Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Man
For many years the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have touched many lives in the Christian community. The impact he has had and continues to have in today’s society is incredible and the reason for this paper is to examine the merits of his work and to look at his life and his particular place in Christian history by closely examining his background and historical setting, and some of his more significant works. This paper will look into Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, and Ethics, and his Prison Correspondence. These works are important in understanding the man and as a theologian and they give an accurate picture of what it was like to live back in those times as a Christian. Despite the numerous accounts of WWII that are out there are very few that give us an account from the perspective of a Christian and the hope that all Christians can share even in the darkest of times. But before we get into his works let us take a look at some of his background. Who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
With every great hero there must be a great villain, and in the case of Bonhoeffer there was no greater villain than the Nazi party or specifically Adolf Hitler himself. Not many people realize this but when Nazism first started it was considered a Christian movement coming from the Lutheran Church. The Nazi party tended to get much of their beliefs from the sayings of Martin Luther in his later life. Because in Luther’s later life he did come to write many anti-semantic statements that the Nazi party adopted and went about trying to enforce and in some cases over exaggerating Luther’s original intent. This is when Bonhoeffer's story takes place, at a time when the Nazi party had its greatest influence in the German church and many submitted to their rule out of fear. Bonhoeffer stood up and spoke out against this rising evil. He fought against this terrorist cell and preached the gospel unashamedly. Who was this Dietrich Bonhoeffer? What gave him that kind of courage? As this paper seeks to answer some of these questions it will focus in on his background and some of his more famous works. As we take a look at some basic background information on Dietrich Bonhoeffer we will find that Bonhoeffer and his twin sister, Sabine, were born on February 4, 1906 in Breslau, Germany, which is now part of Poland. Dietrich was one of six children. By the time Dietrich had turned 6 years old, his family had moved to Berlin. Bonhoeffer was taught at the colleges of Tubingen (1923-1924) and Berlin, where he received a doctorate in the year1927 at the early age of only 21. Then after a year as a part of the clergy of a German-speaking church in Spain (1928-1929), Bonhoeffer spent a year in the United States at Union Theological Seminary. And while studying at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1930–1931), Bonhoeffer co-taught a Sunday school class in a black church in Harlem. This particular experience was a powerful lesson to Dietrich on how a discriminated people could go through degrading harassment by practicing a childlike, biblical faith. This experience only seemed reinforce Bonhoeffer in his fight against the Nazi power in Germany. So when many pastors submitted to Hitler’s intervention in church affairs, Bonhoeffer was able to refuse to go along and instead shared in forming the Confessing Church in Germany. In 1935 Bonhoeffer started and led an underground seminary in Finkenwalde. Bonhoeffer early on acknowledged himself alongside the resistance movement against Adolf Hitler, who in 1933 had become the dictator of Germany. “The November 9, 1938 Krystalnacht, which saw the destruction of six hundred German synagogues, the looting of seventy-five hundred shops, and the arrest of thirty-five thousand Jews, led Bonhoeffer and other conspirators to intensify their efforts against Hitler. Bonhoeffer was taken into custody in April 1943 and hung in 1944, shortly after a failed assassination attempt on
Hitler.”
The Cost of Discipleship
Bonhoeffer's by far most well-known book is The Cost of Discipleship, which was published in 1939. The Cost of Discipleship was written in 4 parts: Grace and Discipleship, The Sermon on the Mount, The Messengers, and The Church of Jesus Christ and the Life of Discipleship. In the first section of the book Bonhoeffer's major concern for the Christians at this time was that Christians were settling for cheap grace. Cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer put it is grace that has become so dampened that it no longer looks like the grace of the New Testament. The phrase cheap grace, Bonhoeffer is referring to is the grace which has brought chaos and destruction; it is the “intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission” without a real transformation in the sinner's life. It is “the justification of the sin without the justification of the sinner”. Bonhoeffer says “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, and grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.” According to Bonhoeffer, cheap grace will end up costing the Christian church more dearly in fact he goes on to say “The price we are having to pay to-day in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available all at too low a cost.”, but true grace will cost a Christian everything. The same grace that Christ sacrificed His life for. Cheap grace came about because man wanted to be saved but had no desire to become a disciple. Then the church with its rules and of social codes somehow became a replacement for Jesus, and that in fact cheapens and weakens the meaning of discipleship. A true Christian must resist cheap grace, resist the allure of a luxurious and easy belief system and get up out of the church pew and go claim the mission that Jesus has for all of us. Having “faith does not entail sitting still and waiting; they must rise and follow Him.
