Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Modern Theologians
Overview
You need to know Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
His life alone unfurls with fascination, to say nothing of his prescient theology. Bonhoeffer left a legacy of not just that of a dutiful Christian acting against evil (by attempting to assassinate his German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler), but one with an eye towards posterity. While his earthly pilgrimage ceased at a too-young 39 years-old, Bonhoeffer’s theological treatises, works, and monographs strongly speak to us still from the grave. What he posited with his idealism he paid for in his blood.
This course will review this Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, and Spy.
You will find Bonhoeffer’s life, works, and message eerily relevant to what the Church is facing today; your courage needs bolstering from such tragic heroes of our faith.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Categories
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Introduction and Life Overview
Why do communists, pacifists, conspirators, liberals, conservatives, Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and even atheists all quote and reference Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and works?! Answer: he lived and thought in a way that appealed to many. This intro and life overview video begins to peel back the multitudinous layers that constitute this chameleon of a man, whose inspiration snowballs as time progresses. Bonhoeffer’s mystique allures.
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Cost of Discipleship
I dare you to find a better commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer’s most renowned work is his Cost of Discipleship. Here, the practical implications of what it means to live out Jesus’s most heralded teaching in the 20th century is unveiled. Bonhoeffer’s warnings to the Western Church in the 1930’s eerily parallel the Church’s predicament now in the 21st century.
“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.
We are fighting today for costly grace.” -Bonhoeffer
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Ethics
No subject has spilled more ink in the catalogues of human history than “ethics”. How should man live in this world? What are his duties and responsibilities to his society, his family, his country, and to his God? Bonhoeffer considered Ethics to be his magnum opus; in it, he outlines how a Christian should act in any given situation, as they best discern the will of God. For Bonhoeffer, the right ethics meant attempting to kill Adolf Hitler.
What will the right ethics mean for you and the specific will God has called you to fulfill during your earthly pilgrimage?
4. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together
Churches and religions speak of “community” all the day long. Yet few practice it in deed, thus it remains idealistic blather. Not so for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His short classic Life Together was birthed from living in a illegal Christian community; the gems this work gives are gargantuan. Both theory and practicalities are melded wonderfully here.
5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Minor Works
Besides the aforementioned trifecta of powerhouses, Bonhoeffer is also know for other works of importance. This video covers his famous Wedding Sermon from a 1943 Prison Cell, Christ the Center lectures, Letters and Papers from Prison, Creation and Fall, and Temptation. These nuggets are no less insightful, but admittedly are less impacting that his major works. These minor works still point to the ingenious depths that Bonhoeffer would plumb on diverse theological subjects.
6. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Impact
Hagiography often transpires when covering heroic saints of Christian past; however, in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I believe we do not revere, read, or venerate the man enough. This concluding video aptly covers his 5 main impacts to us today, his penetrating quotes on salient subjects, and the haunting legacy of a man who spouted radicalness of faith and then sealed such speech with his death.
Instructor
