Remembering Bonhoeffer

Posted on 31. Jan, 2012 by in Lutherans

Remembering Bonhoeffer

I’m not exactly sure what inspired this, but I’ve been thinking a lot about Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer lately. What would have been his 106th birthday is coming up this Saturday (February 4, 1906), but I didn’t even realize that until I looked it up. In his famous book Discipleship, he distinguishes between cheap grace, which:

“is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

Whereas costly grace:

“confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ ”

Following Jesus is no easy task, and truly accepting God’s grace can change everything. Bonhoeffer certainly experienced that tension as he stood up to the Nazis during World War II, and was executed because of his faith. Inspired by Bonhoeffer, I give thanks for, and cling to, the costly grace of Christ.

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is Lutheran World Relief’s Social Marketing Manager and an ordained pastor in the ELCA.

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