I've been having this compulsion to read about how grace and works go together. Actually what has compelled me is to find out how those who say that "We're saved by grace." Well actually LDS say that as well, but some people seem to say that after you accept the Savior there's nothing else that you need to do. What I'd really like to find is a book that explains how they explain the scriptures where it clearly states that we will be judged by our works.
For some reason I remembered this book "Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian that was one of the founders of the Confessing Church in Germany. The Nazi's co-opted the Lutheran State Church during the 30's and started Nazifying it. Dietrich and others then started the Confessing Church as a protest against what was going on. He wrote this book in 1937 I believe (I've returned it to the library so I'm working from memory here) and he was already being scrutinized heavily by the Nazi's. He protested the Nazis and worked against them as much as he could. Friends got him out of Germany in 1939 because they feared for him. However, he felt that if he was going to help rebuild the German Church after the war he had to be with his brothers and sisters during their darkest hours so he went back to Germany. He was arrested in 1943. He so impressed his guards that they smuggled papers and writing instruments into him and smuggled what he wrote out. That is how we have his "Letter and Papers from Prison" which is a famous book. I'm considering reading it. He was linked, somehow, to the conspirators who tried to kill Hitler. He was executed on orders Himmler about two week before the concentration camp he was in was liberated by the American infantry. He's a true martyr, so reading a book like the "Cost of Discipleship" when you know that the writer was willing to pay the ultimate cost for discipleship puts a whole new spin on reading the book.
When Dietrich was young he spent some time in America in Harlem where is met a black pastor that introduced him to Abyssinian Baptist Church where he taught a sunday school class. He is said to have had a profound religious experience while he was in America. It was a pastor in that church that introduced him to the term 'cheap grace.'
In his book at one place he has a quote (paraphrasing) "Grace isn't cheap it cost the most precious blood in existence." I don't think that it's putting it too strongly to say that Dietrich felt that cheap grace was a heresy and was destroying the Christian Church.
Some of the things he said touched me very deeply. For example said that the essence of Christ's message was "Come follow me" and that when he said that to Peter and John they immediately left all and followed Christ which is something that we in the modern world find incomprehensible. That pierced my heart because I've always thought that there had to be more to the story than Jesus saying "Come follow me." and them following him. It was incomprehensible to me. What idiot just follows another person when he says "Come follow me?" Well in our materialistic oriented world it makes no sense at all but that is what we're supposed to do. When Peter saw the Savior walking on the water and he wanted to go to him he said "Lord bid me to come to you" and the Savior said "Come" and Peter did. What faith.
I assume that Dietrich was Lutheran, being a Protestant German. He points out that Luther followed the Savior's admonition to "Follow me" twice in his life. First when he went into the Augustine Monastery and second when he felt that the Lord was calling him to "be in the world but not of it." I've never really considered how much faith it would take to go from being a cloistered monk to being a Pastor of a church but it would take an immense amount of faith, especially when your fighting established society every step of the way.
Dietrich points out that in the Medieval Church there were two levels of Christianity. Everyday Christianity and the "professional" Christians, those who became full time Christians such as priests, monks and nuns. However, Luther thought that the Lord was calling everyone equally and that a brick maker could be called to follow the Savior while making bricks; that there shouldn't be this tiered Christianity. Luther was truly a great man, I keep thinking that I should maybe read some of the stuff that he wrote, but I'm not sure that I'm ready for such thick theological writings. I also think I should read Calvin's writings as well but the same apprehensions apply.
The central portion of the book goes through the Sermon on the Mount very in depth. He said that when Jesus says that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill, far from saying that the moral portion of the Jewish law were no longer in force Jesus was strengthening it. He certainly went beyond what was expected in the law during the Sermon.
He also talked about something I've never thought about. First the Savior says that we must be a light to the world. This isn't something we can choose or not choose to do, it is our responsibility. Be a light, be the salt of the Earth. Then in the very next portion of the Sermon he says that we should do all that we do in secret. Our left hand shouldn't know what our right hand is doing. So how are we to be a light and at the same time do everything in secret?
One thing that I found interesting is that this book was written to other pastors, more so than most books that I've read. Towards the end of the book he talked about the need of being able to have and enforce discipline in a Church. He ultimately said something that sounds very much like what is said about an excommunication in the LDS Church. Ultimately taking away someone's membership is a way to get their attention and allow them to repent.
I'm really considering reading his book "Letters and Papers from Prison" but will probably wait to see if I can find it at the library.
I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone. I would rank it a 4 out of 5 stars
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