Saturday, April 11, 2009

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A New Monasticism



Bonhoeffer's Vision of a New Monasticism

'...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...'
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 

Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935. (Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community).

Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace."
 

“The expansion of Christianity and the increasing secularization of the church caused the awareness of costly grace to be gradually lost…. But the Roman church did keep a remnant of that original awareness. It was decisive that monasticism did not separate from the church and that the church had the good sense to tolerate monasticism. Here, on the boundary of the church, was the place where the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship was preserved…. Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.”
 

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship, p.46)



see living Water thumb nail life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No comments: