W: LP: GRP: DB: The Cost of Discipleship, part 2

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

UPDATE: Finished this book going into the Christmas season, so no time at the moment to write more. There is so much profundity in this book that I will be re-reading it in 2012. At that point I will have more to write (possibly).:)

I am about one third the way through this book and I am finding this to be an excellent exegesis of biblical text as it relates to the topic of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. My only objection to anything in this book is the author's incorrect characterization of Reformed theology. I quote below a passage from the exegesis of the beatitudes that otherwise makes a good point (and afterword I will quote another misrepresentation of Reformed theology):

'Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.'
This community of strangers possesses no inherent right of its own to protect its members in the world, nor do they claim such rights, for they are meek, they renounce every right of their own and live for the sake of Jesus Christ. When reproached, they hold their peace; when treated with violence they endure it patiently; when men drive them from their presence, they yield their ground. They will not got to law to defend their rights, or make a scene when they suffer injustice, nor do they insist on their legal right. They are determined to leave their rights to God alone--non cupidi vindictae, as the ancient Church paraphrased it. Their right is in the will of their Lord--that and no more. They show by every word and gesture that they do not belong to this earth. Leave heaven to them, says the world in its pity, that is where they belong.(1) But Jesus says: 'They shall inherit the earth.' To these, the powerless and the disenfranchised, the very earth belongs. Those who now possess it by violence and injustice shall lose it, and those who here have utterly renounced it, who were meek to the point of the cross, shall rule the new earth. We must not interpret this as a reference to God's exercise of juridicial punishment within the world, as Calvin did: what it means is that when the kingdom of heaven descends, the face of the earth will be renewed, and it will belong to the flock of Jesus. God does not forsake the earth: he made it, he sent his Son to it, and on it he built his Church. Thus a beginning has already been made in this present age. A sign has been given. The powerless have here and now received a plot of earth, for they have the Church and its fellowship, its goods, its brothers and sisters, in the midst of persecutions even to the length of the cross. The renewal of the earth begins at Golgotha, where the meek One died, and from thence it will spread. When the kingdom finally comes, the meek shall possess the earth.

And in the following chapter about the visible community you have this piece:

The bushel may be the fear of men, or perhaps deliberate conformity to the world for some ulterior motive, a missionary purpose for example, or a sentimental humanitarianism. But the motive may be more sinister than that; it may be 'Reformation theology' which boldly claims the name of theologia crucis, and pretends to prefer to Pharisaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world. When that happens, the hall-mark of the Church becomes justitia civilis instead of extraordinary visibility. The very failure of the light to shine becomes the touchstone of our Christianity. But Jesus says: 'Let your light so shine before men.' For when all is said and done, it is the light of the call of Jesus Christ which shines here.

In my reading of Reformed theology, I have yet to encounter any of these problems in the theological constructs. I suppose that even the best writers betray their particular theological biases, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer is no exception.