwater and didn't confess to anyone. Confession of any kind was considered overly Catholic, just as extemporaneous prayer was criticized as too pietistic. But Bonhoeffer successfully instituted the practice of confessing one to another.

Bonhoeffer contended in his address that if a leader's main objective was to idolize himself, that leader was not exhibiting true, godly leadership, but was in fact a "mis-leader" of the people he pretended to lead.

Bonhoeffer had always struggled with the "problem" of being charming. He mistrusted it and wanted the words and logic of what he said to be the only things to which others responded.

Bonhoeffer was not interested in intellectual abstraction. Theology must lead to the practical aspects of how to live as a Christian.

Several times Bonhoeffer used Barth's image of the Tower of Babel as a picture of "religion," of man trying to reach heaven through his own efforts, which always failed.

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.