Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Translated by Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss
Introduction by Geffrey B. Kelly
Supplemental Material by Victoria J. Barnett
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works—Reader’s Edition
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Cover image: Portrait of Bonhoeffer by Paul Huet
Cover design: Laurie Ingram
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-0270-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-0271-0
Editor’s Introduction to the Reader’s Edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship
Geffrey B. Kelly
5. Discipleship and the Individual
7. The Messengers (An Interpretation of Matthew 10)
Part II. The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship
11. The Visible Church-Community
The Reader’s Guide to Discipleship in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works: A Guide to Related Texts and Resources
Victoria J. Barnett, General Editor
Editor’s Introduction to the Reader’s Edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship
Geffrey B. Kelly
In 1963, while serving as Spiritual Director of young postulants in the religious congregation of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, I had been going through a period of spiritual dryness. I felt drained of energy, bothered by my own aridity in prayer and meditation and growing lack of enthusiasm for the daily liturgies. The Director of Novices advised me to get another spiritual reading book with the inspiration I needed for my meditation. Following his advice I spied haphazardly a new book on our library shelves, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I opened the book at random to the startling sentence: “Like ravens we have gathered round the carcass of cheap grace. From it we have imbibed the poison which has killed the following of Jesus among us” (p. 19). I felt immediately that I too had been pursuing the “cheap grace” of a religious routine. My entire day was mapped out into periods of prayer, meditation, daily Mass, manual labor, teaching and counseling postulants, and so on.
Reading further, I became fascinated by the awesome demands of the Sermon on the Mount, which through Bonhoeffer’s words seemed addressed directly to me. When I looked beyond the title page, I was shocked to discover that the book was first published in German in 1937 at the height of Hitler’s dictatorship, for it was highly relevant to my own world. I resolved ...
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About Discipleship (Reader’s Edition)“Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” And with that sharp warning to his own church, which was engaged in bitter conflict with the official Nazified state church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began his book Discipleship (formerly entitled The Cost of Discipleship). Originally published in 1937, it soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. At its center stands an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount: what Jesus demanded of his followers—and how the life of discipleship is to be continued in all ages of the post-resurrection church. “Every call of Jesus is a call to death,” Bonhoeffer wrote. His own life ended in martyrdom on April 9, 1945. Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by Geffrey B. Kelly to clarify the theological meaning and social context of this attempt to resist the Nazi ideology. |
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