German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906 and was martyred by the Nazis on April 9, 1945 . A Lutheran pastor, Bonhoeffer emerged as a staunch opponent of the Nazi dictatorship and a vocal critic of Adolf Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. When the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche (German Evangelical Church) was founded, combining Nazi and Christian teachings and symbolism, Bonhoeffer helped found the rival Confessing Church to preserve traditional Protestantism in Germany.
Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943. Implicated in a plot to assassinate Hitler, he was tried, along with co-conspirators who included former members of the German Military Intelligence Office. Hitler was especially angry at Bonhoeffer and exacted revenge. Bonhoeffer was condemned to death and executed on April 9, 1945, four weeks before the surrender of German forces and the end of World War II in Europe.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become one of the most respected Christian leaders of modern times. His book “The Cost of Discipleship,” based on the Sermon on the Mount, is considered a modern classic. “Cheap grace,” he wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
