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So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
Going
Desire
Always
Making
People
Difficult
Uncomfortable
Feelings
Genuine
Home
Hear
Back
Feeling
Come
Church
Many
Jesus

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Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the Christian church. With its recovery will come unexpected power.
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When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself - a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man,...and throws himself into the arms of God...then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.
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Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.
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A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self.
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Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.
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Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.
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Jesus' commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.
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The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.
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Right speech comes out of silence and right silence comes out of speech.
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Wherever it pleases God to put man in this world, the Christian must be ready for martyrdom and death. It is only in this way that man learns faith.
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While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
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Wherever there are sinners, the weak, the sorrowful, the poor in the world, that is where God goes.
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The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the sermon on the mount. I believe the time has come to gather people together to do this.
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The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.
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Certainly one must try everything, but only to become more certain what God's way is.
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Every call of Christ leads into death.
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There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.
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It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
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As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer