If you remember, we gave away some free books in the summer. The catch was that they had to read the book and write a book review so that we could post it on the blog. So far, this is our first (but not last!) book review.
My friend Blake received and read “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Here enters Blake.
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I confess I’ve known about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship for a several years, but only recently did I muster the courage (and find the time) to actually read it. I also admit that I have heard some pretty high praise for this book, so in reading it I wondered if its reputation would outweigh its content and prove to be hyperbole (it turns out this is not the case). I should note, too, that my reading of this book came because of an email from my friend Touger Thao. Touger was clearing some room off his bookshelf and offered to give away some of his books for free, with the sole condition that each book’s recipient should actually read the book and subsequently write a review of it. So, this is my review. A caveat, however: a book of this weight and influence has, no doubt, been reviewed exhaustively in the fifty years since its publication; as such, I will not attempt to do or say anything new or groundbreaking (nor could I even do so!). Rather, I humbly offer my two cents on a book that is a modern day classic of the Christian faith.
At its heart, The Cost of Discipleship is about what it means to be a Christian. According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to be a Christian is to follow Jesus Christ, the Jesus of Scripture. This process of following Jesus is called discipleship. Bonhoeffer writes, “And what does the text inform us about the content of discipleship? Follow me, run along behind me! That is all.”
For Bonhoeffer, the call to be a Christian is the call to follow Jesus. It is a simple – and as difficult –as that. And it is the person of Jesus that keeps Christians grounded in the reality of this world, since discipleship means forming yourself into the likeness of a person and trying to live as he lived and do as he did. In this way, Christians must have an understanding of Jesus as somehow still being here,alive and with us, and not a mere historical figure. Indeed, Christians must acknowledge Jesus’ veryown divinity as the son of God. Bonhoeffer writes, “Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is inevitably Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God but omits Christ as the living Son.”
Furthermore, if one acknowledges Christ as the living Son, one must acknowledge Christ’s authority and power as God… and thus one must be humbled before him. For how can you follow someone without submitting to their will, to their authority? In this way, a person must be called to discipleship. “No mancan choose such a life for himself,” writes Bonhoeffer. “No man can call himself to such a destiny.”
At this point I would do well to mention Bonhoeffer’s famous words on grace. Here Bonhoeffer takes the Christian doctrine of grace – the outpouring of God’s unconditional love for wayward humanity –and draws a distinction between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” He writes, “Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure the remission of sins.” It is “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without
confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
By contrast, costly grace is “the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock… Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son… and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered himself up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
Note Bonhoeffer’s use of verbs. Cheap grace is stagnant, the mere paying of lip service to Christ and his teachings while remaining comfortably in place. Costly grace is getting up out of your chair and following Jesus.
It is also important to note the historical context of Bonhoeffer’s writing. As a German Christian during both World Wars, Bonhoeffer had seen Hitler’s rise to power and the acquiescence of Christian brothers and sisters to a reign of fear and despotism. Fearing a deluge of “cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer helped form the “Confessing Church” in Germany and sought to remind Christians of their call to follow Jesus – evenif it meant treason and death.
Having this in mind puts a different perspective on Bonhoeffer’s words on grace. The call of discipleship was, for him, both urgent and, yes costly. On a theological level it was costly because following Jesus means following the crucified one. On a practical level it was costly because Bonhoeffer’s writings,teachings, and anti-Nazi effort led to his being hanged for treason.
In writing this, Bonhoeffer’s own words come to mind: “Jesus as Christ is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord’s suffering and rejection and crucifixion.” For Bonhoeffer, the cross of Christ is crucial. It is central. He exhorts readers to “abandon the attachments of the world” and submit fully to the Calvary Road, for this is the road Jesus walked. As he famously writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
I have wrestled a lot with this concept of martyrdom. Bonhoeffer doesn’t supply the “normal” answerregarding the basis of martyrdom – that martyrs will only find their reward in heaven – but rather he asserts that glorification, that joy, comes even in the midst of suffering. He posits that “sufferingis overcome by suffering” because Jesus himself suffered, and thus suffering “becomes the way to communion with God.” I expected Bonhoeffer to write more about suffering as a means to an end (that is, to explain more fully this idea of “communion with God”), as well as for some practical examples of what this costs might look like. But on both accounts he came up surprisingly short. Indeed, part ofBonhoeffer’s mystery, at least in this book, is that he does not elucidate a formula for discipleship but rather leaves us with the simple exhortation to “follow Jesus.” This will look different for every disciple of Christ. And I think this is part of Bonhoeffer’s continued appeal and relevance. In an age where prosperity theology runs rampant and Christian how-to books line the shelves, Bonhoeffer’s words are a clear call from the not-to-distant past reminding us first and foremost what it means to be a Christian: follow Jesus.
