Theologian of Resistance Quotes

“We do believe in all sorts of things, far too many things in fact. We believe in power, we believe in ourselves and in other people, we believe in humankind. We believe in our own people [Volk] and in our religious community, we believe in new ideas—but in the midst of all those things, we do not believe in the One—in God. And believing in God would take away our faith in all the other powers, make it impossible to believe in them. If you believe in God, you don’t believe in anything else in this world, because you know it will all break down and pass away.”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“One cannot simply read the Bible like other books. One must be prepared genuinely to query it. . . . The reason is that God is speaking to us in the Bible. And one cannot simply reflect on God on one’s own; one must ask God. . . . Every other place outside the Bible has become too uncertain for me. There I am always afraid of encountering merely my own divine Doppelgänger [look-alike].[17]”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Bonhoeffer declares that conscience, which modernity praises as an example of self-determination, is the result of the fall:”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“For Bonhoeffer, the decisive insight was “that ‘telling the truth’ means different things, depending on where one finds oneself. The relevant relationships must be taken into account. The question must be asked whether and in what way a person is justified in demanding truthful speech from another.”[5] With this, Bonhoeffer negates the principled duty to state the objective facts in each and every circumstance.”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“According to the director of the Church Chancellery in Berlin, pastors who held office could continue to do so only if they stood “in steadfast loyalty to Führer, Volk and Reich.” The wording of the oath was: “I swear that I will be faithful and obedient to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, that I will conscientiously observe the laws and carry out the duties of my office, so help me God.”[12] Whoever declined to take the oath was to be dismissed. There”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Bonhoeffer soberly observed that peace could not be reached by taking the path of security. Whoever wanted security would necessarily be distrustful of the other, and precisely this was what supported war. In contrast, peace was always a risk, a dare in which one yields completely to God’s command.”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The third possibility is not just to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel but to seize the wheel itself. Such an action would be direct political action on the part of the church. This is only possible and called for if the church sees the state to be failing in its function of creating law and order, that is, if the church perceives that the state, without any restraints, has created either too much or too little law and order.[7]”
― Christiane Tietz, Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer