Dietrich Bonhoeffer On The Exclusivity of Christ

Photo Credit: Bob AuBochon

I'm currently reading Eric Metaxas's superb biography on the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Probably most known for his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship, and for his involvement in an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler, Bonhoeffer lived a faith that was not limited to the four walls of a church building.

His active opposition of the Nazi regime and sympathetic approach to the Jewish people of his day forces us in the 21st century to question what is appropriate behavior for the Christian who wishes to oppose the evil of her day.

I'm still in the early parts of the book but one passage struck me as profound as Metaxas quotes Bonhoeffer on the exclusiveness of Christ:

"One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist; one admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn't do: one doesn't take him seriously. That is, one doesn't bring the center of his or her own life in to contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation. 

One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ, and allows no serious encounter to take place. I can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman - just as, after all, I can also live without Plato and Kant... 

Should, however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks and if the word of God once became present only in Christ, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me... 

Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment. And it is now of importance for us to clarify the seriousness of this matter and to extricate Christ from the secularization process in which he has been incorporated since the Enlightenment."

A powerful challenge from a man that believed in Christ so strongly that he ended up giving his life because of his commitment to living out his faith as he understood it.

Chuck Colson: A Man With Two Stories

Photo Credit: faithmouse

One story tells of a despicable convict with a failed marriage who played a principal role in one of our country's most shameful political scandals. Another story tells of a man transformed by the love of God who enjoyed a nearly fifty year marriage and served prisoners and their families for the last several decades he spent on earth. Both stories speak of the same man - Chuck Colson - who died yesterday at the age of 80.

For most Americans of my parents generation and older, Chuck Colson is known as the "hatchet man" of the Nixon administration, known for the Watergate scandal that eventually led to President Nixon's resignation and caused several members of his staff, including Colson, to spend time behind bars as a result of their roles in this affair.

But for many evangelical Christians, Chuck Colson is known as the founder of Prison Fellowship, a ministry that has touched the lives of countless prisoners and their families through programs like Angel Tree, and a prominent author and speaker that has been a consistent voice of reason for the evangelical community in an increasingly partisan society.

It is likely that the primary narrative you read - i.e. Watergate or Christian leader - depends largely on the source that is reporting on Colson's life. Many mainstream outlets insist on focusing on Colson's troubled past, whereas Christians typically center on his Christian life post-Watergate. To be true to who Chuck Colson was, both stories need to be told.

Similar to the Apostle Paul who met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Chuck Colson was a horrible man whose life was radically changed after he met Jesus. Even those that doubted Colson's conversion story, told so well in his 1976 autobiography Born Again, must admit that his faith was sincere as he was still telling the same story of how his life had been changed by Christ nearly forty years after it happened.

This faith compelled him to start Prison Fellowship to not only meet the spiritual needs of prisoners but to help care for their physical needs as an advocate for prison reform and a spokesperson for the families of those behind bars. Though still considered a political conservative after his conversion, it was evident that he was not the same man. A man that only cares about advancing his political career would not spend the rest of his life serving those that are among our nation's most despised and most forgotten members.

But Colson understood what all sincere Christians whose lives have been changed by the power of the gospel of Jesus comprehend. It is that we are all criminals at heart; wicked people unable to save ourselves. But once we respond to the offer of salvation, God's power is sufficient to change even the most unlikely candidates -- whether that be Saul of Tarsus, Chuck Colson, you or me.

Chuck Colson was a man with two stories. The first, more uncomfortable story was needed so that the second, more glorious story can be told. The complete story of Chuck Colson is a story of redemption and salvation. It is a story of new birth. One might even say that it is a story of an unlikely man being "born again."

The Most Popular Blogs For Christians

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There are a countless number of blogs out in cyberspace that are written primarily for a Christian audience and/or from a Christian perspective. But which ones are the most popular?

Kent Shaffer of ChurchRelevance.com has once again taken on the mammoth task of attempting to answer this question by providing a ranking of the most-read blogs by Christians.

You can read his complete updated listing for 2012 here, but I've listed below his current top ten most popular blogs:

1. Between Two Worlds by Justin Taylor 

2. Michael Hyatt 

3. Faith & Reason by Cathy Lynn Grossman 

4. Tim Challies 

5. Fr. Z’s Blog by John Zuhlsdorf 

6. Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff 

7. GetReligion 

8. Albert Mohler 

9. DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed by Kevin DeYoung 

10. The Resurgence

Some of these names may be familiar to you whereas others you might not recognize. I encourage you to take some time to check some of them out. I regularly read a number of the blogs from Shaffer's Top 200 list and even though I don't endorse all that is written on these blogs, it is helpful to know what many people are reading.