What do you think?
Rate this book
The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In our current context, given what we are learning about the high cost of failed moral leadership, it is more urgent than ever to seek and study models for the formation of exceptional leaders. Readers who missed Burton Nelson and Geffrey Kelly's groundbreaking, insightful, painstakingly researched, and substantially encouraging study of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer teaches us about moral leadership when it was first published will be copiously rewarded by studying it now. This is a book to read for yourself and recommend to students, congregants, colleagues, and others whom you would like to draw into profound and fruitful meditation on Christian moral leadership.
318 pages, Paperback
First published December 11, 2002
20 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 4, 2020
It is my understanding that Eerdmans is publishing a new edition of this book. My review, written in early 2020, applies to the 2003 edition and does not deal with any changes that might have been made in the new edition.
Although I first heard about Dietrich Bonhoeffer only a few years ago, I have developed a respect for him on account of his early identification of Hitler as a threat and his principled opposition to the mis-rule and atrocities of the NSDAP. Furthermore, militant secularism and other trends in American culture lead me to expect dark days ahead, and I have been looking for possible role models from the past who have stood firm regardless of the cost. There were times in the past where I found myself standing alone. That I managed to endure gives me confidence, but what I faced in the past pales in comparison to what I expect in the future. So, I appreciated the book’s realistic portrayal of Bonhoeffer as a flawed but morally upright human being standing firm against an implacable and ultimately deadly foe.
One point of theology in the book that left me with more questions than answers dealt with being led by the Holy Spirit. I completely agree with Bonhoeffer that the Holy Spirit can and does lead us, but how do we tell if that still small voice inside us is the voice of God or ourselves. An incident that happened only a few months ago brings this question into stark relief for me. Person A felt led by the Spirit that person B needed to do something with the assistance of person C, my wife. My wife (person C), in turn, felt led by the Spirit to inform person A that time and resource constraints made this “need” unwise, that God had provided abundantly for needs in the past but not in the manner on which person A was insisting. I don’t foresee a reconciliation between person A and my wife although I agree with my wife in the matter, not based on the Spirit or even my relationship with her but on purely pragmatic logistical grounds. Two mutually exclusive “led by the Spirit” positions, a rift that is not God-honoring. So, I wish there were an easy way to tell if people are led by the Spirit or by their own egos masquerading as the Spirit.
Another topic in the book that is relevant today is racism, but my take on it may be very different from that of the authors. The racism that Bonhoeffer observed while he was in the U.S. involved Jim Crow laws, segregation and beliefs that non-whites were inferior to whites. Although I am fifty and have gray hair, I was born after the civil rights movement. I never experienced segregation although I was born and raised in the South. Only a few years ago, a black man was a two-term president. Racism still exists but has taken a different form. While there are fringe white supremacist groups, a growing prejudice against whites, more specifically whiteness, has raised its ugly head. One thing that still astounds me is the growing calls by the black community for segregation. Interestingly enough, my wife experienced a form of this in the early 90s while she was a college student (several years before we met). She was a legislative intern and was assigned to a black legislator, a veteran of the lunch counter sit-in movement. Because this legislator could not attend a meeting of the black caucus due to a schedule conflict, she sent my wife, a young white woman, in her place. She wasn’t even allowed into the room. On hearing this, the legislator who had sent her was outraged. She had fought to get those Coloreds Only signs taken down was not about to quietly acquiesce while someone put them back up. In other words, while there is racism in the white community, it doesn’t have a monopoly on it, not even close. Furthermore, there is an effort to redefine racism in such a way that it is confined to the white community. You can get away with a lot when you call it what it’s not. Who has the moral courage to stand up to racism regardless of which ethnic group is spewing it out like a ruptured sewer?
One regret I have regarding Bonhoeffer’s execution is that we don’t necessarily have his post-war views on pacifism. A theologian friend had managed to convert him to pacifism, but some of his later writings, along with his decision to support the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, suggests to me that Nazism may have convinced him to abandon doctrinaire pacifism. A Christian all my life, I have never supported pacifism, in part because I cannot find biblical support for it. Because Saul disobeyed God’s command to wipe out the Amelekites, God had Samuel anoint David, a man after God’s own heart, to be king. David’s first documented act of faith was to go up against the Philistine champion, Goliath, without the protection of armor and armed with only a sling. After killing Goliath, David decapitated him with his own sword and held up the severed head like a trophy to show to all that God had granted him victory. Paul states in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (NASB). I may choose to be at peace, but the other guy gets a vote, too. In Bonhoeffer’s day, Hitler got a vote, as well, and we all know what that was. It also took a lot of bullets, bombs and bloodshed to stop him.
I agree with the authors that the efforts of the U.S. and other western powers to stop Hitler do not justify any of their own subsequent international misdeeds. Some post-war policies and actions were very righteous and noble, and others not so much, although I don’t necessarily agree with the author’s list of ignoble deeds. Consider the First Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm). The authors consider it unjustified, but I disagree. Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in 1980, starting a bloody eight-year war. In 1990, he invaded and conquered Kuwait. For all we knew at the time, he may well have been eyeing Saudi Arabia. If only somebody had stood up to Hitler, World War II might have been avoided. In the face of aggression, we stood up to Saddam Hussein, drove him out of Kuwait and contained his aggression. For the record, I was a crew member of an aircraft carrier with Battle Force Zulu in the Persian Gulf. If you think that makes me biased in the matter, so be it. That said, I was and still am very uncomfortable with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The service members who pulled off the invasion performed absolutely brilliantly, but in my opinion the George W. Bush administration dishonored them with his weak basis for preemptive war.
Related to this is the authors’ characterization of national security as an idol. I understand what they are trying to say but feel compelled to point out that whatever can be an idol can equally not be an idol. Paul, in Col. 3:5, describes greed as idolatry, making wealth into an idol. Interestingly enough, someone being a good steward of wealth will manage money in much the same way as someone who has made wealth into an idol. The difference is not necessarily in what they do but why the do it. In like manner, a person advocating for national security could have made it into an idol, but he could also be motivated by love for his neighbor, both domestic and foreign. Potential attackers generally aren’t stupid. If the projected cost of war is too high, they will choose peace, and peace motivated by deterrence is still preferable than the bloodshed of war.
So, in summary, I enjoyed reading about Bonhoeffer’s moral courage and leadership, but I didn’t always agree with what the authors had to say.
Although I first heard about Dietrich Bonhoeffer only a few years ago, I have developed a respect for him on account of his early identification of Hitler as a threat and his principled opposition to the mis-rule and atrocities of the NSDAP. Furthermore, militant secularism and other trends in American culture lead me to expect dark days ahead, and I have been looking for possible role models from the past who have stood firm regardless of the cost. There were times in the past where I found myself standing alone. That I managed to endure gives me confidence, but what I faced in the past pales in comparison to what I expect in the future. So, I appreciated the book’s realistic portrayal of Bonhoeffer as a flawed but morally upright human being standing firm against an implacable and ultimately deadly foe.
One point of theology in the book that left me with more questions than answers dealt with being led by the Holy Spirit. I completely agree with Bonhoeffer that the Holy Spirit can and does lead us, but how do we tell if that still small voice inside us is the voice of God or ourselves. An incident that happened only a few months ago brings this question into stark relief for me. Person A felt led by the Spirit that person B needed to do something with the assistance of person C, my wife. My wife (person C), in turn, felt led by the Spirit to inform person A that time and resource constraints made this “need” unwise, that God had provided abundantly for needs in the past but not in the manner on which person A was insisting. I don’t foresee a reconciliation between person A and my wife although I agree with my wife in the matter, not based on the Spirit or even my relationship with her but on purely pragmatic logistical grounds. Two mutually exclusive “led by the Spirit” positions, a rift that is not God-honoring. So, I wish there were an easy way to tell if people are led by the Spirit or by their own egos masquerading as the Spirit.
Another topic in the book that is relevant today is racism, but my take on it may be very different from that of the authors. The racism that Bonhoeffer observed while he was in the U.S. involved Jim Crow laws, segregation and beliefs that non-whites were inferior to whites. Although I am fifty and have gray hair, I was born after the civil rights movement. I never experienced segregation although I was born and raised in the South. Only a few years ago, a black man was a two-term president. Racism still exists but has taken a different form. While there are fringe white supremacist groups, a growing prejudice against whites, more specifically whiteness, has raised its ugly head. One thing that still astounds me is the growing calls by the black community for segregation. Interestingly enough, my wife experienced a form of this in the early 90s while she was a college student (several years before we met). She was a legislative intern and was assigned to a black legislator, a veteran of the lunch counter sit-in movement. Because this legislator could not attend a meeting of the black caucus due to a schedule conflict, she sent my wife, a young white woman, in her place. She wasn’t even allowed into the room. On hearing this, the legislator who had sent her was outraged. She had fought to get those Coloreds Only signs taken down was not about to quietly acquiesce while someone put them back up. In other words, while there is racism in the white community, it doesn’t have a monopoly on it, not even close. Furthermore, there is an effort to redefine racism in such a way that it is confined to the white community. You can get away with a lot when you call it what it’s not. Who has the moral courage to stand up to racism regardless of which ethnic group is spewing it out like a ruptured sewer?
