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This #ashwednesday I'll be reading from Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship in my rural, Midwestern Lutheran Church - ch: Suffering and the Cross.
Many, like @ericmetaxas, want to claim Bonhoeffer for American exceptionalism. He was a theologian of the Cross - not glory. A #thread
Many, like @ericmetaxas, want to claim Bonhoeffer for American exceptionalism. He was a theologian of the Cross - not glory. A #thread
Lent is a great time for pastors and churches across America to reclaim the truth of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. His death was of one rejected and crucified, and his followers are called to the same humility and service, not self-aggrandizement or refusal to apologize.
"the very notion of a suffering Messiah was a scandal to the Church, even in its earliest days. This is not the kind of Lord it wants ..." instructive words from Bonhoeffer for American Evangelicals.
"If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands ...
We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering." - Bonhoeffer
"The law of Christ, which it is our duty to fulfill, is the bearing of the cross. My brother's burden which I must bear is not only his outward lot, his natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally his sin." - Bonhoeffer
"And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share. Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins." - Bonhoeffer