Discipleship, for Bonhoeffer, “is not an offer man makes to Christ”, but instead calls for absolute obedience to Him and His commandments. It is also a strict obedience to Christ as the object of our faith. “For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.” Bonhoeffer discusses this focused obedience with the call of Levi and Peter as examples of what a true believer's proper response to the call of Christ and the Gospel. The only prerequisite these men needed was that in each case they were called to rely on Christ's word, and to hold on to that with greater security than all the securities in the world. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this book he challenged all Christians to find God’s will for their lives today and to figure out what God is calling them to do. Bonhoeffer showed his readers that costly grace was the only way to truly live your life. By giving your entire life to the Lord’s calling you can truly experience grace. Bonhoeffer pleads in this book for Christians to not settle for an ordinary life. What if Levi or Peter had stayed in their boats? It is true that Levi and Peter could have “remained in obscurity, pursuing their work as the quiet in the land, observing the law and waiting for the Messiah.” If they had and if Christians today remain in the boat or the church pew then Christians will never experience costly grace. The whole reason why Bonhoeffer wrote this book was to educate Christians on how to be true disciples of Christ.
The second section of the book and last section that will be covered in this paper is the section the covers the Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer’s explanation of the Sermon on the Mount is another crucial part of The Cost of Discipleship. Here, Bonhoeffer places a special emphasis on the beatitudes for understanding Christ. It is here that the disciples are called blessed for an extraordinary list of qualities.
The poor in spirit “have no security, no possessions to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance.” This was the case for many of the disciples in every part of their lives. They literally had nothing and clung to nothing except Christ. So Bonhoeffer is saying that Christians should also live likewise as if they had nothing and wholly depended on Christ to fulfill even their most basic needs. Bonhoeffer says that the meek area “community of strangers possesses no inherent right of its own to protect its members in the world, nor do they claim such rights, for they are meek, they renounce every right of their own and live for the sake of Jesus Christ.” So these meek people will hold their tongue and keep their peace, they will not seek revenge for wrongdoings, they will not make a scene when someone openly disrespects them because they are determined to leave the judgments up to God and God alone. Just like all Christians should be meek in all their actions and surrender all their rights to God even their rights to defend themselves and trust that God will protect and provide for them.
The merciful have “renounced their own dignity” and have given up all power and possessions have become devoted to others. “As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation and sin of others.” They help the needy, the sick, the outcasts, and the wronged. The peacemakers detest violence that is often used to solve problems.
Then there are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake and are willing to suffer for the just cause. Bonhoeffer says that “the world will be offended at them, and so the disciples will be persecuted for righteousness’s sake. Not recognition, but rejection.” These will receive a great reward in heaven and be like the prophets who also suffered for their faith.
Bonhoeffer's Ethics
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote Ethics between 1940-1943 and was just planned to be lectures originally. Ethics is often thought of to be Bonhoeffer’s most insightful work and is widely thought to be his major theological influence. Dietrich believed that Christian aethics must be reflected in reference to the Christian whose only wish is to be completely submissive to God, and not in reference with the person who is only concerned with a self-promoting philosophy. In his chapter Conformation, Bonhoeffer speaks against “Christian prommes and the thoughtless and superficial slogan of what is called practical Christianity.” Bonhoeffer states that the word ‘formation’ must be taken at a different angle then what was accustomed. He even says “the Holy Scriptures speak of formation in a sense that is entirely unfamiliar to us.” Whenever the Scriptures talk about formation or the forming of the world they are not concerned with plans and programs Christ. True formation can really on come from this form. “ But here again it is not a question of applying directly to the world the teaching of Christ or what are referred to as Christian principles, so that the world might be formed in accordance with these.” On the contrary this formation can only be accomplished by being drawn into the form of Jesus Christ. “As confirmation with the unique form of Him who was made man, was crucified, and rose again.”
The reason Bonhoeffer’s Ethics is so valuable is not because it solved all the questions that were facing the church at the time but rather Bonhoeffer acknowledged the fact that life is complicated and you cannot answer every question. Because with every answer there will only be more questions. No matter what though people will still strive to control everything and Bonhoeffer simply reminds us that any and all systems outside the will and Word of God is doomed to fail. As troubling as Bonhoeffer's Ethics may be, it is a bracing call to the current church to repent and return to a life of prayer which was the traditional mark of the early church.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Correspondence
This paper’s last reflection on the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged in 1945 for his part in an assassination attempt on Hitler, will focus on his Letters and Papers from Prison begun in 1942. These letters show some of Bonhoeffer’s best and most insightful works, as well as troubling observations concerning the church in the turbulent middle years of the twentieth century.
In viewing the terrors of war, Bonhoeffer reminds us that what we hate about is usually found in ourselves. This warning against contempt for humanity is very important in light of other authors of the time whose hatred for the war eventually disheartened them with all of humanity. The difference of opinion between some of these authors and many others and Bonhoeffer’s is a direct result of his personal relationship with Christ. The conclusions of some of the other authors were the pessimistic observations of those who had seen the absolute worse in humanity and left the war without a final hope or any hope to be completely honest.
Bonhoeffer faced death on a daily basis for years and came to some bold conclusions concerning how believers might bare themselves facing their own mortality. He believed that
Christians could live the miracle of life by facing death daily; where life could actually be seen as the gift of God that it is. Basically take every day realizing it could be your last and live it to the fullest and the only way to live life to the fullest is by living your life for God. It is we ourselves, and not our outward circumstances, who make death potentially positive. Death can be something voluntarily accepted.
Final Analysis of Bonhoeffer Before the movies like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Bonhoeffer testified on the violence of war. His letters detail the horrors of what life was like in the prison camps, and it is easy to see from his letters and his account that every day he fully expected to die. Every day was filled with pain, misery, sorrow, and death. Bonhoeffer was able to accurately describe for us what life was like in those prison camps. But what makes these letters so much more prevalent than the movie adaptations is that Bonhoeffer’s letters are unquestionably the account of someone who sees the war through a Christian perspective. He was able to look past all the pain and suffering and he had hope because he knew what awaited him after death. So he was able to face all these trials with courage and he was able to be a witness in a very dark place. Bonhoeffer was able to empathize and even encourage other Christians going through the same horrors at that time. Bonhoeffer was able to go through all the horrors and all the terrors of his imprisonment with a hopeful heart. He was able to bring hope to many who in what they thought a hopeless situation. His witness in that prison camp undoubtedly encouraged countless others who had long given up on hope. And his words continue to encourage Christians today in these trying times.
Bonhoeffer's significance is impossible to completely and accurately put into words, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer is undoubtedly one of the most influential Christian martyrs of this century. At his time he stood up against someone who was almost the epitome of evil and spoke out against that evil with the truth even knowing that he doing so would surely cost him his life. Bonhoeffer lived what he preached and he died for his faith. There may have been countless martyrs in this century, but there are very few who so vividly and so accurately recorded the circumstances that lead to their martyrdom with both theological wisdom and a vision for future posterity. And because of Bonhoeffer’s accurate account of all the trials he himself faced and yet still bore the witness of Christ proudly we as Christians today can be encouraged by his example and not accept cheap grace, but instead embrace our costly grace with our whole lives. As we are in fact commanded to do anyways. Christ gave His life for us how can we as Christians, who are supposed to be following His example, give anything less than all of our selves. As Christians today we must break out of the trap that is accepting cheap grace and continue to just go through the motions of church. As the Church of Jesus we must take up the mission He gave us and be ready to live for Him and be willing and ready to accept the price of a costly grace.

Selected Bibliography

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (New York: Macmillan, 1960)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, trans. Neville Horton Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1965)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethage, trans. Rehinald Fuller and others, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1967).
Kalland, L. A. (1992). Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. In (J. D. Douglas & P. W. Comfort, Eds.)
Who’s Who in Christian history. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.
William Kuhns, In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, Image Books, 1969)

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[ 1 ]. L. A. Kalland, (1992). Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. In (J. D. Douglas & P. W. Comfort, Eds.)Who’s Who in Christian history. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House
[ 2 ]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 35
[ 3 ]. Ibid.
[ 4 ]. Ibid. 36
[ 5 ]. Ibid. 45
[ 6 ]. Ibid. 53
[ 7 ]. Ibid. 54
[ 8 ]. Ibid. 54
[ 9 ]. Ibid. 53
[ 10 ]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 96
[ 11 ]. Ibid. 99
[ 12 ]. Ibid. 100
[ 13 ]. Ibid. 100
[ 14 ]. Ibid. 102
[ 15 ]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, ( New York: Macmillan Company, 1955), 17
[ 16 ]. Ibid., 18.
[ 17 ]. Ibid.
[ 18 ]. Ibid.
[ 19 ]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethage, trans. Rehinald Fuller and others, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1967).