The title of this post is a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer came from a family of geniuses. His father was a professor of psychiatry and neurology. His brother Karl Friedrich was a professor of physical chemistry and discovered the spin isomers of the hydrogen molecule.

In college Dietrich was known for disagreeing with his professors, most of whom didn’t accept the Bible as revelation from God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his family were German citizens but they opposed the Nazis. His brother Klaus was executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler. His brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi was also executed by the Nazis. Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself wrote several books and influenced the Christian faith while he was still in his 20s and 30s. He died at 39 years of age in a Nazi prison camp. He was executed just two weeks before the prisoners in his camp were liberated by the Allied forces.

Bonhoeffer was a pastor, a theologian, and a Nazi dissident who refused to compromise his faith, even when it meant his own death.

He once penned these words:

“One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist; one admires his going to his death, as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn’t do: one doesn’t take him seriously. That is, one doesn’t bring the center of his or her own life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation.

“One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ and allows no serious encounter to take place.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer



Live for Christ.

References:
Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Thomas Nelson, 2010

[Image via Lance Catedral – Creative Commons]