christian moral actions

• The Barmen Declaration

  
  

  The Confessing Church, a breakaway church, gathered in 1934 at Barmen to produce the Barmen Declaration. This was written by Karl Barth.

  
  

  They wanted to regain some control and reinforce true Church teachings as Hitler had taken control over much of it.

  
  

  Core beliefs

  1. Jesus is the only true leader and the only way to God
  2. Christians must not follow any teaching that does not come from the revelation of Jesus.
  3. Other ideologies do not have authority over a person’s life.
• Discipleship

  Bonhoeffer put these above discipleship

  • The law and any human leadership
  • Hitler and the Nazi party
  • The responsibilities of citizenship
• Bonhoeffer


  • For Christians, there is only one realm and that realm must be entirely led by obedience to Jesus Christ

  costly grace:

  The grace of God is something worth sacrificing everything for.

  Grace is costly because it calls Christians to follow Jesus and make changes to their lives and their decisions.

  Bonhoeffer said that Christians should reflect on how God sacrificed his only Son to save people from sin and people should respond by being ready to sacrifice everything to God.
• Bonhoeffer

  the call discipleship is closely linked to the passion of Jesus – rejection, suffering and death.

  • Anyone who follows Jesus must pick up the cross and follow Jesus’ path of rejection, suffering and death.
  • Discipleship and costly grace involve self-denial and endurance. Being Christian is not just ‘being normal’, but is a life of suffering for Christ

  Mark 8:34-35

  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”