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Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.

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
Happens
Cannot
Serve
Power
Taking
Without
Happen
Mean
Responsibility
Means
Action
Political

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Only the believer obeys — obedience follows faith, the way good fruit comes from a good tree. Only the obedient believe.
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Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love.
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The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
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The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.
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Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.
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In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.
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It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together.
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After he has been following Christ for a long time, the disciple of Jesus will be asked, Lacked ye anything? and he will answer Nothing, Lord. How could he when he knows that despite hunger and nakedness, persecution and danger, the Lord is always at his side?
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We are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one event to the next in order not to have to spend a moment alone with ourselves, in order not to have to look at ourselves in the mirror.
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Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.
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In Jesus, the service of God and the service of the least of the brethren were one.
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If Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? If he is not true man, how could he help us?
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Politics are not the task of a Christian.
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The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all worry, and anxiety flee before him.
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We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
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When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
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Man has learned to cope with all questions of importance without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.
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It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.
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One who loves his community destroys community one who loves its members builds community.
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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.
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