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The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.

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
Belong
Obligation
Victim
Community
Church
Society
Ordering
Christian
Unconditional
Even
Victims

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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A person who loves community tends to destroy it. But a person who loves people creates community wherever he goes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The church ... is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Only the suffering God can help.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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A righteous person is one who lives for the next generation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Cheap grace is the idea that grace did it all for me so I do not need to change my lifestyle. The believer who accepts the idea of cheap grace thinks he can continue to live like the rest of the world. Instead of following Christ in a radical way, the Christian lost in cheap grace thinks he can simply enjoy the consolations of his grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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If any want to become my followers, Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him. ... If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves ... and take up their cross.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer