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    Discipleship
    Discipleship
    Discipleship
    Ebook371 pages6 hours

    Discipleship

    By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    4.5/5

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    Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace. And with that sharp warning to his own church, which was engaged in bitter conflict with the official Nazified state church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began his book Discipleship (formerly entitled The Cost of Discipleship). Originally published in 1937, it soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. At its center stands an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount: what Jesus demanded of his followers and how the life of discipleship is to be continued in all ages of the post-resurrection church.

    Every call of Jesus is a call to death, Bonhoeffer wrote. His own life ended in martyrdom on April 9, 1945.

    Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by Geffrey B. Kelly to clarify the theological meaning and social context of this attempt to resist the Nazi ideology.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFortress Press
    Release dateNov 1, 2015
    ISBN9781506402710
    Discipleship
    Author

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau in 1906. The son of a famous German psychiatrist, he studied in Berlin and New York City. He left the safety of America to return to Germany and continue his public repudiation of the Nazis, which led to his arrest in 1943. Linked to the group of conspirators whose attempted assassination of Hitler failed, he was hanged in April 1945.

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    • 5/5
      I am writing this review in the anniversary of Bonhoeffer's execution in 1945. I can't add much to the many words that have been written about this except to say that Bonhoeffer insists that discipleship must be life changing and life controlling or it is an illusion. Powerful and complex.
    • 3/5
      Excellent! His pastoral explanation of the Sermon on the Mount was a refreshing drink at the well.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely a reason this is a modern classic. This will challenge you and call you to follow Jesus closer.
    • 4/5
      When you start to read this book, you'll soon learn that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an amazing man. This novel includes in the introduciton a short biography of his life. If you read only one part of this book, read that--but, do read the rest. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains that to be a disciple of Christ is costly. Grace is free to us because we are given it by Christ. It is costly, because it cost Christ His life. Here's a bit from it (Spoiler? Is there spoiling when it's laying out the gospel? Just to be sure, I'll let you know this is in the 2nd to last chapter, so maybe you want to wait until you get there if you're reading it):" But we believe and are well assured, "that he which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1.6). In that day Christ will show us the good works of which we were unaware. While we knew it not, we gave him food, drink and clothing and visited him, and while we knew it not we rejected him. Great will be our astonishment in that day, and we shall then realize that it is not our works which remain, but the work which God has wrought through us in his good time without any effort of will and intention on our part (Matt. 25.31 ff). Once again we simply are to look away from ourselves to him who has himself accomplished all things for us and to follow him.The believer will be justified, the justified will be sanctified and the sanctified will be saved in the day of judgment. But this does not mean that our faith, our righteousness and our sanctification (in so far as they depend on ourselves) could be anything but sin. No, all this is true only because Jesus Christ has become our "righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, so he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor. 1.30). "
    • 3/5
      I found this book difficult to read. This is more a reflection on my state of mind and religious commitment than of the author and what he wrote. I stuck it out to the end because it's a Christian classic written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, who gave his life when he elected to remain in Germany when Hitler came to power.
    • 5/5
      Even though I have read this atleast five times there are still things I glean from each reading. There are individual points that one can quibble with at this point in Bonhoeffer's theology, particularly in light of his later writing in Ethics and Letters and Papers, but he still remains one of the most influential theologians even 60 years after his death. The Fortress edition is helpful in filling in the gaps in documentation that Bonhoeffer leaves as well as giving some historical context to the work but ideally one only gets to glimpse Bonhoeffer's development by going through his work and Bethge's biography (or atleast Renate Winds much shorter one). Even apart from the background it is a work well worth any thoughtful Christians time.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book. While many may be put off by the translator's use of large words, the message is sharp and gets to the point. A must-read for anyone who considers him/herself a disciple of Christ.
    • 5/5
      Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book "The Cost of Discipleship" is a tremendously inspiring, insightful and pentrating look into Christian discipleship. Bonhoeffer, who wrote the book in the midst of struggling to stand up against the evils of Nazi Germany in the 1940's, takes the reader along on a transformational exploration into Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and what it means to believers in the world today.This reviewer was inspired, given ample food for thought and encouraged on his journey with God after reading this book. Bonhoeffer's message, like the message of the Gospels, when truthfully proclamied, can be difficult to hear and accept. He writes that "When Christ calls a [person] he bids them to come and die...that they might gain new life." This is the radical message of Christian discipleship in miniature. Bonhoeffer writes of the first step of Christian discipleship as putting Christ first, and following- no matter what the cost may be. For Bonhoeffer, his faith cost him his life. He was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for his open opposition to the tyrrany of Nazism, where he died helping others at the age of 39.If you have not done so already- read this book- it may change your life! Or should I say that through this book Bonhoeffer's witness to the transformational power of the Holy One may change your life.
    • 4/5
      A powerful work by an excellent and lucid theologian. Bonhoeffer does well at exposing the "cheap grace" often present in historic Protestantism and Evangelicalism and does well to show what the Scriptures teach about discipleship. Focus is made on the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 10 and Jesus' commissioning of His disciples.Unfortunately, sometimes Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism gets the better of him, and I would have found his discussion of Paul to be better had he not been fighting the Reformation conflict over justification by faith only.Otherwise the book demonstrates the depth and greatness of Bonhoeffer and his insights.
    • 5/5
      Whatever Bonhoeffer was or was not, we can say this about him--he lived what he believed. I love this book. Those who believe that Christianity is a way of life, a discipline, will love this book. Those who want their religion to be easy and uncomplicated will not.
    • 5/5
      The demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency. Bonhoeffer analyzes the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."
    • 5/5
      The opening call is the steely reminder of price of freedom. The first part is shot through with flashes of brilliance. The exposition in the second part is forceful, but somewhat gnomic.
    • 5/5
      I first read this book in 1975 and did not understand what I was reading; the phrases "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die," and "Only those who believe, obey; and only those who obey, believe," struck a deep chord with me. Good stuff. I have two copies, the one from 1975, and a newer one I shared with my daughter and son-in-law.
    • 5/5
      This book really makes one take a good hard look at his/her own walk with theLord.
    • 5/5
      An incredible look at the Christian life. Bonhoeffer does not dodge any issue here, or sugar-coat any word. His message is clear, and it is clearly biblical -- if you will follow Christ, you will follow Him completely and with everything. Anything less is not following at all.It has been a long time since I was so engaged, so awestruck, and so enthusiastic about a book. The Cost of Discipleship is an important book and one that every Christian should read. Being a Christian is not something to be taken lightly, for the Grace that saves us was bought in Blood. That Grace is costly, and so should be accepted as such.Of course, I do not agree with everything in here. The chapter on baptism, I believe, misses the mark quite a bit. And yet one chapter will not squelch my enthusiasm for the whole book, and this one I recommend wholeheartedly.
    • 4/5
      Bonhoeffer presents his views on what it means to be in true Christian community. It is not easy and not what we necessarily expect, but the ideal is worth pondering and pursuing.
    • 5/5
      This was a tough read. Not that the translation from the German was obtuse. No, what Herr Bonhoeffer had to say was quite clear. The difficulty arose from my conscience when Bonhoeffer talked about what is and isn't following Jesus. Like many, I like to think that since I trust Jesus to forgive my sins, the sins I do commit really don't matter. That just isn't so. As the book points out, when I sin, I stop following Jesus. That, friends, was a scary concept. I was resting comfortably on my salvation and to have that pulled out from under me was very troubling. So much so that the first time I attempted to read this tome I ended up putting it aside. This year I attempted it again and was able to handle it better. It's not that I'm less of a sinner now, but rather that confronting the harsh reality of the law forced me to take a look at God's grace. I realize that the forgiveness that Jesus offers is for the unfaithful disciple as well as for those who don't know better. Which is not to excuse my failures and rebellions. I certainly deserve to rot in hell for all eternity. I'm grateful that I don't have to, that my eternal life depends on God's mercy rather than my obedience. This is a book written for Christians, so if you believe that God is willing to forgive you for Jesus' sake, then go ahead and read this book. I'm putting it on my shelf, where it's ready to be read again. If you don't believe, go read the Bible instead.--J.
    • 5/5
      "Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship," Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his classic "The Cost of Discipleship." "The disciple is not above his master." This sentiment lies at the heart of an exploration of the nature of mature Christian faith: accepting God's grace requires a lifetime of subsequent sacrifice, instructed by Christ's teachings and exemplified by Christ's death on the cross. Centering on a detailed analysis of the Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer explores the shape and scope of this life of suffering and sacrifice for the mature Christian. Consistently, he argues that true faith is the harder path, not the easier, and that it requires both the sacrifice of consistently serving others and the burden of vigilant self-assessment. Anything short of this, Bonhoeffer insists, is cheap grace and thus no grace at all. As with his other writings, it is impossible to read "The Cost of Discipleship" without noting the overtones of his political struggles against the Nazi regime. Despite several opportunities to leave Germany, Bonhoeffer decided to maintain his Christian witness from within his homeland, eventually becoming heavily involved in the Nazi resistance, which led to his arrest and his execution. Knowledge of Bonhoeffer's martyrdom, as well as his struggle to justify his political resistance, including the consideration of assassinating Hitler, make this book particularly fascinating. There are no easy answers to put faith in practice. While Bonhoeffer finds confidence in the promise of the Gospel, to the extent that there should be no anxiety for the Christian life, he also recognizes the significant obstacles offered by a violent dominant culture and ruling class and the smug piety of those who misunderstand and misappropriate religion. In some ways, the book is poignant, not only for its persistent and earnest search for understanding, but for the way in which it points to the rationale for Bonhoeffer's own death. If the true cost of Christian discipleship is to suffer, the ultimate suffering is death. Even without this overtone, the insistent call to refuse cheap grace in pursuit of a fuller appreciation of Christ's teaching is engaging.
    • 4/5
      Having heard the author quoted by various prominent preachers from John MacArthur to John Piper I had heard much said about the book’s power, and I desired to experience that for myself. After finishing it, I can see why “Cost of Discipleship” has challenged so many in their walk with Christ. The book’s major theme centers on what it really means to be a disciple of Christ. This is summed up by Bonhoeffer’s statement “that when Christ calls a man he bids he to come and die.” Christ wants all of us - nothing is to be held back. One is either a disciple of Christ, or they are not. There is no middle ground. The true disciple is dying to his life as a whole, and their old life is being replaced with the life of Christ. Bonhoeffer constantly refers to Biblical passages to make his points, and he does not resort to storytelling or even personal anecdotes. Even though “Cost of Discipleship” was published in 1937, every page in this book counters the “easy believism” and license that tempt and seduce many Christians today. Bonhoeffer attacks “cheap grace” and demands a steadfast, deep loyalty to Christ. However, I did have a couple of minor issues with the book. It is somewhat densely written, and therefore may be daunting to the average layreader. Bonhoeffer was a highly educated theologian, and it shows in his writing style. In addition, Bonhoeffer tends to neglect grace in favor of emphasizing absolute holiness and commitment. His moralistic leanings have the danger of encouraging legalism and asceticism if a reader is inclined toward those pitfalls. I’m sure this was not his intent, since it was Bonhoeffer’s genuine love for Christ that motivated his passion and perseverance. Bonhoeffer was a person of limitless courage and faith. Born 1906 in Breslau, Germany to a prosperous family Bonhoeffer studied theology and completed his doctoral thesis when he was 21. He rose to some measure of fame in the 1930s by virtue of his writings and radio sermons.As is set out in the introductory memoir in this edition, Bonhoeffer understood immediately that Hitler and his national socialist ideology represented a grave threat to Germans, to Christianity, and to western civilization. In a radio adress he gave in February, 1933 Bonhoeffer denounced Hitler and denounced his fellow Germans for accepting a corrupt and inhumane leader and system as its idol. Although Bonhoeffer spent a great deal of time living in England, safe from harm, he understood that he could not in good conscience “participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.” Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1939 to take up the struggle against Nazi-ism. He had to have known that his return would lead to his death but he knew he could not do otherwise. He was called and he obeyed that call without question. Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 after being caught assisting the escape of a number of Jews from Germany. On April 8, 1945, with Allied troops only days from liberating his prison, Bonhoeffer was executed on the orders of Hitler by the S.S. Black Guards. One cannot read the Cost of Discipleship without an acute understanding that his writings on sacrifice, on obedience, and on the cost of grace were mirrored by his actions. The Cost of Discipleship is one of those rare works of classical Christian writing that points the reader to what it means to be a true follower of Christ. I use the word “true” because in today’s modern church the false doctines of “decisionism” and/or “acceptionism” have taken hold; meaning one “makes a decision to accept Jesus” or one “accepts Christ.” But “from the beginning it was not so.” Both Jesus and John the Baptist preached a doctrine of repentance. This remarkable young Lutheran Pastor makes a compelling statement of what the difference is between the “cheap grace” that is all too prevalent in so-called christendom and true Bible-based “costly-Grace.” Bonhoeffer uses the term “costly” because Jesus Himself demands our all; “If any man will follow me, let him deny himself daily and follow me.” It is enlightening and encouraging that such a book could be penned by one of the great Lutherans of the 20th century. The subject of this book is grace - too often, in Bonhoeffer’s day and our own, people seem to look at grace as something free, instead of something freely offered.The exposition of the Sermon on the Mount is fantastic. Boenhoeffer is straight-forward and leaves you no wiggle room in terms of conviction. He has a gift for communicating our thought processes as we try to justify sin in our lives, and I was amazed that his insight was written decades ago in a different country, because they perfectly described the way I think today. It is by faith alone that we are saved, but that faith is never alone. As Bonhoeffer said, “Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey”Bonhoeffer begins his classic commentary with a discussion of what it means to be a follower of Christ. He contrasts the cheap grace (to just believe) with the costly grace by which we are saved, if we continue in obedience to Christ. He brings the reader to the Cross of Christ and takes the Sermon on the Mount as a command rather than an ideal. In conclusion he applies his teaching within the context of the greater community of Christ that is found in the Church.He `counted’ the cost of discipleship and found Grace a Costly Truth. Cheap Grace, as he called it, is grace bestowed on ourselves, preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, eliminating self denial and the death of self life. Cheap Grace is grace without Discipleship. He states that “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace. The sacraments, the foreignness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices.” He attempts to demonstrate how the church along with the gospel ha s been diluted by this teaching. See it in his own words “We …..have gathered like eagles round the carcase of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ.” He implores Germany Christianity that they have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence. Also that if the German Church refuses to face the stern reality of sin, it will gain no credence when it talks of forgiveness.This book will drive home the important Truth that GRACE is NOT LISENCE to sin. It is the Power of God to transform a sinful soul into Newness of Life. Although one would have only a limited vision of Bonhoeffer’s work if one read only the Cost of Discipleship, this is an excellent first Bonhoeffer book to read. Then in which I greatly advise to follow with reading Letters and Papers from prison. Staggering in its theological depth and its unflinching call for the crucifixion of self, “The Cost of Discipleship” is a true classic, an essential book for any Christian library.
    • 5/5
      Very thought provoking; an eye opener.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Dense, heavy, and occasionally antiquated theology but filled with brilliant, inspirational insights

    Book preview

    Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    References

    Editor's Introduction to the Reader's Edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship

    Geffrey B. Kelly

    In 1963, while serving as Spiritual Director of young postulants in the religious congregation of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, I had been going through a period of spiritual dryness. I felt drained of energy, bothered by my own aridity in prayer and meditation and growing lack of enthusiasm for the daily liturgies. The Director of Novices advised me to get another spiritual reading book with the inspiration I needed for my meditation. Following his advice I spied haphazardly a new book on our library shelves, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I opened the book at random to the startling sentence: Like ravens we have gathered round the carcass of cheap grace. From it we have imbibed the poison which has killed the following of Jesus among us (p. 19). I felt immediately that I too had been pursuing the cheap grace of a religious routine. My entire day was mapped out into periods of prayer, meditation, daily Mass, manual labor, teaching and counseling postulants, and so on.

    Reading further, I became fascinated by the awesome demands of the Sermon on the Mount, which through Bonhoeffer’s words seemed addressed directly to me. When I looked beyond the title page, I was shocked to discover that the book was first published in German in 1937 at the height of Hitler’s dictatorship, for it was highly relevant to my own world. I resolved to learn more about this writer and discovered Letters and Papers from Prison, the letters he wrote from prison before his execution for his involvement in the resistance against Adolf Hitler. Even today I am still deeply moved by the challenges of Discipleship and by the personal sacrifice of Bonhoeffer himself.

    The Historical Context of Bonhoeffer’s Text

    Bonhoeffer was one of the leading theologians of the Confessing Church, which arose in opposition to the German Christians, a pro-Nazi group within the established German Protestant church. The German Christians attempted to Nazify not only the church but all of Protestant theology as well. They hoped to create a Reich Church, united under a Reich bishop and sympathetic to the Nazi cause and its dreams of a Nazi empire united by blood and battle. Throughout the 1930s, the internal church battles between the Confessing Church, the German Christians, and neutral church leaders polarized German Protestantism. While the Nazi regime steered clear of much of the controversy, there were clear political consequences for Confessing pastors who spoke out against Nazi policies.

    During the period in which he wrote Discipleship, Bonhoeffer was teaching seminarians at Finkenwalde, a Confessing Church seminary, and he dedicated the work to his seminarians. While Bonhoeffer was disturbed by many of the issues arising under Nazism and their consequences for Christians and their church, Discipleship was written primarily as a text for the spiritual formation of seminarians within the unusual context of dictatorship. Bonhoeffer’s opening questions were shocking in their directness: What does Jesus want to say to us? What does he expect from us? How does he expect us to be faithful Christians today? Bonhoeffer’s attempts to ascertain what Jesus wants became the leitmotif of every chapter that followed.

    Discipleship is conceptually related to his earlier works Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, but the insights and inspiration of this book go far beyond the philosophical-theological convictions he had worked out in those earlier writings. Discipleship was set, not in the comfortable academic university setting where he had taught, but in the steamier cauldron of political conflict and ecclesiastical fecklessness—troubled times that called for more than faith seeking to understand church dogma, purify ritual, or gauge attendance at worship.

    More than any of his other writings, Discipleship reveals a Bonhoeffer who vehemently expressed his disappointment and frustration at the failure of Christians and their churches to react against the entrenched injustices of the Nazi government. In harsh rhetoric he described what he sensed was a lethal battle between the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ and the diabolical realm of Nazism. Bonhoeffer’s weapons were the word of God, the unyielding commands of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, the Pauline exhortations to imitate the exemplary deeds of Jesus in the face of inevitable suffering, and acceptance of the paradoxical power of Jesus in the weakness of his cross.

    These central themes of Discipleship are held together by Bonhoeffer’s personal conviction that the freedom of a Christian is rooted in the Reformation principle of faith, lived in complete reliance on God’s word in the Bible for direction and support. The Christocentrism of this book is unmistakable. The Christ encountered in Discipleship does not avoid the dangers of returning to Jerusalem to confront the wrath of his enemies. This is a Christ who frees the disciple to be a genuine person of faith, liberated from the bondage of self-centeredness and self-serving infidelity to the word of God. By his sacrificial death on the cross, Christ enables his followers to live by the gospel and to resist the words of a seductive earthly leader.

    Following Christ through the Costly Grace of Discipleship

    Bonhoeffer believed that the churches had become accomplices of Hitler and the Nazi ideology. Discipleship makes it clear that the puffy, self-serving statements of some church leaders, eager to preserve their clerical privileges, were in sharp contrast to the fearless castigation of systematic evil found in the inspiring words and example of Jesus Christ. In the very first sentence of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer threw the gauntlet at what he viewed as the real source of the crisis. Cheap grace, he declared, is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace (p. 9).

    Christian discipleship must be lived with utter seriousness, but Bonhoeffer lamented that in typical German parishes he detected only cheap grace. Their sermons were nothing more than timid accommodations to the Nazi regime, and they offered only a cheapened, bargain-basement grace, which Bonhoeffer described as grace without the cross and grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ (p. 11).

    The grace of discipleship was possible for those willing to overcome their fears and hesitations, but Bonhoeffer noted that Jesus offers no set program, no set of principles, no absolutized dogmas, no new set of laws that preserved purity of doctrine. Rather, such grace demands nothing other than being bound to Jesus Christ alone. This takes place in the very world that is loved, judged, and reconciled in Christ.

    Christ’s Call to Death

    In the sections of Discipleship that follow Bonhoeffer’s call for costly grace, he describes how a renewed sense of discipleship could lead Christians to serve those in need, overcome evil, and honor Christ’s person and teachings. Acts of inconveniencing oneself to serve others are a liberating force in the spiritual life. Bonhoeffer believed that true freedom must include utter devotion to those in need, after the manner of Jesus, whose self-sacrifice was the ultimate example of what it means to be as Christ in relationship with others. Bonhoeffer urged Christians not to be smug in their proclaimed justification by faith. Rather, out of that faith and simple obedience to God’s word, they should assume responsibility to bring about peace in their turbulent earth: The commandment ‘You shall not kill,’ the word that says, ‘Love your enemies,’ is given to us simply to be obeyed.[1]

    Bonhoeffer acknowledged, however, that following Christ in full obedience to the gospel meant enduring suffering patterned after Jesus’ own experience. Reminding would-be disciples of Jesus’ words, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Mark 8:34), Bonhoeffer noted that every Christian worthy of the name must be prepared to bear the cross: Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death (p. 59). This death could mean the daily struggle against sin, acts of forbearance and mutual forgiveness, even open persecution and martyrdom. Discipleship, wrote Bonhoeffer, is being bound to the suffering Christ (p. 61), yet Jesus’ spiritual nearness transformed even grotesque torments into the blessed joy of knowing that one suffers in union with Jesus Christ.

    The Beatitudes

    For Bonhoeffer, this union with Jesus’ suffering included the daily acts of renunciation that define the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In Discipleship, the Beatitudes are the point of convergence where discipleship and the cross, the sufferings of Jesus and the power of Christian community, faith and love of neighbor, come together. Here Jesus proclaimed that his followers are blessed amidst what the world would call misery, poverty, rejection, persecution, even death at the hands of one’s enemies. This, Bonhoeffer wrote, is the paradox of joy in suffering, life in death, brought about by graced intimacy with Jesus Christ.

    In the context of Nazism’s malicious grip on Christians in Germany, Bonhoeffer was providing paradoxical guidelines for an authentic Christian life. Those who mourn are blessed, for example, because they are unwilling to conform to society’s standards or join in arrogant celebrations of Nazi military might. Christians were called to be strangers in that phony world. In the name of the only true peace of Jesus Christ, they were to be disturbers of that false peace based on belligerent arrogance toward weaker nations.

    Bonhoeffer likewise wrote in Discipleship that the death of Jesus Christ parallels the death to self-righteousness endured by those who would be merciful. Christians join the ranks of the disenfranchised by making common cause with those reprobated and marginalized by their government. He praised those who, despite their own needs, have an irresistible love for the lowly, the sick, the suffering, for those who are demeaned and abused, for those who suffer injustice and are rejected, for everyone in pain and anxiety. . . . The merciful give their honor to those who have fallen into shame and take that shame unto themselves (p. 81).

    Bonhoeffer’s Call to Peacemaking

    The beatitudinal blessing on peacemakers is a central theme in Discipleship. Bonhoeffer makes it clear that the grace of following Jesus as peacemakers confers a strong mandate to oppose violence with nonviolent means, as Jesus would. "Now they are not only to have peace, but they are to make peace. To do this they renounce violence and strife. Those things never help the cause of Christ (p. 82). How far do they go? Bonhoeffer’s answer is that Jesus’ disciples maintain peace by choosing to suffer instead of causing others to suffer. They preserve community when others destroy it. Their peace will never be greater than when they encounter evil people in peace and are willing to suffer from them. Peace makers will bear the cross with their Lord, for peace was made at the cross" (p. 83).

