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Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 2114
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 7:35 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just wanted to share with you that if Dietrich Boenhoffer was still alive he'd be turning 100 years old this week. I have been reading some of his writings and find it all interesting.
Riverfonz
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Username: Riverfonz

Post Number: 1279
Registered: 3-2005
Posted on Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 8:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Happy Birthday Mr. Bonhoeffer! He was truly a great author, and he gave his life in the service of the Lord.

One of his classic comments regarding American religion was this "It is Protestantism without the Reformation". his concern was that American evangelicalism had forgotten what the Reformation was really about. It was supposed to be a total separation from Rome, but, instead, history has shown that American evangelicalism has sold out to Rome in many cases. And even though SDAs have been so anti-Rome over Sunday, yet their works-salvation (and lots of other churches)show that they are very similar to Rome. That is what Bonhoffer spoke about.

He was also outspoken against the concept of "cheap grace", the idea that is popular today, that you can just come forward at an evangelistic meeting and then know you are saved, but then there is no evidence whatsoever of salvation in the life with no evidence of repentance, in essence you have your "fire insurance", but then you live your life like nothing happened. That is not Biblical salvation according to Bonhoffer.
Thanks Susan for reminding of us of this great servant of God.

Stan
Jeremy
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Username: Jeremy

Post Number: 1045
Registered: 10-2004


Posted on Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 9:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't have a very high opinion of Bonhoeffer, after learning about his anti-Christian theology.

Here are some blasphemous quotes of his:


quote:

"God is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who makes us live in the world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way in which he can be with us and help us. Matthew 8:17 makes it crystal clear that it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and his suffering...only a suffering God can help."

--link





quote:

"So if we speak of Jesus Christ as God, we may not speak of him as the representative of an idea of God who possesses the properties of omniscience and omnipotence (there is no such thing as this abstract divine nature!)" (Christ the Center, p. 108).

"Strictly speaking, we should really talk, not about the Incarnation, but only about the Incarnate One. An interest in the incarnation raises the question 'How?' The question 'How?' thus underlies the hypothesis of the Virgin Birth. It is both historically and dogmatically questionable. The biblical evidence for it is uncertain" (Christ the Center, p. 109).

"The assertion of the sinlessness of Jesus fails if it has in mind observable acts of Jesus. His deeds are done in the likeness of flesh. They are not sinless, but ambiguous. One can and should see good and bad in them" (Christ the Center, p. 113).

"This is and remains a last stumbling block which the person who believes in Christ must accept in one way or the other. Empty or not empty, it remains a stumbling block. We are not sure of its historicity. The Bible itself reveals the stumbling block in showing how hard it was to prove that the disciples had not perhaps stolen the body. Even here we cannot evade the realm of ambiguity" (Christ the Center, p. 117).

--http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/bonhoeffer-rejectedchrist.html




Jeremy
Riverfonz
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Username: Riverfonz

Post Number: 1283
Registered: 3-2005
Posted on Friday, February 03, 2006 - 12:04 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jeremy,
I do know that there were problems with his theology. However, I do know he was respected highly, but I will have to check out source and the context of those quotes.

Stan
Riverfonz
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Username: Riverfonz

Post Number: 1284
Registered: 3-2005
Posted on Friday, February 03, 2006 - 12:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jeremy,
Those are very troubling quotes. Before I posted, I did know that there were some problems with his theology, but I didn't know that they were as bad as the quotes above. I do know that he was put to death by Hitler for protecting Jews. I thought also he was a highly respected Lutheran. I know he is respected by Lutheran theologians. But I am taken back by those quotes.

Stan
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 3339
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Friday, February 03, 2006 - 2:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

His quotes sound much like the more liberal discussions I've heard in the past at LLU Church. I have read some of his works, and years ago I found then provocative and interesting. The more I see God's sovereignty emerging from Scripture, however, the more I find myself at odds with some of Bonhoeffer's statements.

I'm not prepared to call him a heretic. I do think, however, that he developed a personal theology that allowed for some fair levels of rationalization in his own life. I believe God used himóand that God uses whomever He wills, even people who do not believe in Him (think Pharaoh and Cyrus). God only knows whether or not Bonhoeffer placed his trust solely in Jesus.

Colleen

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