Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis

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“Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.” These are words Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke to his brother a few months before he began training future pastors in the ways of discipleship. For several years he had been speaking out against war. Near the beginning of the anti-Semitic Nazi regime, he called on his fellow Christians to speak out against a state that was engaging in oppressive measures, to respond to victims of oppression, and to be willing to suffer, as a church, if it was required to stop such oppression. His vision for training disciples was rooted in pure doctrine, serious worship, a new kind of monasticism, and the Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer was convinced that through the living presence of Jesus and the explosive teachings of the Sermon on the Mount “lies the force that can blow all this hocus-pocus sky-high—like fireworks, leaving only a few burnt-out shells behind.” This is the legacy of this extraordinary theologian that this book seeks to recover—exploring how this was lived out in a world full of Nazis.