    Christian peacemaking is coupled with the need to forgive and pray for their enemies. Bonhoeffer insists that Christians are not to repay in kind the evil done to them, but to overcome injustice with nonviolence and forgiveness. It was a radical challenge to Christians under Nazi laws that were dominated by a vengeful, violent spirit. Bonhoeffer insisted that Christians’ attitudes toward their enemies must reflect the extraordinary love manifested by Jesus himself; this was why Jesus commanded his followers to pray for those who abused and persecuted them. The extraordinary love, self-denial, and espousal of nonviolence and forgiveness of enemies is what had to set Christians apart.

    Nowhere was this attitude expressed as forcefully as in Bonhoeffer’s declaration toward the end of Discipleship that Christian responsibility includes seeing Christ in all peoples, even in those declared to be one’s enemies. There he writes that Christ became like human beings, so that we would be like him. In Christ’s incarnation all of humanity regains the dignity of bearing the image of God. Whoever from now on attacks the least of the people attacks Christ, who took on human form and who in himself has restored the image of God for all who bear a human countenance (p. 275).

    Discipleship: The Controversies and Their Significance

    Some critics of Discipleship have disdained this book as an interruption in the straight line from Bonhoeffer’s early activism against the Hitler regime and the subsequent affirmations of a worldly-engaged Christianity and the pragmatic activism found in Ethics and the prison letters. Some critics, too, judged this phase of Bonhoeffer’s life in which he was involved in seminary education at Finkenwalde as indicative of a desire to withdraw from the world and enjoy relative spiritual peace within the sheltered enclave of the seminary. These studies portrayed Bonhoeffer as a theological Hamlet, torn between the impulse to separate the church from the world and the humanistic urge to affirm the goodness of that same world.[2] Hanfried Müller, a Marxist theologian from what was then East Germany, criticized Discipleship for expressing a catholicizing tendency and escapism.[3]

    These critics failed to appreciate Bonhoeffer’s dialectical approach, which pitted Christian discipleship against the wiles and twisted values of a world infected with the malevolent ideology of Nazism. When he wrote Discipleship, Germany had succumbed to the totalitarian, anti-Christian, but wildly popular regime of Adolf Hitler. While many expected the Lutheran Bonhoeffer to emphasize Luther’s insistence on faith alone, Bonhoeffer instead offered the values of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and his prophetic teachings to a church that had bartered away the gospel for the cheap grace of a salvation without the cross of Jesus Christ.

    In counseling Christian submission to the will of Jesus Christ, Bonhoeffer believed that the power engendered by following Christ’s command led to active resistance to the evil of National Socialism. Far from being passive, Bonhoeffer was relentless in urging the Christians of Germany to confess their faith and to resist.

    There are in fact many continuities between Discipleship and Bonhoeffer’s writings during his resistance period. The final section of Discipleship, where Bonhoeffer speaks of being formed in the image of Jesus Christ, parallels the Ethics as Formation manuscript in Ethics, where Bonhoeffer declares that becoming like Jesus occurs only by being conformed to the unique form of the one who became human, was crucified, and is risen. This happens as the form of Jesus Christ himself so works on us that it molds us, conforming our form to Christ’s own (Gal. 4:9).[4]

    There are unmistakable echoes in the prison letters as well, particularly in Bonhoeffer’s theology of a suffering God and his description of God’s paradoxical power in weakness.[5]  Discipleship stands as a pivotal text that helps explain Bonhoeffer’s path from the academic podium to his imprisonment. One can best understand Bonhoeffer’s final word on Discipleship, in fact, by reading his letter to Eberhard Bethge on July 21, 1944, the day after the failed assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.[6] Bonhoeffer recalled his conversation at Union Theological Seminary years before with Jean Lasserre, a young French pastor:[7] "We had simply asked ourselves what we really wanted to do with our lives. And he said, I want to become a saint (—and I think it’s possible that he did become one). This impressed me very much at the time. Nevertheless, I disagreed with him, saying something like: I want to learn to have faith. For a long time I did not understand the depth of this antithesis. I thought I myself could learn to have faith by trying to live something like a saintly life. I suppose I wrote Discipleship at the end of this path. Today I clearly see the dangers of that book, though I still stand by it."[8]

    Here Bonhoeffer explored the questions he had raised in his own preface to Discipleship: how to live a life of Christian discipleship and how to have a life of faith while immersed in the duties of one’s worldly calling. In the preceding letter of July 18, 1944, he shared with Bethge what he felt were the different ways one was pushed into following Jesus Christ and how the experience was never partial or a merely religious act but something whole and involves one’s whole life, adding that Jesus calls not to a new religion but to life.[9] In the letter of July 21, Bonhoeffer knew that the threat to his life had become much greater. When Bonhoeffer spoke of the possible dangers that he had come to see in Discipleship, he undoubtedly referred to the first step that Christians took when they acted on what they had heard in God’s word, living as Jesus Christ despite the dangers of the world to which they were called to minister. That first step was absolutely necessary if they were to learn to have active faith in strict obedience to Jesus Christ, expressed by the dialectic in Discipleship: Only the believers obey, and only the obedient believe (pp. 29–30).

    Obedience was the first step. Without taking this step, the person called by Christ cannot learn to have faith. Bonhoeffer was himself learning to have faith while living fully in his world as a co-conspirator. In his July 21, 1944 letter to Bethge, Bonhoeffer sensed this in his words on having recognized the possible misleading elements in his analysis of Christian discipleship. His desire to live a holy life might puzzle people of faith, leading them to confuse the risk-free step into the ultimate with the penultimate complexities of living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities—then one takes seriously no longer one’s own sufferings but rather the suffering of God in the world. . . . And this is how one becomes a human being, a Christian.[10]

    Bonhoeffer’s final word about Discipleship was not so much a cautionary word about the risks of human agency in the life of faith as a statement of a renewed awareness that his Christian discipleship, by leading him to involvement in the anti-Hitler conspiracy, had brought about a new beginning through his bond with Jesus Christ in discipleship. His life’s journey had changed. He was in the hands of the God who called him into discipleship. As he wrote in his prison poem, Stations on the Way to Freedom, written around the same time as his letter of July 21, his life had, indeed, been given to God:

    Just for one blissful moment you could feel the sweet touch of freedom,

    Then you gave it to God that God might perfect it in glory.[11]

    The Essence of Discipleship

    Bonhoeffer’s book Discipleship is a spiritual classic. While written in the specific context of National Socialism, his experiential exposition of the Christian spiritual life has spoken to Christians around the world ever since. From beginning to end, Discipleship is a call to follow Jesus along the paths already illuminated by God’s word and the cross of Christ. This book is as much about what being a genuine Christian demands of those who claim to follow Christ as it is an exhortation to live and enjoy the only true freedom of a Christian. In his preface, Bonhoeffer stated clearly his conviction that following the paths set by Jesus’ command was at the center of the free, fulfilling life to which every Christian aspires. In following Jesus, he writes, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. In the gentle pressure of this yoke they will receive the strength to walk the right path without becoming weary. . . . Jesus demands nothing from us without giving us the strength to comply. Jesus’ commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life (p. 3–4). Bonhoeffer ends Discipleship with the remarkable plea to obey the commands that govern one’s Christian calling. To be like Christ is to follow his life’s example and live in union with Christ’s own spirit—as Bonhoeffer concluded, to be able to do those deeds, and in the simplicity of discipleship, to live life in peace and personal fulfillment enjoyed in the likeness of Christ (p. 278).

    Berlin: 1932-1933 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 12), 260. ↵

    Geffrey B. Kelly, Liberating Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Message for Today (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 114–15. ↵

    Ibid., 16. Hanfried Müller made this argument in his Von der Kirche zur Welt (From the Church to the World) (Leipzig: Herbert Reich Evang. Verlag, 1966), 244ff. ↵

    Ethics (Reader’s Edition), 40 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 6, 93). ↵

    See especially Letters and Papers from Prison (Reader’s Edition), 466–69 and passim (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 478–82).  ↵

    Ibid., 473–75 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 485–86).  ↵

    Lasserre strongly influenced Bonhoeffer’s attitude toward pacifism and the peace ethic. Lasserre, a pacifist, was the secretary of the French-speaking section of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.  ↵

    Letters and Papers from Prison (Reader’s Edition), 474 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 486). ↵

    Ibid., 469 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 482). In the Bonhoeffer Works edition of this volume (p. 482, note 67) editor John de Gruchy noted that in Ethics, Bonhoeffer had written Jesus Christ is life itself (see Ethics, p. 171; Bonhoeffer Works volume 6, 250). ↵

    Letters and Papers from Prison (Reader’s Edition), 474 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 486).  ↵

