Sabbath Study of Deitrich Bonhoeffer

I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at taking Sabbath rest during the winter months. When it's nice/warm outside it is easy to fish, or play outside, or ride the Harley or whatever. When it's cold, I would much rather work. :-)

So, I have not taken much Sabbath rest the last few months. I am not proud of that reality. Wednesdays are Sabbath for the pastors at newhope. Instead of resting/playing, I spent the morning inside studying, corresponding, and thinking through the remainder of Unleash the Dream. If you are a newhoper, the Vision Video is coming to you in the mail the first of next week!

I decided to study one of my heroes in the faith today, namely Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Here are some interesting nuggets I gleaned and thought you might enjoy:

• He was 21 years of age when he finished his doctoral dissertation. He was an excellent scholar.
• He once said, "The church is the presence of Christ as Christ is the presence of God!" I like that - kind of sounds like "The church is the HOPE of the world!"
  
• Interestingly enough, Bonhoeffer did not grow up in the church. Through a friendship with the only African American at Union Theological Seminary, he was exposed to the black church and finally came to see the place/role of church in the life of the believer. His first experience of the church allowed him to see the church as a socially and politically engaged redemptive agent in the world for the cause of Christ.
• During this time, the roaring twenties were over and the world was descending into a major depression. It was during this time that Bonhoeffer attended Union Theological Seminary in NY.
  
• He studied under Reinhold Niebuhr, the father of social ethics. Bonhoeffer didn't like Niebuhr. His found any sense of a Christo-centric gospel horribly missing.
• Early in his twenties, Bonhoeffer came to a personal conviction/epiphany that the Sermon on the Mount was actually supposed to be lived out and not, as some suggested, just there to show us how sinful we are.
  
• In 1933, Hitler became Chancellor or of Germany. Two days later, at the age of 27, Bonhoeffer spoke on the radio and openly criticized Hitler. Before he even finished his speech, he was cut off the radio.
  
• Hitler started to gain popularity in the churches (I know - hard to believe) while Bonhoeffer taught theology in Berlin. Hitler taught salvation came through himself and Bonhoeffer taught that salvation came through Christ and Christ alone!
• He was the first evangelical to make a statement that basically said we can't let Hitler continue. According to Bonhoeffer, believers had a mandate from Christ and simply had to do something when confronting injustice.
  
• Bonhoeffer studied under Gandhi's tutelage and teachings of non-violent resistance.
• Under Karl Barth the Confessing Church broke away by confessing Christ and Christ alone.
• Before long, Bonhoeffer and others were calling the church to not only preach the Gospel of Christ but to stand in solidarity with the victims of injustice.
  
• The Sermon on the Mount kept haunting him day and night. So much so that he was convinced we should actually strive to live it out fully.
  
• It is not stated, but I see a direct connection between Bonhoeffer's experience in the Black Church as a young man, and his willingness to stand up to Hitler. That is, he had clearly seen oppression up close in the black church and as such, felt for the Jewish people and believed the church could and should stand up against Hitler.
  
• He wrote a lot about the notion of cheap grace as opposed to costly grace. Cheap grace is grace without the cross. Costly grace is grace with the gospel. Grace can NOT be cheap because it cost God everything.
  
• He only had one notation in his bible, found in Psalm 74. You can read it here. It's fascinating to read this chapter in light of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and how that related to the Hitler's destruction of the Jewish people.
  
• In the summer of 1939, Karl Barth was expelled from Germany and hundreds of clergy were imprisoned for resisting and standing up for Christ and against Hitler.
  
• Upon returning to NY, he felt convicted that he had fled from the place he was needed the most, namely Germany. He willingly chose to go back and be used by God. And so, he took the last ship back to Europe before the War. In 1939, Germany attached and WW II began. Bonhoeffer became the moral backbone of the German resistance to Hitler.
  
• In May 1940, France surrendered. Hitler returned to one of the largest celebrations in Berlin of all time. He was riding high, despite underground resistance.
  
• Bonhoeffer was incarcerated for his role to stop Hitler. He befriended several prison guards and they helped him correspond with family and friends.
  
• He was interrogated and tortured in ways we can't even imagine. He was NOT afraid of death but he openly shared his fear of the interrogation methods.
  
• According to this saint, "The true church is the church only when it exists for others." (Bonhoeffer in a book he was writing in prison)
• In one final attempt, the underground resistance movement slipped a bomb into a meeting and detonated it in attempt to kill Hitler. It only wounded him but killed others. Hitler vowed to kill everyone connected with the conspiracy and this was the beginning of the end for Bonhoeffer.
  
• By April 1945, Berlin was in total ruin. The order was given to kill the remaining members of the German resistance, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was called in to court and he offered no defense. He was sentenced to death on April 8, 1945.
  
• During the dawn hours of April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was marched naked before the people and hanged to death.
  
• The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”