Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Despite Dietrich Bonhoeffer's earlier theological achievements and writings, it was his correspondence and notes from prison that electrified the postwar world six years after his death in 1945. The materials gathered and selected by his friend Eberhard Bethge in Letters and Papers from Prison not only brought Bonhoeffer to a wide and appreciative readership, especially in North America, they also introduced to a broad readership his novel and exciting...

Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a seminal reading of the dichotomy between 'cheap grace' and 'costly grace.' Cheap grace is the grace bestowed on oneself, a grace without discipleship. Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the girl who must be asked for, the door at which a man must know. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life....

Preaching, according to Bonhoeffer, is like offering an apple to child. The gospel is proclaimed, but for it to be received as gift depends on whether or not the hearer is in a position to do so. Offered here are thirty-one of Pastor Bonhoeffer's sermons, in new English translations, which he preached at various times of the year and in a variety of different settings. Each is introduced by Bonhoeffer translator Isabel Best who also provides a brief...