    Ibid., 498 (Bonhoeffer Works volume 8, 513). ↵

    Preface

    In times of church renewal holy scripture naturally becomes richer in content for us. Behind the daily catchwords and battle cries needed in the Church Struggle, a more intense, questioning search arises for the one who is our sole concern, for Jesus himself. What did Jesus want to say to us? What does he want from us today? How does he help us to be faithful Christians today? It is not ultimately important to us what this or that church leader wants. Rather, we want to know what Jesus wants. When we go to hear a sermon, his own word is what we want to hear. This matters to us not only for our own sakes, but also for all those who have become estranged from the church and its message. It is also our opinion that if Jesus himself and Jesus alone with his word were among us in our preaching, then quite a different set of people would hear the word and quite a different set of people would again turn away from it. It is not as if our church’s preaching were no longer God’s word, but there are so many dissonant sounds, so many human, harsh laws, and so many false hopes and consolations, which still obscure the pure word of Jesus and make a genuine decision more difficult. We surely intend our preaching to be preaching Christ alone. But it is not solely the fault of others if they find our preaching harsh and difficult because it is burdened with formulations and concepts foreign to them. It is simply not true that every word critical of our preaching today can be taken as a rejection of Christ or as anti-Christianity. Today there are a great number of people who come to our preaching, want to hear it, and then repeatedly have to admit sadly that we have made it too difficult for them to get to know Jesus. Do we really want to deny being in community with these people? They believe that it is not the word of Jesus itself that they wish to evade, but that too much of what comes between them and Jesus is merely human, ­institutional, or doctrinaire. Who among us would not instantly know all the answers which could be given to these people and with which we could easily evade responsibility for them? But would an answer not also demand that we ask whether we ourselves get in the way of Jesus’ word by depending perhaps too much on certain formulations, or on a type of sermon intended for its own time, place, and social structure? Or by preaching too dogmatically and not enough for use in life? Or by preferring to repeat certain ideas from scripture over and over and thus too heedlessly passing over other important passages? Or by preaching our own opinions and convictions too much and Jesus Christ himself too little? Nothing would contradict our own intention more deeply and would be more ruinous for our proclamation than if we burdened with difficult human rules those who are weary and heavy laden, whom Jesus calls unto himself. That would drive them away from him again. How that would mock the love of Jesus Christ in front of Christians and heathen! But since general questions and self-accusations do not help here, let us be led back to scripture, to the word and call of Jesus Christ himself. Away from the poverty and narrowness of our own convictions and questions, here is where we seek the breadth and riches which are bestowed on us in Jesus.

    We desire to speak of the call to follow Jesus. In doing so, are we burdening people with a new, heavier yoke? Should even harder, more inexorable rules be added to all the human rules under which their souls and bodies groan? Should our admonition to follow Jesus only prick their uneasy and wounded consciences with an even sharper sting? For this latest of innumerable times in church history, should we make impossible, tormenting, eccentric demands, obedience to which would be the pious luxury of the few? Would such demands have to be rejected by people who work and worry about their daily bread, their jobs, and their families, as the most godless tempting of God? Should the church be trying to erect a spiritual reign of terror over people by threatening earthly and eternal punishment on its own authority and commanding everything a person must believe and do to be saved? Should the church’s word bring new tyranny and violent abuse to human souls? It may be that some ­people yearn for such servitude. But could the church ever serve such a longing?

    When holy scripture speaks of following Jesus, it proclaims that people are free from all human rules, from everything which pressures, burdens, or causes worry and torment of conscience. In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. Does this disparage the seriousness of Jesus’ commandments? No. Instead, only where Jesus’ entire commandment and the call to unlimited discipleship remain intact are persons fully free to enter into Jesus’ community. Those who follow Jesus’ commandment entirely, who let Jesus’ yoke rest on them without resistance, will find the burdens they must bear to be light. In the gentle pressure of this yoke they will receive the strength to walk the right path without becoming weary. Jesus’ commandment is harsh, inhumanly harsh for someone who resists it. Jesus’ commandment is gentle and not difficult for someone who willingly accepts it. His commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). Jesus’ commandment has nothing to do with forced spiritual cures. Jesus demands nothing from us without giving us the strength to comply. Jesus’ commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.

    But the question still troubles us: What could the call to follow Jesus mean today for the worker, the businessman, the farmer, or the soldier? Could it bring an intolerable dilemma into the existence of persons working in the world who are Christian? Is Christianity, defined as following Jesus, a possibility for too small a number of people? Does it imply a rejection of the great masses of people and contempt for the weak and poor? Does it thereby deny the great mercy of Jesus Christ, who came to the sinners and tax collectors, the poor and weak, the misguided and despairing? What should we say to that? Is it a few, or many, who belong with Jesus? Jesus died on the cross alone, abandoned by his disciples. It was not two of his faithful followers who hung beside him, but two murderers. But they all stood beneath the cross: enemies and the faithful, doubters and the fearful, the scornful and the converted, and all of them and their sin were included in this hour in Jesus’ prayer for forgiveness. God’s merciful love lives in the midst of its foes. It is the same Jesus Christ who by grace calls us to follow him and whose grace saves the thief on the cross in his last hour.

    Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it? What decisions and painful separations will it entail? We must take this question to him who alone knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know that it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. Discipleship is joy.

    Today it seems so difficult to walk with certainty the narrow path of the church’s decision and yet to remain wide open to Christ’s love for all people, and in God’s patience, mercy, and loving-kindness (Titus 3:4) for the weak and godless. Still, both must remain together, or else we will follow merely human paths. May God grant us joy in all seriousness of discipleship, affirmation of the sinners in all rejection of sin, and the overpowering and winning word of the gospel in all defense against our enemies. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt. 11:28-30).

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    Costly Grace

    Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.

    Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacrament; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without costs. It is said that the essence of grace is that the bill for it is paid in advance for all time. Everything can be had for free, courtesy of that paid bill. The price paid is infinitely great and, therefore, the possibilities of taking advantage of and wasting grace are also infinitely great. What would grace be, if it were

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