Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 12: Getting Caught up in the Way of Jesus

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part twelve - Finally getting to some examples of what it looks like to be Christian in a godless world, we are called to get caught up in Jesus’ way.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 11: Living in a Godless World

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part 11 - What is the difference between the Christian life and the pagan life? It isn't getting things from the gods, or turning to them for favors. It's that the Christian suffers with the God who grieves with us.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 10: The Working Hypothesis

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part ten - In the boldest terms yet used, Bonhoeffer says that people must learn to manage our lives without God, and not expect God's actions, yet know that it is before that weak God who demands us live without him that we stand.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 9: Emergency Exits

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part nine - As science and secularism continue to make people content to live their daily lives without any reference to God, Christian theologians have been trying to find space for God in things beyond people's lives, or in trying to create angst about sin and death in order to provide a cure for. But Bonhoeffer notes that these "emergency exits" have failed to make inroads, and dishonest to the Gospel.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 8: Re-imagining Redemption

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part eight - After deconstructing the popular idea of "redemption"in Christianity, Bonhoeffer begins to re-imagine what the word might mean in a world where people no longer believe in a literal hell with an eternal punishment that they need to be rescued from.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 7: On Redemption

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part seven - Christian theologians have emphacized redemption as a rescuing from this world to the next, but, Bonhoeffer argues, that goes against the Old Testament, and ultimately Jesus. The Christian has no escape from earthly difficulties.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 6: On keeping people in immature faith

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part six - Philosophers, psychologists, and unscrupulous pastors try to create anxiety and worry in happy people's lives in order to induce them to need them, equating faith with an immature stage of personal development.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 5: On Secularity and Science

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part five - Bonhoeffer reflects on how the secular world no longer operates with God as part of the equation, and people no longer turn to the question of God when dealing with problems.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 4: Desire and Loyalty

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part four - A short look at his reflections on missing his fiance, Maria, coping with not seeing her, and debating the selfishness of allowing himself to not think of her to avoid the pain of missing her.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 3: God as the Stop Gap

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part three - Bonhoeffer confronts directly one of the most common of Christian apologetics: the idea of God as the stop gap (or "god of the gaps" as atheists often call it). Instead of defending God's existence from the negative, and arguing that God exists *beyond* knowledge and experience, he argues we must move God back to the center of life.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 2: On Speaking of God

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison.

Part two - a discussion about how one is to speak of God in non-religious terms, and how Bonhoeffer has become more hesitant to talk religious jargon with religious people, and how he finds God in the center of our world, not in the space beyond human knowledge.

By Pastor Lars Hammar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity - part 1

While in the Tegel Prison in Berlin awaiting trial for participating in a plot to kill Hitler, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer began to contemplate a future for Christianity and the church in a world with science, secularism, and world wars. His idea were formulated in different letters to his pastor friend Eberhard Bethge and compiled with all his prison writings in Letters from Prison. By Pastor Lars Hammar

Episode 1: introduction to the Bonhoeffer and his time in prison, his theology and worldview.

The Divine Council

Using the image of a council of heavenly beings, seated before God, getting a lecture about what is right and good, the Psalmist shows that what matters to God is protecting the weak and the needy, and upholding their rights. By Pastor Lars Hammar

You Fed Me with Tears - Psalm 80:4-7

When in total desperation the people turn to God with a plea for help. They acknowledge they’ve done their time, and that God has given them nothing nourishing, but fed them only with tears. By Pastor Lars Hammar

The Groans of Prisoners - Psalm 79:11-13

Our God is so great that even those in prison and captive are not outside his grace. By hearing the complaints of those sentenced to death and sparing their lives, God demonstrates power and love. By Pastor Lars Hammar

Will You Be Angry Forever? - Psalm 79:1-8

After the city of Jerusalem was sacked and God’s temple burned to the ground, the survivors continued on amidst the destruction wondering when God was going to let up on his anger, and maybe look at everyone else who’s done wrong. Why me? Why us? What about them? The natural process of grief takes us through feelings of both humility and the whataboutism that tries to deflect accountability. By Pastor Lars Hammar

O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth.

3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.

4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.

5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?

6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name.

7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.

8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.

Psalm 79:1-8

I Will Utter Dark Sayings - Psalm 78:1-8

Are we embarrassed or ashamed of trying to tell the story of God’s work in our lives to our kids? Do we worry about eye rolls and accusations of “pushing religion”? We’re not alone, and this is not new, but something that’s as old as the Bible itself. The Psalmist tells us to bring back the stories of God’s work in our lives and teach them to the young generation. By Pastor Lars Hammar

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,

3 things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.

4 We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

5 He established a decree in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children;

6 that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children,

7 so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;

8 and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Psalm 78:1-8

I Meditate on Your Work - Psalm 77:11-20

In the heat of the moment it can feel like what we are going through is eternal, insurmountable, and will never change. But the moment can obscure our sense of context, and cause us to forget the work that God has done in our lives in the past. Remembering this can give us the patience to see life in the long run, and get through with hope. By Pastor Lars Hammar

11 I will call to mind the deeds of the LORD; I will remember your wonders of old.

12 I will meditate on all your work, and muse on your mighty deeds.

13 Your way, O God, is holy. What god is so great as our God?

14 You are the God who works wonders; you have displayed your might among the peoples.

15 With your strong arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

16 When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the very deep trembled.

17 The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side.

18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.

19 Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.

20 You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Psalm 77:11-20

You Keep My Eyelids Open - Psalm 77:4-10

When you wake up in the middle of the night, your mind can begin processing all the repressed stress and anxiety you’ve been pushing aside in the busy-ness of the day. It can, however, be a time when God is showing you your self, and giving you the chance to really reflect on and come to terms with your self, and just be, honestly and authentically. By Pastor Lars Hammar

4 You keep my eyelids from closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

5 I consider the days of old, and remember the years of long ago.

6 I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit:

7 "Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?

8 Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time?

9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" Selah

10 And I say, "It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed."

Psalm 77:4-10

I Groan When I Think of God - Psalm 77:1-3

Sometimes our conversations with God are less than upbeat, and instead of being pleased with God we’re so frustrated that we get sick of even thinking about him. Our nights are not resting in peace, but bitter and inconsolable. We’ve all been there, and so has the Psalmist. Psalm 77 puts to words what you might be going through, and gives a voice to spiritual struggle. By Pastor Lars Hammar

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me.

2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.

3 I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. Selah

Psalm 77:1-3