Today the Church celebrates the life, ministry and witness of a Reformed Lutheran pastor and martyr of the 20th Century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was born in 1906 and he was executed by the Nazis on this day in 1945.
In 1923, he began his theological studies at Tubingen University and studied under such prominent theologians as Adolf von Harnack, Hans Lietzmann, and Reinhold Seeberg. By the age of 25, he was a lecturer in systematic theology at the University of Berlin. He was ordained in 1931.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a leading spokesman for Protestant resistance to the Nazis strongly opposing Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He organized and for a time led the underground seminary.
Bonheoffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship attacks what he calls “cheap grace,” meaning grace used as an excuse for moral laxity. In 1939 his brother-in-law introduced him to a group planning the overthrow of Hitler, and he made significant contributions to their work. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April of 1943 and imprisoned in Berlin. After the failure of the attempt on Hitler’s life in April 1944, he was sent first to Buchenwald and then to Schoenberg Prison. His life was spared, because he had a relative who stood high in the government; but then this relative was himself implicated in anti-Nazi plots. On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came in, saying, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, make ready and come with us,” the standard summons to a condemned prisoner. As he left, he said to another prisoner, “This is the end -- but for me, the beginning -- of life.” He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.
Let us pray: Gracious God, the Beyond in the midst of our life, who gave grace to your servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer to know and teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and to bear the cost of following him: Grant that we, strengthened by his teaching and example, may receive your word and embrace its call with an undivided heart; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
CALENDAR REMINDERS
Lenten Series, Nic at Night continues this Wednesday at Grace starting with Stations and the Eucharist at 6 PM. Our speaker will be the Very Rev. Dr. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge. She is the eighth dean and president at Seminary of the Southwest and professor of New Testament. Dr. Kittredge holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard Divinity School where she earned a Th.D. in 1996. She was ordained priest in 1985 and is canonically resident in the Diocese of Texas. She has served as assisting clergy at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd since 1999. Dr. Kittredge is author of Community and Authority: The Rhetoric of Obedience in the Pauline Tradition and Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of John. She co-edited Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza with Shelly Matthews and Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre. Dean Kittredge represented the Episcopal Church on the Theological Education in the Anglican Communion Steering Committee from 2009-2012. She served as president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars from 2008-2012 and on the board of Evangelical Education Society from 2005-2013. In her teaching she gives students the exegetical and interpretive tools both to appreciate and to critically engage with the Biblical texts for theological reflection. Her research specialty is biblical interpretation and the letters of Paul.
Seaside Seniors will meet at 11 AM on 17 April 2014 in Sutton Hall.
Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially those who suffer from addictions.
Your servant in Christ,
The Rev. Chester J. Makowski
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550
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