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wcrobi 's review for:
The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
As usual, Bonhoeffer is a wonderfully articulate and accessible author. His prose balances repetition and novelty very well, and his ideas are engaging.
Like many other re-constructed Christians (borrowing Brian Zahnd’s terminology there), I was hesitant to pick up this book for a while. Its popularity with conservative Christians worried me — after having read it, I can understand why, but I also find the irony in the fact that Bonhoeffer would condemn much of the activity of the modern-day (including evangelical church) as political maneuvering.
In terms of his most clear concepts: the distinction between cheap grace and costly grace has become a classic, though it has grown no less powerful by the passage of time. Coming into the season of Lent, it is a hard and necessary truth to be constantly reminded of, that we are bought with a price and must, therefore, not treat our salvation as a mere blank check for apathy towards God and His commands to discipleship.
In addition, Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the immediacy and spontaneity of the call to discipleship in Christ, and the nature of that discipleship through the Beatitudes, wrenched my soul and called me to self-examination in the parts of my life which I am not living in accordance with that spontaneity. (I think particularly of Mark’s Gospel, where immediacy is ever-present).
However, Bonhoeffer’s eschatological position isn’t one I am sympathetic towards. He asserts that “there is only one question of… importance in the Christian life, and that is, how shall we survive the last judgement?” I do not believe that to be true, neither as a true vision of the Law nor of the Gospel. He makes it very clear that our righteousness is imparted, not earned — received, not gained through our own merits. So, I would argue, the principal question of the Christian is not how we may prevent our own destruction, or gain salvation at the last moment, but rather how we may best show love and care toward our neighbor so that they may, too, come to an understanding of the peace of God made flesh.
In so many words, I do not believe that Jesus merely died to save us from Hell — no, I believe that he died so that we may have a means of grace and the blessing of his very presence in our hearts on *this* side of death. I am a Christian not out of a fear of hell, but out of a deep conviction of the world’s need for a Savior, born out of my own need for a Savior. I am not scared of Hell not because I am “saved”, but because there is no fear in Christ, not of principalities nor heights nor depths. There is too much work to do with an obsession over hell as such.
I would recommend this book to any person who has heard of Bonhoeffer, maybe even heard him quoted, but who never got the full sense of the man. Looking more into him was very helpful; and a wonderful start to the Lenten season.
Like many other re-constructed Christians (borrowing Brian Zahnd’s terminology there), I was hesitant to pick up this book for a while. Its popularity with conservative Christians worried me — after having read it, I can understand why, but I also find the irony in the fact that Bonhoeffer would condemn much of the activity of the modern-day (including evangelical church) as political maneuvering.
In terms of his most clear concepts: the distinction between cheap grace and costly grace has become a classic, though it has grown no less powerful by the passage of time. Coming into the season of Lent, it is a hard and necessary truth to be constantly reminded of, that we are bought with a price and must, therefore, not treat our salvation as a mere blank check for apathy towards God and His commands to discipleship.
In addition, Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the immediacy and spontaneity of the call to discipleship in Christ, and the nature of that discipleship through the Beatitudes, wrenched my soul and called me to self-examination in the parts of my life which I am not living in accordance with that spontaneity. (I think particularly of Mark’s Gospel, where immediacy is ever-present).
However, Bonhoeffer’s eschatological position isn’t one I am sympathetic towards. He asserts that “there is only one question of… importance in the Christian life, and that is, how shall we survive the last judgement?” I do not believe that to be true, neither as a true vision of the Law nor of the Gospel. He makes it very clear that our righteousness is imparted, not earned — received, not gained through our own merits. So, I would argue, the principal question of the Christian is not how we may prevent our own destruction, or gain salvation at the last moment, but rather how we may best show love and care toward our neighbor so that they may, too, come to an understanding of the peace of God made flesh.
In so many words, I do not believe that Jesus merely died to save us from Hell — no, I believe that he died so that we may have a means of grace and the blessing of his very presence in our hearts on *this* side of death. I am a Christian not out of a fear of hell, but out of a deep conviction of the world’s need for a Savior, born out of my own need for a Savior. I am not scared of Hell not because I am “saved”, but because there is no fear in Christ, not of principalities nor heights nor depths. There is too much work to do with an obsession over hell as such.
I would recommend this book to any person who has heard of Bonhoeffer, maybe even heard him quoted, but who never got the full sense of the man. Looking more into him was very helpful; and a wonderful start to the Lenten season.