Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

by Mark Nation

As Bonhoeffer said in his proposal for establishing a “House of Brethren” within the Finkenwalde seminary: “The goal is not monastic isolation but rather the most intensive concentration for ministry in the world.”417 In fact the spiritual practices encouraged at the seminary were precisely expressions of how “he sought to build a counter-politics and counter-Church in the heart of Nazi Germany at Finkenwalde.”418 In prison his context had changed. But one of the first things Bonhoeffer did after he was arrested was to “establish a strict daily routine from which he did not depart: physical exercise, his long-accustomed meditation [and prayer], and after his Bible was returned to him on the third day, the memorizing and reading the Scriptures.”419 Such regular spiritual practices continued to shape Bonhoeffer’s life lived before God—and sustained his ongoing witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through his acts of generosity and comfort, he sought to create as much community as was possible even in the bleak, individualistic world he was forced to endure in prison.