One regret I have regarding Bonhoeffer’s execution is that we don’t necessarily have his post-war views on pacifism. A theologian friend had managed to convert him to pacifism, but some of his later writings, along with his decision to support the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, suggests to me that Nazism may have convinced him to abandon doctrinaire pacifism. A Christian all my life, I have never supported pacifism, in part because I cannot find biblical support for it. Because Saul disobeyed God’s command to wipe out the Amelekites, God had Samuel anoint David, a man after God’s own heart, to be king. David’s first documented act of faith was to go up against the Philistine champion, Goliath, without the protection of armor and armed with only a sling. After killing Goliath, David decapitated him with his own sword and held up the severed head like a trophy to show to all that God had granted him victory. Paul states in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (NASB). I may choose to be at peace, but the other guy gets a vote, too. In Bonhoeffer’s day, Hitler got a vote, as well, and we all know what that was. It also took a lot of bullets, bombs and bloodshed to stop him.
I agree with the authors that the efforts of the U.S. and other western powers to stop Hitler do not justify any of their own subsequent international misdeeds. Some post-war policies and actions were very righteous and noble, and others not so much, although I don’t necessarily agree with the author’s list of ignoble deeds. Consider the First Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm). The authors consider it unjustified, but I disagree. Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in 1980, starting a bloody eight-year war. In 1990, he invaded and conquered Kuwait. For all we knew at the time, he may well have been eyeing Saudi Arabia. If only somebody had stood up to Hitler, World War II might have been avoided. In the face of aggression, we stood up to Saddam Hussein, drove him out of Kuwait and contained his aggression. For the record, I was a crew member of an aircraft carrier with Battle Force Zulu in the Persian Gulf. If you think that makes me biased in the matter, so be it. That said, I was and still am very uncomfortable with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The service members who pulled off the invasion performed absolutely brilliantly, but in my opinion the George W. Bush administration dishonored them with his weak basis for preemptive war.
Related to this is the authors’ characterization of national security as an idol. I understand what they are trying to say but feel compelled to point out that whatever can be an idol can equally not be an idol. Paul, in Col. 3:5, describes greed as idolatry, making wealth into an idol. Interestingly enough, someone being a good steward of wealth will manage money in much the same way as someone who has made wealth into an idol. The difference is not necessarily in what they do but why the do it. In like manner, a person advocating for national security could have made it into an idol, but he could also be motivated by love for his neighbor, both domestic and foreign. Potential attackers generally aren’t stupid. If the projected cost of war is too high, they will choose peace, and peace motivated by deterrence is still preferable than the bloodshed of war.
So, in summary, I enjoyed reading about Bonhoeffer’s moral courage and leadership, but I didn’t always agree with what the authors had to say.
June 19, 2012
A fascinating book from two perspectives. Anyone with an interest in the history of Nazi Germany will gain some insight into what life was like in the country, as well as into the state of religion in the country, as the Church split into its competing "Reich Church" and "Confessing Church" movements. Of more interest, though (and as the title implies) the book is a wonderful study of Bonhoeffer's inner, personal spiritual life. It explores his spiritual practices, his commitment to pacifism, and how he reconciled that commitment with his involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Christian faith cannot be lived in a vacuum, isolated from events in the real world, Bonhoeffer is a demonstration of this. A very readable and interesting piece of work.
January 17, 2018
A tough slog to get through, but worthwhile in the end.
October 21, 2020
Wonderful to see Bonhoeffer rescued from recent biographers’ butchery.
December 3, 2024
I have an unquenchable thirst to learn about this extraordinary man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is an a wonderful read.
May 30, 2025
Repetitive.
April 21, 2012
I am writing as a layman, interested in Bonhoeffer's story ever since discovering his "Letters and Papers From Prison," which moved me deeply when I first read it more than a decade ago. I spent much of a year attempting to translate that book into a full-length play, and in the process became more familiar with it, eventually concluding that for a lay audience, his story is too ineffably sad. After a couple of readings, I put it away. I understand that there has been a growing outpouring of scholarship devoted to Bonhoeffer in the years since then, and this book has been my first encounter with it. Having said all that, I'd like to express my appreciation to the authors for their effort to shed a new, welcome light on Bonhoeffer's life and work.
