I am fairly locked into the life of Bonhoeffer right now. I am working through a book, Bonhoeffer the Assassin? by Nation, Siegrist, and Umbel. I read Marsh’s biography of Bonhoeffer and recently finished Life Together by Bonhoeffer. We need his example in this day for our cultural Christianity.

It is sobering to realize no one really paid attention to Bonhoeffer and probably any alarms raised now won’t be heeded. That doesn’t mean we don’t write or preach or teach. Or publish, if possible.

Bonhoeffer had been in England for a season before returning to Germany and while there he visited several monasteries, coming to the conclusion that was needed for pastoral training was a monastic model.

Imagine training pastors this way today!

The next generation of pastors, these days, ought to be trained entirely in church-monastic schools, where the pure doctrine, the Sermon on the Mount, and worship are taken seriously… It is also time for a final break with our theologically grounded reserve about whatever is being done by the state — which really only come down to fear…” (p. 59)

High goals. And sobering results. We have to keep this in mind! The Confessing Church folded under Nazi pressure in a matter of a few years… and Bonhoeffer was killed by the age of 39.

(I have to keep this sobering reminder in front of me.)