Bonhoeffer

Question 1

What is secular pacifism?

Answer 1

a false non-religious belief that society can be non-violent

Question 2

What is tyrannicide?

Answer 2

the deliberate killing of a tyrant for the common good

Question 3

What is the barmen declaration?

Answer 3

• 1934
• set out the basic belief og the confessing church in opposition to the German christian movement who supported nazism
• composed by Barth

Question 4

What is religionless christianity?

Answer 4

describes christianity without the baggage of the past and contamination by the ideological beliefs of the present

Question 5

Why do christians have a duty to obey the state?

Answer 5

1. spiritual kingdom of christ is governed by the church
2. political kingdom is governed by the state

Question 6

What does St Paul say about obeying the state?

Answer 6

‘let every person be subject to the governing authorities…those authorities that exist have been instituted by God’

Question 7

What is Christians responsibility to the state according to Bonhoeffer?

Answer 7

to ensure that the state acts in accordance with God’s will

Question 8

For Bonhoeffer, what is more impostant; duty to the state or duty to God

Answer 8

duty to God - the church is more important than the state

Question 9

Cost of discipleship

Ethics in action

Answer 9

• Barth thought that we do not know God, but God reveals himself to us
• Bonhoeffer agreed but thought Barth hadn’t gone far enough - he though there was a danger in thinking only God acts in the world as it makes humans passive
• ethical decisions are always ones of conflict and action

Question 10

Cost of discipleship

Costly grace

Answer 10

• for christianity to be authentic it has to be based on 3 fundamentals; scripture, faith, and Christ, anything else is human intervention
• cheap grace is refering to the idea that God’s grace cannot be thought
• costly graceis costly because it costs a man his life, and grave because it gives a man the only true life

Question 11

Cost of discipleship

Sacrifice and suffering

Answer 11

• suffering is christianity sharing in Jesus’ pain of crucifixtion
• it isn’t a tragedy, but essential to christian life
• theology of crisis - human sin can only be overcome by God’s judgement, gace and christs redemption

Question 12

Cost of discipleship

Solidarity

Answer 12

• Bonhoeffer described Jesus as a ‘man for others’
• Church - body of christ
• church - for others
• the church should ‘not just bandage the victims under the wheel but put a spoke in the wheel itself’

Question 13

How was the confessing church started?

Answer 13

• started as a reaction against the Nazi’s in 1934
• they were agsint the civil oath that German’s took to Hitler

Question 14

What did the confessing church set up?

Answer 14

Fikenwalde

Question 15

What was Fikenwalde set up to do?

Answer 15

train ministers/pastors for the Confessing Church

Question 16

What are the five central practices of Fikenwalde?

Answer 16

1. discipline
2. meditation
3. bible
4. brotherhood
5. community for others