In a world and at a time when movie stars and new age advocates speak easily of "spirituality," it was brave for the authors to characterize their perspective on Bonhoeffer with this word. While admitting in the introduction that they could not settle on a definition of the term themselves, they proceed to discuss the various aspects of Bonhoeffer's life, actions, and faith in terms of his devotion to Jesus Christ. In exploring the evidence of his living faith, in word and deed, they represent Bonhoeffer as an example of moral leadership in a specific time and place in human history. And the result is to make this somewhat enigmatic man and his ideas more accessible for us today.
What comes across for me most strongly in the book is how much Bonhoeffer's writings and actions were a direct response to the Nazi government and the acquiesence of the German Lutheran Church. The issues that drive what he has to say reflect specific actions and policies of the government and the inaction of the church, which allowed its authority to be coopted by Hitler and the rising tide of German nationalism. The concept of "cheap grace" in "The Cost of Discipleship" is not an abstraction but a direct reference to the church's real lack of moral leadership at a time when resistance to the Nazi regime was most needed.
The book portrays the personal drama of a man who kept his personal life very private (one cannot imagine him on a talk show discussing his "spirituality"). The authors give us glimpses of his private world in reports of those who remember him, but nowhere is the private man seen so openly as in his intimate letters to Bethge and in the prison poems, which the authors devote the last chapter to. Here we find both the tentativeness behind his outward courage and the depth of his devotion to his chief source of strength. I have found this book very readable and recommend it to anyone with a basic knowledge of Bonhoeffer and a curiosity about how this man lived out his faith and remained steadfast to the end.
In a world and at a time when movie stars and new age advocates speak easily of "spirituality," it was brave for the authors to characterize their perspective on Bonhoeffer with this word. While admitting in the introduction that they could not settle on a definition of the term themselves, they proceed to discuss the various aspects of Bonhoeffer's life, actions, and faith in terms of his devotion to Jesus Christ. In exploring the evidence of his living faith, in word and deed, they represent Bonhoeffer as an example of moral leadership in a specific time and place in human history. And the result is to make this somewhat enigmatic man and his ideas more accessible for us today.
What comes across for me most strongly in the book is how much Bonhoeffer's writings and actions were a direct response to the Nazi government and the acquiesence of the German Lutheran Church. The issues that drive what he has to say reflect specific actions and policies of the government and the inaction of the church, which allowed its authority to be coopted by Hitler and the rising tide of German nationalism. The concept of "cheap grace" in "The Cost of Discipleship" is not an abstraction but a direct reference to the church's real lack of moral leadership at a time when resistance to the Nazi regime was most needed.
The book portrays the personal drama of a man who kept his personal life very private (one cannot imagine him on a talk show discussing his "spirituality"). The authors give us glimpses of his private world in reports of those who remember him, but nowhere is the private man seen so openly as in his intimate letters to Bethge and in the prison poems, which the authors devote the last chapter to. Here we find both the tentativeness behind his outward courage and the depth of his devotion to his chief source of strength. I have found this book very readable and recommend it to anyone with a basic knowledge of Bonhoeffer and a curiosity about how this man lived out his faith and remained steadfast to the end.
August 7, 2010
This book provides a good introduction to Bonhoeffer's thought, and I would recommend it to people who may be curious, but don't know much about Bonhoeffer. Unfortunately, it does not provide much context beyond what the reader of Bonhoeffer would already know, and most of the information is available in other works. This book has the same problem that many contemporary studies of C.S. Lewis have, they spend most of their time restating the author's words, and don't provide much additional analysis.
October 2, 2012
A good basic introduction to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life and thought.
Kelly's Cost of Moral Theology breaks down Bonhoeffer's thought so that it is a little bit more accessible for the average reader.
I would highly recommend reading this book either before engaging with Bonhoeffer, or shortly after reading some of Bonhoeffer's more accessible works ( Discipleship, Life Together, and Ethics ).
Kelly's writing is clear this book will be a helpful aid to anyone who wants to better understand one of the greatest theologians of the 20th Century.
Kelly's Cost of Moral Theology breaks down Bonhoeffer's thought so that it is a little bit more accessible for the average reader.
I would highly recommend reading this book either before engaging with Bonhoeffer, or shortly after reading some of Bonhoeffer's more accessible works ( Discipleship, Life Together, and Ethics ).
Kelly's writing is clear this book will be a helpful aid to anyone who wants to better understand one of the greatest theologians of the 20th Century.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews