Abstract
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian who lived from 1906 to 1945. In one of his most famous and provocative books, The Cost of Discipleship, which he first published in 1937, Bonhoeffer had opposed what he called “cheap grace.”1 The idea of salvation through faith as a result of God’s grace was a hallmark of Martin Luther’s thought and is fundamental to Protestant theology.2 Bonhoeffer feared, however, that theologians had substituted faith in a doctrine for faith in Christ. As he defined it, cheap grace was grace that did not require individuals to follow the Savior whom they had claimed to serve. Bonhoeffer had written that, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”3 Although he was largely speaking metaphorically,4 his words were not merely academic. They were indeed prophetic of his own martyrdom at the end of the German Nazi regime.
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© 2014 Philip Edward Phillips
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Vile, J.R. (2014). Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Phillips, P.E. (eds) Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428684_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428684_9
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