Should the church be trying to erect a spiritual reign of terror over people by threatening earthly and eternal punishment on its own authority and c… - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Should the church be trying to erect a spiritual reign of terror over people by threatening earthly and eternal punishment on its own authority and commanding everything a person must believe and do to be saved? Should the church's word bring new tyranny and violent abuse to human souls? It may be that some people yearn for such servitude. But could the church ever serve such a longing? When holy scripture speaks of following Jesus, it proclaims that people are free from all human rules, from everything which presumes, burdens, or causes worry and torment of conscience. In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. … Jesus' commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.

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About Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and founding member of the Confessing Church.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoefer Dieter Bonhoeffer D. Bonhoeffer D. Bonhoefer Bonhoefer Dietrich BONHOEFFER Dietrich Bonhoffer Dietrich Bonhöffer Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoefer, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Dietrich Bonhöffer, Dietrich

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Additional quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross. It is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus' death.

At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception.

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