Sublime

The intellectual underpinnings of Bonhoeffer’s convictions on life in a Christian faith community can be traced to his early works Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, which undergirded his interpretation of the church as a primary form of God’s self-revelation.

Did you get the one with the two poems? It was just sent off that evening, and it also contained a few introductory remarks on our theological theme. The poem about Christians and pagans contains an idea that you will recognize: ‘Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving’; that is what distinguishes Christians from pagans. Jesus asked in Geth

God wants us to trust Him with abandon. He wants to show us how He works and cares for us. He wants to be our refuge.

Pastor Barth recognized this more than anyone else. He saw clearly that nineteenth-century dogmatics had conceded too much ground to the closed-world structures of the immanent frame. This immanence, and the unthought reduction that God cannot move and speak in history, kept the church from obedience.

It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of the other is completely tied to the truth found in Christ.

The imprisoned, the sick, the lonely who live in the diaspora, the proclaimers of the gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible community is grace.

Deuteronomy: